Allies
An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are called ...
against representatives of the defeated
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
, for plotting and carrying out invasions of other countries, and other crimes, in
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
.
Between 1939 and 1945, Nazi Germany invaded many countries across Europe, inflicting 27 million deaths in the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
alone. Proposals for how to punish the defeated Nazi leaders ranged from a
show trial
A show trial is a public trial in which the judicial authorities have already determined the guilt or innocence of the defendant. The actual trial has as its only goal the presentation of both the accusation and the verdict to the public so th ...
(the Soviet Union) to
summary execution
A summary execution is an execution in which a person is accused of a crime and immediately killed without the benefit of a full and fair trial. Executions as the result of summary justice (such as a drumhead court-martial) are sometimes include ...
s (the United Kingdom). In mid-1945, France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States agreed to convene a joint tribunal in
Nuremberg
Nuremberg ( ; german: link=no, Nürnberg ; in the local East Franconian dialect: ''Nämberch'' ) is the second-largest city of the German state of Bavaria after its capital Munich, and its 518,370 (2019) inhabitants make it the 14th-largest ...
, with the
Nuremberg Charter
The Charter of the International Military Tribunal – Annex to the Agreement for the prosecution and punishment of the major war criminals of the European Axis (usually referred to as the Nuremberg Charter or London Charter) was the decree issue ...
as its legal instrument. Between 20 November 1945 and 1 October 1946, the International Military Tribunal (IMT) tried 21 of the most important surviving leaders of Nazi Germany in the political, military, and economic spheres, as well as six German organizations. The purpose of the trial was not just to convict the defendants but also to assemble irrefutable evidence of Nazi crimes, offer a history lesson to the defeated Germans, and delegitimize the traditional German elite.
The IMT focused on the
crime of aggression
A crime of aggression or crime against peace is the planning, initiation, or execution of a large-scale and serious act of aggression using state military force. The definition and scope of the crime is controversial. The Rome Statute contains an ...
—plotting and waging
aggressive war
A war of aggression, sometimes also war of conquest, is a military conflict waged without the justification of self-defense, usually for territorial gain and subjugation.
Wars without international legality (i.e. not out of self-defense nor sanc ...
, which the verdict declared "the supreme international crime" because "it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole". Most of the defendants were also charged with war crimes and
crimes against humanity
Crimes against humanity are widespread or systemic acts committed by or on behalf of a ''de facto'' authority, usually a state, that grossly violate human rights. Unlike war crimes, crimes against humanity do not have to take place within the ...
. Twelve further trials were conducted by the United States against lower-level perpetrators, which focused more on the
Holocaust
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...
. Although controversial at the time for their use of ''ex post facto'' law, the trials' innovation of holding individuals responsible for violations of international law established
international criminal law
International criminal law (ICL) is a body of public international law designed to prohibit certain categories of conduct commonly viewed as serious atrocities and to make perpetrators of such conduct criminally accountable for their perpetrati ...
.
Origin
Between 1939 and 1945,
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
Low Countries
The term Low Countries, also known as the Low Lands ( nl, de Lage Landen, french: les Pays-Bas, lb, déi Niddereg Lännereien) and historically called the Netherlands ( nl, de Nederlanden), Flanders, or Belgica, is a coastal lowland region in N ...
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
, among others. German
aggression
Aggression is overt or covert, often harmful, social interaction with the intention of inflicting damage or other harm upon another individual; although it can be channeled into creative and practical outlets for some. It may occur either reacti ...
was accompanied by immense brutality in occupied areas and the systematic murder of millions of Jews in
the Holocaust
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...
. War losses in the Soviet Union alone included 27 million dead, mostly civilians, which was th of the prewar population.
In early 1942, representatives of eight
governments-in-exile
A government in exile (abbreviated as GiE) is a political group that claims to be a country or semi-sovereign state's legitimate government, but is unable to exercise legal power and instead resides in a foreign country. Governments in exile u ...
in the United Kingdom issued a declaration on
Punishment for War Crimes
Punishment for War Crimes was the title of a declaration issued by the representatives of eight Allied governments-in-exile and the Free French at the third Inter-Allied Conference at St James's Palace in London, United Kingdom, on 13 January 19 ...
, which demanded an international court to try the Axis crimes committed in occupied countries. The United States and United Kingdom refused to endorse this proposal, citing the failure of war crimes prosecutions after
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
. Soviet jurist Aron Trainin developed the concept of
crimes against peace
A crime of aggression or crime against peace is the planning, initiation, or execution of a large-scale and serious act of aggression using state military force. The definition and scope of the crime is controversial. The Rome Statute contains an ...
(waging
aggressive war
A war of aggression, sometimes also war of conquest, is a military conflict waged without the justification of self-defense, usually for territorial gain and subjugation.
Wars without international legality (i.e. not out of self-defense nor sanc ...
) which would later be central to the proceedings at Nuremberg. Trainin's ideas were reprinted in the West and widely adopted. On 1 November 1943, the Soviet Union, United Kingdom, and United States issued the
Moscow Declaration
The Moscow Declarations were four declarations signed during the Moscow Conference on October 30, 1943. The declarations are distinct from the Communique that was issued following the Moscow Conference of 1945. They were signed by the foreign sec ...
to "give full warning" to the Nazi leadership of the Allies' intent to "pursue them to the uttermost ends of the earth…in order that justice may be done". The declaration also stated that those high-ranking Nazis who had committed crimes in several countries would be dealt with jointly.
Of all the Allies, the Soviet Union lobbied most intensely for trying the defeated German leaders for aggression in addition to war crimes. The Soviet Union wanted to hold a
show trial
A show trial is a public trial in which the judicial authorities have already determined the guilt or innocence of the defendant. The actual trial has as its only goal the presentation of both the accusation and the verdict to the public so th ...
similar to the 1930s
Moscow trials
The Moscow trials were a series of show trials held by the Soviet Union between 1936 and 1938 at the instigation of Joseph Stalin. They were nominally directed against "Trotskyists" and members of "Right Opposition" of the Communist Party of th ...
, in order to demonstrate the Nazi leaders' guilt and build a case for
war reparations
War reparations are compensation payments made after a war by one side to the other. They are intended to cover damage or injury inflicted during a war.
History
Making one party pay a war indemnity is a common practice with a long history.
R ...
to rebuild the
Soviet economy
The economy of the Soviet Union was based on state ownership of the means of production, collective farming, and industrial manufacturing. An administrative-command system managed a distinctive form of central planning. The Soviet economy was ...
, which had been devastated by the war. The United States insisted on a
fair trial
A fair (archaic: faire or fayre) is a gathering of people for a variety of entertainment or commercial activities. Fairs are typically temporary with scheduled times lasting from an afternoon to several weeks.
Types
Variations of fairs incl ...
as a means of reforming Germany. Planners in the
United States Department of War
The United States Department of War, also called the War Department (and occasionally War Office in the early years), was the United States Cabinet department originally responsible for the operation and maintenance of the United States Army, a ...
were drawing up plans for an international tribunal in late 1944 and early 1945. The British government was still opposed, unable to see the benefit of such a trial and preferring
summary execution
A summary execution is an execution in which a person is accused of a crime and immediately killed without the benefit of a full and fair trial. Executions as the result of summary justice (such as a drumhead court-martial) are sometimes include ...
of Nazi leaders. The exact form that retribution would take was left unresolved at the
Yalta Conference
The Yalta Conference (codenamed Argonaut), also known as the Crimea Conference, held 4–11 February 1945, was the World War II meeting of the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union to discuss the post ...
in February 1945. On 2 May, at the
San Francisco Conference
The United Nations Conference on International Organization (UNCIO), commonly known as the San Francisco Conference, was a convention of delegates from 50 Allied nations that took place from 25 April 1945 to 26 June 1945 in San Francisco, Calif ...
, the United States' new president
Harry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884December 26, 1972) was the 33rd president of the United States, serving from 1945 to 1953. A leader of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the 34th vice president from January to April 1945 under Franklin ...
At the London Conference, held from 26 June to 2 August 1945, representatives of France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States negotiated the exact form that the trial would take. Until the end of the negotiations, it was not clear that any trial would be held at all, due to acrimonious disputes over fundamental matters; the American delegation threatened to walk out.
The
Nuremberg Charter
The Charter of the International Military Tribunal – Annex to the Agreement for the prosecution and punishment of the major war criminals of the European Axis (usually referred to as the Nuremberg Charter or London Charter) was the decree issue ...
upended the traditional view of
international law
International law (also known as public international law and the law of nations) is the set of rules, norms, and standards generally recognized as binding between states. It establishes normative guidelines and a common conceptual framework for ...
by holding individuals, rather than states, responsible for breaches of international law. The offenses that would be prosecuted were crimes against peace,
crimes against humanity
Crimes against humanity are widespread or systemic acts committed by or on behalf of a ''de facto'' authority, usually a state, that grossly violate human rights. Unlike war crimes, crimes against humanity do not have to take place within the ...
, and war crimes. At the conference, it was debated whether wars of aggression were prohibited in existing
international customary law
Customary international law is an aspect of international law involving the principle of custom. Along with general principles of law and treaties, custom is considered by the International Court of Justice, jurists, the United Nations, and its ...
; regardless, before the charter was adopted there was no law providing for criminal responsibility for aggression. War crimes already existed in international law as criminal violations of the
laws and customs of war
The law of war is the component of international law that regulates the conditions for initiating war (''jus ad bellum'') and the conduct of warring parties (''jus in bello''). Laws of war define sovereignty and nationhood, states and territor ...
. Although a novel construct, "crimes against humanity" covered acts that were already prohibited by the laws of most countries.
The final version of the charter only gave the court the ability to punish those crimes against humanity that had been committed "in connection with any crimes within the jurisdiction of the Tribunal". Especially the United States wanted to avoid countenancing any rule that would give an international court jurisdiction over a government's treatment of its own citizens. The charter limited the jurisdiction of the court to Germany's actions because the Allies did not want to answer to an international court for their own actions; only Germans could be tried. Article 7 prevented the defendants from claiming immunity for their actions under the
act of state doctrine
The act-of-state doctrine or federal act of state doctrine is a principle of federal common law in the United States which states, in circumstances where it applies, that courts in the United States will not rule on the validity of another governm ...
, and the plea of acting under
superior orders
Superior orders, also known as the Nuremberg defense or just following orders, is a plea in a court of law that a person, whether a member of the military, law enforcement, a firefighting force, or the civilian population, should not be considere ...
was left for the judges to decide. The trial was held under modified
common law
In law, common law (also known as judicial precedent, judge-made law, or case law) is the body of law created by judges and similar quasi-judicial tribunals by virtue of being stated in written opinions."The common law is not a brooding omnipresen ...
.
The negotiators decided that the tribunal's permanent seat would be in Berlin, while the trial would be held at the Palace of Justice in
Nuremberg
Nuremberg ( ; german: link=no, Nürnberg ; in the local East Franconian dialect: ''Nämberch'' ) is the second-largest city of the German state of Bavaria after its capital Munich, and its 518,370 (2019) inhabitants make it the 14th-largest ...
. Located in the
American occupation zone
Germany was already de facto occupied by the Allies from the real fall of Nazi Germany in World War II on 8 May 1945 to the establishment of the East Germany on 7 October 1949. The Allies (United States, United Kingdom, Soviet Union, and Franc ...
, Nuremberg was a symbolic location as the site of Nazi rallies. The Palace of Justice was relatively intact but needed to be renovated for the trial due to bomb damage; it had an attached prison where the defendants could be held. On 8 August, the Nuremberg Charter was signed in London. Nineteen states ratified the charter and were admitted as observers.
Judges and prosecutors
In early 1946, there were a thousand employees from the four countries' delegations in Nuremberg, of which about two-thirds were from the United States. Besides legal professionals, there were many social-science researchers, psychologists, translators and interpreters, and
graphic designer
A graphic designer is a professional within the graphic design and graphic arts industry who assembles together images, typography, or motion graphics to create a piece of design. A graphic designer creates the graphics primarily for published, ...
s, the latter to make the many charts used during the trial. Each state appointed a prosecution team and two judges, one being an alternate.
The United States' chief prosecutor was
Supreme Court
A supreme court is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts in most legal jurisdictions. Other descriptions for such courts include court of last resort, apex court, and high (or final) court of appeal. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...
justice Robert H. Jackson. The United States prosecution believed that Nazism was the product of a German deviation from Western history (the ''
Sonderweg
(, "special path") refers to the theory in German historiography that considers the German-speaking lands or the country of Germany itself to have followed a course from aristocracy to democracy unlike any other in Europe.
The modern school of ...
'' thesis) and sought to correct this deviation with a trial that would serve both retributive and educational purposes. As the numerically strongest delegation, it would take on the bulk of the prosecutorial effort. At Jackson's recommendation, the United States appointed judges
Francis Biddle
Francis Beverley Biddle (May 9, 1886 – October 4, 1968) was an American lawyer and judge who was the United States Attorney General during World War II. He also served as the primary American judge during the postwar Nuremberg Trials as well a ...
Hartley Shawcross
Hartley William Shawcross, Baron Shawcross, (4 February 1902 – 10 July 2003), known from 1945 to 1959 as Sir Hartley Shawcross, was an English barrister and Labour politician who served as the lead British prosecutor at the Nuremberg War ...
, assisted by
David Maxwell Fyfe
David Patrick Maxwell Fyfe, 1st Earl of Kilmuir, (29 May 1900 – 27 January 1967), known as Sir David Maxwell Fyfe from 1942 to 1954 and as Viscount Kilmuir from 1954 to 1962, was a British Conservative politician, lawyer and judge who combine ...
, who had been the
attorney general
In most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general or attorney-general (sometimes abbreviated AG or Atty.-Gen) is the main legal advisor to the government. The plural is attorneys general.
In some jurisdictions, attorneys general also have exec ...
in Churchill's government. Although the chief British judge, Sir Geoffrey Lawrence (
Lord Justice of Appeal
A Lord Justice of Appeal or Lady Justice of Appeal is a judge of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales, the court that hears appeals from the High Court of Justice, the Crown Court and other courts and tribunals. A Lord (or Lady) Justice ...
), was the nominal president of the tribunal, in practice Biddle exercised more authority.
The French prosecutor,
François de Menthon
Count François de Menthon (8 January 1900 – 2 June 1984) was a French politician and professor of law.
Early and private life
Menthon was born in Montmirey-la-Ville in Jura. He was a son of an old noble family from Menthon-Saint-Bernard. He ...
, had just overseen trials of the leaders of
Vichy France
Vichy France (french: Régime de Vichy; 10 July 1940 – 9 August 1944), officially the French State ('), was the fascist French state headed by Marshal Philippe Pétain during World War II. Officially independent, but with half of its ter ...
; he resigned in January 1946 and was replaced by
Auguste Champetier de Ribes
Auguste Champetier de Ribes (30 July 1882 – 6 March 1947) was a French politician and jurist.
A devout Catholic, he was an early follower of Albert de Mun and social Christianity. Wounded in the First World War, he was elected to the Chambe ...
. The French judges were
Henri Donnedieu de Vabres
Henri Donnedieu de Vabres (8 July 1880 – 14 February 1952) was a French jurist who took part in the Nuremberg trials after World War II. He was the primary French judge during the proceedings, with Robert Falco as his alternate.
Donnedieu was ...
, a professor of criminal law, and alternate
Robert Falco
Robert Falco (26 February 1882 – 14 January 1960) was a French judge at the Nuremberg trials, who later sat in the Cour de Cassation.
Biography
Falco was born in Paris into a Jewish family. His great-grandfather was decorated by Louis Philippe ...
, who had represented France at the London Conference. The French government tried to appoint staff who were not tainted by collaboration with the Vichy regime; some appointments were of those who had been in the
French resistance
The French Resistance (french: La Résistance) was a collection of organisations that fought the German occupation of France during World War II, Nazi occupation of France and the Collaborationism, collaborationist Vichy France, Vichy régim ...
. Because the Soviet Union expected a show trial, its appointees were familiar with this form. Initially, it was planned that
Iona Nikitchenko
Major-General Iona Timofeevich Nikitchenko (Russian: Иона Тимофеевич Никитченко) (June 28, 1895 – April 22, 1967) was a judge of the Supreme Court of the Soviet Union.
Early life and career
Iona was born to a peasant f ...
, who had presided over the Moscow trials, would serve as the chief prosecutor; but he was appointed as a judge and replaced by
Roman Rudenko
Roman Andreyevich Rudenko (russian: Рома́н Андре́евич Руде́нко, – January 23, 1981) was a Soviet lawyer and statesman.
Procurator-General of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic from 1944 to 1953, Rudenko became ...
, a show trial prosecutor chosen for his skill as an
orator
An orator, or oratist, is a public speaker, especially one who is eloquent or skilled.
Etymology
Recorded in English c. 1374, with a meaning of "one who pleads or argues for a cause", from Anglo-French ''oratour'', Old French ''orateur'' (14th ...
. The Soviet judges and prosecutors were not permitted to make any major decisions without consulting a commission in Moscow led by Soviet politician
Andrei Vyshinsky
Andrey Yanuaryevich Vyshinsky (russian: Андре́й Януа́рьевич Выши́нский; pl, Andrzej Wyszyński) ( – 22 November 1954) was a Soviet politician, jurist and diplomat.
He is known as a state prosecutor of Joseph S ...
; the resulting delays hampered the Soviet effort to set the agenda. The Soviet personnel's lack of knowledge of English, lack of interpreters, and unfamiliarity with diplomacy and international institutions also limited their influence.
Indictment
The work of drafting the indictment was divided up by the national delegations. The British worked on putting together the aggressive war charge; the French and Soviet delegations were assigned the task of covering crimes against humanity and war crimes committed on the Western Front and the Eastern Front, respectively. The United States delegation outlined the overall Nazi conspiracy and criminality of Nazi organizations. After this division of formulating the charges, the British and American delegations decided to work jointly in drafting the charges of conspiracy to wage aggressive war. On 17 September, the various delegations met to discuss the indictment.
The charge of
conspiracy
A conspiracy, also known as a plot, is a secret plan or agreement between persons (called conspirers or conspirators) for an unlawful or harmful purpose, such as murder or treason, especially with political motivation, while keeping their agree ...
was spearheaded by the United States prosecution and was less popular with the other Allies. The conspiracy charge was used to charge the top Nazi leaders, as well as bureaucrats who had never killed anyone or perhaps even directly ordered killing. It was also a way to indirectly charge crimes committed before the beginning of World War II, which the charter placed outside the court's jurisdiction. Conspiracy charges were especially central to the cases against propagandists and
industrialist
A business magnate, also known as a tycoon, is a person who has achieved immense wealth through the ownership of multiple lines of enterprise. The term characteristically refers to a powerful entrepreneur or investor who controls, through perso ...
s; the former were charged with providing the ideological justification for war and other crimes, while the latter were accused of economic mobilization without which no war would have been possible.
The problem of translating the indictment and evidence into the three official languages of the tribunal, as well as German, was severe due to the scale of the task and difficulty in recruiting interpreters, especially in the Soviet Union. Vyshinsky demanded extensive corrections to the crimes-against-peace charges, especially regarding the role of the German–Soviet pact in starting World War II. Jackson also rewrote the indictment with the intent of keeping the proceedings under American control by separating out an overall conspiracy charge from the other three charges. The division of labor, and the haste with which the indictment was prepared, resulted in duplication, imprecise language, and lack of attribution of specific charges to individual defendants.
Defendants
Some of the most prominent Nazis—
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
,
Heinrich Himmler
Heinrich Luitpold Himmler (; 7 October 1900 – 23 May 1945) was of the (Protection Squadron; SS), and a leading member of the Nazi Party of Germany. Himmler was one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany and a main architect of th ...
, and
Joseph Goebbels
Paul Joseph Goebbels (; 29 October 1897 – 1 May 1945) was a German Nazi politician who was the ''Gauleiter'' (district leader) of Berlin, chief propagandist for the Nazi Party, and then Reich Minister of Propaganda from 1933 to 19 ...
—had committed suicide and therefore could not be tried. The prosecutors wanted to try representative leaders of German politics, economy, and military; and the Americans had a list of 70 names at the London Conference. Most of the defendants had surrendered to the United States or United Kingdom.
The defendants, who were largely unrepentant, included former cabinet ministers:
Franz von Papen
Franz Joseph Hermann Michael Maria von Papen, Erbsälzer zu Werl und Neuwerk (; 29 October 18792 May 1969) was a German conservative politician, diplomat, Prussian nobleman and General Staff officer. He served as the chancellor of Germany i ...
Joachim von Ribbentrop
Ulrich Friedrich Wilhelm Joachim von Ribbentrop (; 30 April 1893 – 16 October 1946) was a German politician and diplomat who served as Minister of Foreign Affairs of Nazi Germany from 1938 to 1945.
Ribbentrop first came to Adolf Hitler's not ...
(
foreign minister
A foreign affairs minister or minister of foreign affairs (less commonly minister for foreign affairs) is generally a cabinet minister in charge of a state's foreign policy and relations. The formal title of the top official varies between cou ...
),
Wilhelm Frick
Wilhelm Frick (12 March 1877 – 16 October 1946) was a prominent German politician of the Nazi Party (NSDAP), who served as Reich Minister of the Interior in Adolf Hitler's cabinet from 1933 to 1943 and as the last governor of the Protectorate ...
Alfred Rosenberg
Alfred Ernst Rosenberg ( – 16 October 1946) was a Baltic German Nazi theorist and ideologue. Rosenberg was first introduced to Adolf Hitler by Dietrich Eckart and he held several important posts in the Nazi government. He was the head of ...
, minister for the occupied eastern territories. Also prosecuted were leaders of the German economy, such as
Gustav Krupp
Gustav, Gustaf or Gustave may refer to:
* Gustav (name), a male given name of Old Swedish origin
Art, entertainment, and media
* ''Primeval'' (film), a 2007 American horror film
* ''Gustav'' (film series), a Hungarian series of animated short car ...
(of the conglomerate
Krupp AG
The Krupp family (see pronunciation), a prominent 400-year-old German dynasty from Essen, is notable for its production of steel, artillery, ammunition and other armaments. The family business, known as Friedrich Krupp AG (Friedrich Krupp A ...
), former
Reichsbank
The ''Reichsbank'' (; 'Bank of the Reich, Bank of the Realm') was the central bank of the German Reich from 1876 until 1945.
History until 1933
The Reichsbank was founded on 1 January 1876, shortly after the establishment of the German Empi ...
president
Hjalmar Schacht
Hjalmar Schacht (born Horace Greeley Hjalmar Schacht; 22 January 1877 – 3 June 1970, ) was a German economist, banker, centre-right politician, and co-founder in 1918 of the German Democratic Party. He served as the Currency Commissioner ...
, and economic planners
Albert Speer
Berthold Konrad Hermann Albert Speer (; ; 19 March 1905 – 1 September 1981) was a German architect who served as the Minister of Armaments and War Production in Nazi Germany during most of World War II. A close ally of Adolf Hitler, he ...
and
Walther Funk
Walther Funk (18 August 1890 – 31 May 1960) was a German economist and Nazi official who served as Reich Minister for Economic Affairs (1938–1945) and president of Reichsbank (1939–1945). During his incumbency, he oversaw the mobi ...
Fritz Sauckel
Ernst Friedrich Christoph "Fritz" Sauckel (27 October 1894 – 16 October 1946) was a German Nazi politician, ''Gauleiter'' of Gau Thuringia from 1927 and the General Plenipotentiary for Labour Deployment (''Arbeitseinsatz'') from March 1942 unti ...
. The military leaders were
Hermann Göring
Hermann Wilhelm Göring (or Goering; ; 12 January 1893 – 15 October 1946) was a German politician, military leader and convicted war criminal. He was one of the most powerful figures in the Nazi Party, which ruled Germany from 1933 to 1 ...
,
Wilhelm Keitel
Wilhelm Bodewin Johann Gustav Keitel (; 22 September 188216 October 1946) was a German field marshal and war criminal who held office as chief of the '' Oberkommando der Wehrmacht'' (OKW), the high command of Nazi Germany's Armed Forces, duri ...
,
Alfred Jodl
Alfred Josef Ferdinand Jodl (; 10 May 1890 – 16 October 1946) was a German ''Generaloberst'' who served as the chief of the Operations Staff of the '' Oberkommando der Wehrmacht'' – the German Armed Forces High Command – throughout World ...
,
Erich Raeder
Erich Johann Albert Raeder (24 April 1876 – 6 November 1960) was a German admiral who played a major role in the naval history of World War II. Raeder attained the highest possible naval rank, that of grand admiral, in 1939, becoming the f ...
, and
Karl Dönitz
Karl Dönitz (sometimes spelled Doenitz; ; 16 September 1891 24 December 1980) was a German admiral who briefly succeeded Adolf Hitler as head of state in May 1945, holding the position until the dissolution of the Flensburg Government follo ...
. Also on trial were propagandists
Julius Streicher
Julius Streicher (12 February 1885 – 16 October 1946) was a member of the Nazi Party, the ''Gauleiter'' (regional leader) of Franconia and a member of the '' Reichstag'', the national legislature. He was the founder and publisher of the virul ...
Rudolf Hess
Rudolf Walter Richard Hess (Heß in German; 26 April 1894 – 17 August 1987) was a German politician and a leading member of the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany. Appointed Deputy Führer to Adolf Hitler in 1933, Hess held that position unt ...
, Hitler's deputy who had flown to Britain in 1941;
Hans Frank
Hans Michael Frank (23 May 1900 – 16 October 1946) was a German politician and lawyer who served as head of the General Government in Nazi-occupied Poland during the Second World War.
Frank was an early member of the German Workers' Party ...
, governor-general of the
General Governorate
The General Government (german: Generalgouvernement, pl, Generalne Gubernatorstwo, uk, Генеральна губернія), also referred to as the General Governorate for the Occupied Polish Region (german: Generalgouvernement für die be ...
of Poland;
Hitler Youth
The Hitler Youth (german: Hitlerjugend , often abbreviated as HJ, ) was the youth organisation of the Nazi Party in Germany. Its origins date back to 1922 and it received the name ("Hitler Youth, League of German Worker Youth") in July 1926. ...
Arthur Seyss-Inquart
Arthur Seyss-Inquart (German: Seyß-Inquart, ; 22 July 1892 16 October 1946) was an Austrian Austrian National Socialism, Nazi politician who served as Chancellor of Austria in 1938 for two days before the ''Anschluss''. His positions in Nazi Ge ...
Reich Main Security Office
The Reich Security Main Office (german: Reichssicherheitshauptamt or RSHA) was an organization under Heinrich Himmler in his dual capacity as ''Chef der Deutschen Polizei'' (Chief of German Police) and ''Reichsführer-SS'', the head of the Nazi ...
.
Although the list of defendants was finalized on 29 August, as late as October, Jackson demanded changes and expansion of the defendants list, but this was rejected. Of the 24 men indicted,
Martin Bormann
Martin Ludwig Bormann (17 June 1900 – 2 May 1945) was a German Nazi Party official and head of the Nazi Party Chancellery. He gained immense power by using his position as Adolf Hitler's private secretary to control the flow of information ...
was
tried in absentia
Trial in absentia is a criminal proceeding in a court of law in which the person who is subject to it is not physically present at those proceedings. is Latin for "in (the) absence". Its meaning varies by jurisdiction and legal system.
In comm ...
, as the Allies were unaware of his death; Krupp was too ill to stand trial; and
Robert Ley
Robert Ley (; 15 February 1890 – 25 October 1945) was a German politician and Labour Union, labour union leader during the Nazi era; Ley headed the German Labour Front from 1933 to 1945. He also held many other high positions in the Party, inc ...
committed suicide. Göring, the most famous surviving Nazi, headlined the trial. Former Nazis were allowed to serve as counsel and by mid-November all defendants had lawyers. The defendants' lawyers jointly appealed to the court, claiming it did not have jurisdiction against the accused; but this motion was rejected. The defense lawyers saw themselves as acting on behalf of their clients, but also the German nation; they prioritized the Wehrmacht's reputation over the lives of the generals on trial. Initially, the Americans had planned to try fourteen organizations and their leaders, but this was narrowed to six: the Reich Cabinet, the Leadership Corps of the
Nazi Party
The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that crea ...
, the
Gestapo
The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe.
The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one organi ...
General Staff
A military staff or general staff (also referred to as army staff, navy staff, or air staff within the individual services) is a group of officers, enlisted and civilian staff who serve the commander of a division or other large military un ...
Wehrmacht
The ''Wehrmacht'' (, ) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the ''Heer'' (army), the ''Kriegsmarine'' (navy) and the ''Luftwaffe'' (air force). The designation "''Wehrmacht''" replaced the previous ...
. The aim was to have these organizations declared criminal, so that their members could be tried expeditiously for membership in a criminal organization. Senior American officials believed that convicting organizations was a good way of showing that not just the top German leaders were responsible for crimes, without condemning the entire German people.
Evidence
Over the summer, all of the national delegations struggled to gather evidence for the upcoming trial. Institutional rivalries hampered the search. The American and British prosecutors focused on documentary evidence and affidavits rather than testimony from survivors, as the latter was considered less reliable and more liable to accusations of bias, but at the expense of reducing public interest in the proceedings. The American prosecution drew on reports of the
Office of Strategic Services
The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was the intelligence agency of the United States during World War II. The OSS was formed as an agency of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) to coordinate espionage activities behind enemy lines for all branc ...
and information provided by the
YIVO Institute for Jewish Research
YIVO (Yiddish: , ) is an organization that preserves, studies, and teaches the cultural history of Jewish life throughout Eastern Europe, Germany, and Russia as well as orthography, lexicography, and other studies related to Yiddish. (The word ' ...
and the
American Jewish Committee
The American Jewish Committee (AJC) is a Jewish advocacy group established on November 11, 1906. It is one of the oldest Jewish advocacy organizations and, according to ''The New York Times'', is "widely regarded as the dean of American Jewish org ...
. Overall, the prosecution called 37 witnesses compared to the defense's 83, not including 19 defendants who testified on their own behalf. The prosecution examined 110,000 captured German documents and entered 4,600 into evidence, along with of film and 25,000 photographs.
The charter allowed the
admissibility
Admissibility may refer to: Law
* Admissible evidence, evidence which may be introduced in a court of law
*Admissibility (ECHR), whether a case will be considered in the European Convention on Human Rights system Mathematics and logic
* Admissible ...
of any evidence deemed to have
probative
Relevance, in the common law of evidence, is the tendency of a given item of evidence to prove or disprove one of the legal elements of the case, or to have probative value to make one of the elements of the case likelier or not. Probative is a te ...
value, including depositions. Because of the loose evidentiary rules, photographs, charts, maps, and films played an important role in making incredible crimes believable. After the American prosecution flooded the trial with untranslated evidence, the judges insisted that all of the evidence be read into the record, which slowed the trial. The bringing of conspiracy charges also slowed the trial, as the same evidence ended up being read out multiple times, when it was relevant to both substantive and conspiracy charges.
Course of the trial
The International Military Tribunal began trial on 20 November 1945, after postponement requests from the Soviet prosecution, who wanted more time to prepare its case, were rejected. All defendants pleaded not guilty. As Jackson made clear, the purpose of the trial was not just to convict the defendants but also to assemble irrefutable evidence of Nazi crimes, establish individual responsibility and the crime of aggression in international law, offer a history lesson to the defeated Germans, delegitimize the traditional German elite, and allow the Allies to distance themselves from
appeasement
Appeasement in an international context is a diplomatic policy of making political, material, or territorial concessions to an aggressive power in order to avoid conflict. The term is most often applied to the foreign policy of the UK governm ...
. Jackson maintained that while the United States did "not seek to convict the whole German people of crime", neither did the trial "serve to absolve the whole German people except 21 men in the dock". Nevertheless, defense lawyers (although not most of the defendants) often argued that the prosecution was trying to promote
German collective guilt
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
**Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ger ...
and forcefully countered this as a strawman argument. According to historian
Kim Christian Priemel Kim Christian Priemel (born 1977) is a historian of Germany and former professor at Humboldt University Berlin; he now works for the University of Oslo
The University of Oslo ( no, Universitetet i Oslo; la, Universitas Osloensis) is a public r ...
, the conspiracy charge "invited apologetic interpretations: narratives of absolute, totalitarian dictatorship, run by society's lunatic fringe, of which the Germans had been the first victims rather than agents, collaborators, and
fellow traveller
The term ''fellow traveller'' (also ''fellow traveler'') identifies a person who is intellectually sympathetic to the ideology of a political organization, and who co-operates in the organization's politics, without being a formal member of that o ...
s".
American prosecution
On 21 November, Jackson gave the opening speech for the prosecution. He described the fact that the defeated Nazis received a trial as "one of the most significant tributes that Power has ever paid to Reason". Jackson's focus was on the aggressive war charge, which he described as the root of the crimes against humanity and of war crimes. He promoted an intentionalist view of the Nazi state and its overall conspiracy to commit all of the crimes mentioned in the indictment. The speech was favorably received by the prosecution, the tribunal, the audience, historians, and even the defendants.
Much of the American case focused on the development of the Nazi conspiracy before the outbreak of war. The American prosecution became derailed during attempts to provide evidence of the German annexation of Austria. On 29 November, the prosecution was unprepared to continue presenting on the invasion of Czechoslovakia, and instead screened '' Nazi Concentration and Prison Camps''. The film, compiled from footage of the liberation of Nazi concentration camps, shocked both the defendants and the judges, who adjourned the trial. The American prosecutors were not any more effective when presenting documentary evidence on the conspiracy to commit crimes against humanity, and ended up reaching a "saturation point of horror" by their indiscriminate selection and disorganized presentation of evidence without tying it to specific defendants. The Americans summoned
Einsatzgruppen
(, ; also ' task forces') were (SS) paramilitary death squads of Nazi Germany that were responsible for mass murder, primarily by shooting, during World War II (1939–1945) in German-occupied Europe. The had an integral role in the im ...
commander
Otto Ohlendorf
Otto Ohlendorf (; 4 February 1907 – 7 June 1951) was a German SS functionary and Holocaust perpetrator during the Nazi era. An economist by education, he was head of the (SD) Inland, responsible for intelligence and security within Germ ...
, who testified about the murder of 80,000 people by those under his command, and SS general
Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski
Erich Julius Eberhard von dem Bach-Zelewski (born Erich Julius Eberhard von Zelewski; 1 March 1899 – 8 March 1972) was a high-ranking SS commander of Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State" ...
, who admitted that German anti-partisan warfare was little more than a cover for the mass murder of Jews.
British prosecution
On 12 December, Shawcross gave the opening speech for the British. Unlike Jackson, he attempted to minimize the novelty of the aggression charges. The British case covered invasions, from that of Poland to that of the Soviet Union, which Shawcross covered in the second part of his speech; these charges took three days to present, with Maxwell Fyfe detailing 15 treaties broken by Germany.
In mid-December the Americans switched to presenting the case against the indicted organizations, while in January both the British and Americans presented evidence against individual defendants.
French prosecution
From 17 January to 7 February 1946, France presented its charges and supporting evidence. In contrast to the other prosecution teams, the French prosecution emphasized how Nazi ideology and pan-Germanism had led to the Nazis' crimes, and delved into the ''Sonderweg'' theory of Germany's development in the nineteenth century. The French prosecutors, more than their British or American counterparts, emphasized the guilt of the German people; they barely mentioned the charge of aggressive war and instead focused on forced labor, economic plunder, massacres, and Germanization. Unlike the British and American prosecution strategy, which focused on using German documents to make their case, the French prosecutors took the perspective of the victims, submitting postwar police reports and calling eleven witnesses. Ultimately, the French prosecution was unable to convince the court that Germanization was a crime against humanity, and incidents such as the German annexation of Alsace–Lorraine went unmentioned in the final verdict. The only part of the French charges that were accepted by the judges was the deportation of Jews from France and other parts of Western Europe.
Soviet prosecution
On 8 February, the Soviet prosecution opened its case with a speech by Rudenko that covered all four prosecution charges, highlighting both aggressive war and the devastation of Eastern Europe and listing many crimes committed by the German occupiers against the Soviet people. The next week, the Soviet prosecution suddenly produced former field marshal
Friedrich von Paulus
Friedrich Wilhelm Ernst Paulus (23 September 1890 – 1 February 1957) was a German field marshal during World War II who is best known for commanding the 6th Army during the Battle of Stalingrad (August 1942 to February 1943). The battle ende ...
, captured after the
Battle of Stalingrad
The Battle of Stalingrad (23 August 19422 February 1943) was a major battle on the Eastern Front of World War II where Nazi Germany and its allies unsuccessfully fought the Soviet Union for control of the city of Stalingrad (later re ...
, as a witness and questioned him about the preparations for the invasion of the Soviet Union. Paulus incriminated his former associates, pointing to Keitel, Jodl, and Göring as the defendants most responsible for the war.
More so than other delegations, Soviet prosecutors showed the gruesome details of German mistreatment of prisoners of war and forced laborers, as well as the systematic murder of Jews in eastern Europe. Although these aspects had already been covered by the American prosecution, Soviet prosecutors introduced new evidence from
Extraordinary State Commission
The Extraordinary State Commission for the Establishment and Investigation of the Atrocities of the German Fascist Invaders and Their Accomplices and the Damage They Caused to Citizens, Collective Farms, Public Organizations, State Enterprises and ...
reports and interrogations of senior enemy officers.
Lev Smirnov
Lev Nikolaevich Smirnov (June 21, 1911, Saint Petersburg – March 23, 1986, Moscow) was a Soviet lawyer, Chairman of the Supreme Court of the Soviet Union in 1972–1984, Chairman of the Association of Soviet Lawyers, Hero of Socialist Labo ...
presented evidence on the
Lidice massacre
The Lidice massacre was the complete destruction of the village of Lidice in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, now the Czech Republic, in June 1942 on orders from Adolf Hitler and the successor of the ''Reichsführer-SS'' Heinrich Himmler ...
in Czechoslovakia, adding that such destruction of villages had occurred throughout eastern Europe. Evidence was presented on the murder of children, attempts to cover up atrocities, systematic plunder of occupied territories, and confiscation or destruction of
cultural heritage
Cultural heritage is the heritage of tangible and intangible heritage assets of a group or society that is inherited from past generations. Not all heritages of past generations are "heritage"; rather, heritage is a product of selection by soci ...
. The Soviet prosecution also attempted to fabricate German responsibility for the
Katyn massacre
The Katyn massacre, "Katyń crime"; russian: link=yes, Катынская резня ''Katynskaya reznya'', "Katyn massacre", or russian: link=no, Катынский расстрел, ''Katynsky rasstrel'', "Katyn execution" was a series of m ...
, which had in fact been committed by the Soviet Union. By early 1946, Western prosecutors were uneasy about the Katyn charge, although they never publicly rejected it for fear of casting the entire proceedings into question. The defense presented evidence of Soviet responsibility, and Katyn was not mentioned in the verdict. The inclusion of Katyn in the charges undermined the credibility of Soviet evidence in general.
Inspired by the films shown by the American prosecution, the Soviet Union commissioned three films for the trial: ''The German Fascist Destruction of the Cultural Treasures of the Peoples of the USSR'', ''Atrocities Committed by the German Fascist Invaders in the USSR'', and ''The German Fascist Destruction of Soviet Cities'', using footage from Soviet filmmakers as well as shots from German newsreels. The second film included footage of the
liberation of Majdanek
Liberation or liberate may refer to:
Film and television
* Liberation (film series), ''Liberation'' (film series), a 1970–1971 series about the Great Patriotic War
* Liberation (The Flash), "Liberation" (''The Flash''), a TV episode
* Liberatio ...
and the
liberation of Auschwitz
On 27 January 1945, Auschwitz concentration camp—a Nazi concentration camp and extermination camp in occupied Poland where more than a million people were murdered as part of the Nazi's " final solution" to the Jewish question—was libera ...
and was considered even more disturbing than the American concentration camp film. The Soviet Union also called two Holocaust survivors as witnesses,
Samuel Rajzman
Samuel ''Šəmūʾēl'', Tiberian Hebrew, Tiberian: ''Šămūʾēl''; ar, شموئيل or صموئيل '; el, Σαμουήλ ''Samouḗl''; la, Samūēl is a figure who, in the narratives of the Hebrew Bible, plays a key role in the transit ...
—a
Treblinka
Treblinka () was an extermination camp, built and operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland during World War II. It was in a forest north-east of Warsaw, south of the village of Treblinka in what is now the Masovian Voivodeship. The cam ...
survivor—and poet
Abraham Sutzkever
Abraham Sutzkever ( yi, אַבֿרהם סוצקעווער, Avrom Sutskever; he, אברהם סוצקבר; July 15, 1913 – January 20, 2010) was an acclaimed Yiddish poet. ''The New York Times'' wrote that Sutzkever was "the greatest poet o ...
, who eloquently described the murder of tens of thousands of Jews from
Vilna
Vilnius ( , ; see also other names) is the capital and largest city of Lithuania, with a population of 592,389 (according to the state register) or 625,107 (according to the municipality of Vilnius). The population of Vilnius's functional u ...
, although their testimony did not directly incriminate any of the defendants. The Soviet prosecution case was generally well received and presented compelling evidence about the suffering of the Soviet people and the Soviet contribution to victory.
Defense
From March to July 1946, the defense presented its counterarguments. None of the defendants tried to assert that the Nazis' crimes had not occurred; instead, they attempted to divert blame from their own actions. Some defendants denied their involvement in, or knowledge of, certain crimes, even resorting to implausible lies. The defendants tried to blame their crimes on Hitler, who was mentioned 1,200 times during the trial—more than the top five defendants combined. Other absent and dead men including Himmler,
Reinhard Heydrich
Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich ( ; ; 7 March 1904 – 4 June 1942) was a high-ranking German SS and police official during the Nazi era and a principal architect of the Holocaust.
He was chief of the Reich Security Main Office (inclu ...
Nuremberg Laws
The Nuremberg Laws (german: link=no, Nürnberger Gesetze, ) were antisemitic and racist laws that were enacted in Nazi Germany on 15 September 1935, at a special meeting of the Reichstag convened during the annual Nuremberg Rally of th ...
were compared to discriminatory laws in the United States. Defense lawyer repeatedly tried to disclose the secret protocols of the German–Soviet pact. Six defendants were charged with the
German invasion of Norway
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
** Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**G ...
, and their lawyers argued that this invasion was undertaken to prevent a
British invasion
The British Invasion was a cultural phenomenon of the mid-1960s, when rock and pop music acts from the United Kingdom and other aspects of British culture became popular in the United States and significant to the rising "counterculture" on b ...
; a cover-up prevented the defense from capitalizing on this argument. United States admiral
Chester Nimitz
Chester William Nimitz (; February 24, 1885 – February 20, 1966) was a fleet admiral in the United States Navy. He played a major role in the naval history of World War II as Commander in Chief, US Pacific Fleet, and Commander in C ...
testified that the United States had used the same methods of submarine warfare that the German admirals were accused of; Dönitz's counsel successfully argued that this meant that such actions could not be crimes. The judges barred most evidence on Allied misdeeds from being heard in court.
In order to appease concerns about fair process, the defendants were allowed a free hand with their witnesses and a great deal of irrelevant testimony was heard. The defendants' witnesses sometimes managed to exculpate them, but other witnesses—including
Rudolf Höss
Rudolf Franz Ferdinand Höss (also Höß, Hoeß, or Hoess; 25 November 1901 – 16 April 1947) was a German SS officer during the Nazi era who, after the defeat of Nazi Germany, was convicted for war crimes. Höss was the longest-serving comm ...
, the former commandant of
Auschwitz
Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It con ...
, and
Hans Bernd Gisevius
Hans Bernd Gisevius (14 July 1904 – 23 February 1974) was a German diplomat and intelligence officer during the Second World War. A covert opponent of the Nazi regime, he served as a liaison in Zürich between Allen Dulles, station chief for ...
, a member of the
German resistance German resistance can refer to:
* Freikorps, German nationalist paramilitary groups resisting German communist uprisings and the Weimar Republic government
* German resistance to Nazism
* Landsturm, German resistance groups fighting against France d ...
—effectively incriminated the defendants. Midway through the trial,
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 Winston Churchill in the Second World War, dur ...
's
Iron Curtain speech
The Iron Curtain was the political boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1991. The term symbolizes the efforts by the Soviet Union (USSR) to block itself and its ...
denouncing the Soviet threat delighted the defense. Over the course of the trial, Western judges allowed the defendants additional leeway to denounce the Soviet Union, which was ultimately revealed to be a co-conspirator in the outbreak of World War II. The United States controlled the prison where the defendants and some of the witnesses were held, and tried its best to shut the Soviets out of the proceedings. In the context of the brewing
Cold War
The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...
, the trial became a means of condemning not only Germany but also the Soviet Union.
Closing
On 31 August, closing arguments were presented. Over the course of the trial, crimes against humanity and especially against Jews (who were mentioned as victims of Nazi atrocities far more than any other group) came to upstage the aggressive war charge. In contrast to the opening prosecution statements, all eight closing statements highlighted the Holocaust; and the French and British prosecutors made this the main charge, as opposed to that of aggression. During the closing statements, most defendants disappointed the judges by their lies and denial. Speer managed to distinguish himself from other defendants, giving the impression of apologizing, although without assuming personal guilt or naming any victims other than the German people. On 2 September, the court recessed; and the judges retreated into seclusion to decide the verdict and sentences, which had been under discussion since June. The verdict was drafted by British alternate judge Norman Birkett. All eight judges participated in the deliberations, but the alternates could not cast a vote.
Verdict
The International Military Tribunal agreed with the prosecution that aggression was the gravest charge against the accused, stating in its judgement that because war in general is evil, "To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole." The judges did not attempt to define aggression and decided not to mention the retroactivity of the charges in the verdict. The official interpretation of the IMT held that all of the charges had a solid basis in customary international law, which was elaborated in the verdict. The judgement argued that aggressive war had already been illegal, even if no one had been punished for it, and therefore the German leaders could not count on immunity from prosecution. The judges were aware that both the Allies and the Axis had planned or committed acts of aggression, writing the verdict carefully to avoid discrediting either the Allied governments or the tribunal.
The judgment found that there was a premeditated conspiracy to commit crimes against peace, the goals of the conspiracy being "the disruption of the European order as it had existed since the
Treaty of Versailles
The Treaty of Versailles (french: Traité de Versailles; german: Versailler Vertrag, ) was the most important of the peace treaties of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June ...
" and "the creation of a
Greater Germany
Pan-Germanism (german: Pangermanismus or '), also occasionally known as Pan-Germanicism, is a pan-nationalist political idea. Pan-Germanists originally sought to unify all the German-speaking people – and possibly also Germanic-speaking ...
beyond the frontiers of 1914". Contrary to the prosecution, the verdict dated the planning of aggression to the 1937
Hossbach Memorandum The Hossbach Memorandum is a summary of a meeting in Berlin on 5 November 1937 attended by German dictator Adolf Hitler and his military and foreign policy leadership in which Hitler outlined his expansionist policies. The meeting marked the beginni ...
and not to the founding of the Nazi Party. Through a compromise among the judges, the charge of conspiracy was narrowed to a conspiracy to wage aggressive war. The judges did not agree that the conspiracy extended to anyone who participated in the affairs of the Nazi government, only taking being present at the high-level meetings discussing war plans in 1937 and 1939 as evidence of belonging to the conspiracy. Only eight defendants were convicted on that charge; all of whom were also found guilty of crimes against peace. All 22 defendants were charged with crimes against peace, and 12 were convicted. The war crimes and crimes-against-humanity charges held up the best, with only two defendants who were charged being acquitted on those charges. The judges interpreted crimes against humanity narrowly; they determined that crimes against German Jews before 1939 were not under the court's jurisdiction because the prosecution had not proven a connection to aggressive war.
Four organizations were ruled to be criminal: the Leadership Corps of the Nazi Party, the SS, the Gestapo, and the SD, although some lower ranks and subgroups were excluded. The SA, the Reich Cabinet, and the General Staff and High Command were not ruled to be criminal organizations. In the latter case, the Wehrmacht leadership was not considered an organization within the meaning of the charter; but this verdict was later misrepresented as an acquittal of the criminality of the Wehrmacht, forming one of the foundations of the clean Wehrmacht myth.
The exact sentences to be given each defendant were debated at length by the judges. Twelve of the defendants were sentenced to death (Göring, Ribbentrop, Keitel, Kaltenbrunner, Rosenberg, Frank, Frick, Streicher, Sauckel, Jodl, Seyss-Inquart, and Bormann). On 16 October, ten were hanged, with Göring committing suicide the day before. Seven defendants (Hess, Funk, Raeder, Dönitz, Schirach, Speer, and Neurath) were sent to
Spandau Prison
Spandau Prison was located in the borough of Spandau in West Berlin. It was originally a military prison, built in 1876, but became a proto-concentration camp under the Nazis. After the war, it held seven top Nazi leaders convicted in the Nurem ...
to serve their sentences. All three acquittals (Papen, Schacht, and Fritzsche) were based on a deadlock between the judges; these acquittals surprised observers. Despite being accused of the same crimes, Sauckel was sentenced to death, while Speer was given a prison sentence because the judges considered that he could reform. Nikichenko released a dissent approved by Moscow that rejected all the acquittals, called for a death sentence for Hess, and convicted all the organizations. The judges proved their independence from the governments that appointed them, the defendants were seen as receiving due process, and the evidence of guilt amassed by the prosecution was overwhelming.
A summary of the verdict appears in the table below. The 24 accused were:
indicted
An indictment ( ) is a formal accusation that a person has committed a crime. In jurisdictions that use the concept of felonies, the most serious criminal offence is a felony; jurisdictions that do not use the felonies concept often use that of ...
but not convicted (I), indicted and found guilty (G), or not charged. For each defendant, verdicts are listed by count.
# Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of a
crime against peace
A crime of aggression or crime against peace is the planning, initiation, or execution of a large-scale and serious act of aggression using state military force. The definition and scope of the crime is controversial. The Rome Statute contains an ...
# Planning, initiating and waging
wars of aggression
A war of aggression, sometimes also war of conquest, is a military conflict waged without the justification of self-defense, usually for territorial gain and subjugation.
Wars without international legality (i.e. not out of self-defense nor sanc ...
and other crimes against peace
# Participating in war crimes
#
Crimes against humanity
Crimes against humanity are widespread or systemic acts committed by or on behalf of a ''de facto'' authority, usually a state, that grossly violate human rights. Unlike war crimes, crimes against humanity do not have to take place within the ...
Nuremberg Military Tribunals
Initially, it was planned to hold a second international tribunal for German industrialists, but this was never held because of differences between the Allies. Twelve military trials were convened solely by the United States in the same courtroom that had hosted the International Military Tribunal. These trials were held under
Law No. 10
Law is a set of rules that are created and are law enforcement, enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. ...
issued by the
Joint Chiefs of Staff
The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) is the body of the most senior uniformed leaders within the United States Department of Defense, that advises the president of the United States, the secretary of defense, the Homeland Security Council and the ...
. Pursuant to this law, United States forces had arrested almost 100,000 Germans as war criminals. The Office of Chief Counsel for War Crimes identified 2,500 major war criminals, of whom 177 were tried. Many of the worst offenders were not prosecuted, for logistical or financial reasons.
One set of trials focused on the actions of German professionals: the
Doctors' trial
The Doctors' Trial (officially ''United States of America v. Karl Brandt, et al.'') was the first of 12 trials for war crimes of high-ranking German officials and industrialists that the United States authorities held in their occupation zone ...
Judges' trial
The Judges' Trial (; or, the Justice Trial, or, officially, ''The United States of America vs. Josef Altstötter, et al.'') was the third of the 12 trials for war crimes the U.S. authorities held in their occupation zone in Germany in Nurem ...
on the role of the judiciary in Nazi crimes, and the
Ministries trial
__NOTOC__
The Ministries Trial (or, officially, the ''United States of America vs. Ernst von Weizsäcker, et al.'') was the eleventh of the twelve trials for war crimes the U.S. authorities held in their occupation zone in Germany in Nuremberg af ...
IG Farben trial
''The United States of America vs. Carl Krauch, et al.'', also known as the IG Farben Trial, was the sixth of the twelve trials for war crimes the U.S. authorities held in their occupation zone in Germany (Nuremberg) after the end of World War ...
, and the Krupp trial—for using forced labor, looting property from Nazi victims, and funding SS atrocities. Members of the SS were tried in the Pohl trial, which focused on members of the
SS Main Economic and Administrative Office
The SS Main Economic and Administrative Office (german: SS-Wirtschafts- und Verwaltungshauptamt; SS-WVHA) was a Nazi organization responsible for managing the finances, supply systems and business projects of the (a main branch of the ; SS). It ...
that oversaw SS economic activity, including the
Nazi concentration camps
From 1933 to 1945, Nazi Germany operated more than a thousand concentration camps, (officially) or (more commonly). The Nazi concentration camps are distinguished from other types of Nazi camps such as forced-labor camps, as well as concen ...
Luftwaffe
The ''Luftwaffe'' () was the aerial-warfare branch of the German ''Wehrmacht'' before and during World War II. Germany's military air arms during World War I, the ''Luftstreitkräfte'' of the Imperial Army and the '' Marine-Fliegerabtei ...
general
Erhard Milch
Erhard Milch (30 March 1892 – 25 January 1972) was a German general field marshal ('' Generalfeldmarschall'') of Jewish heritage who oversaw the development of the German air force (''Luftwaffe'') as part of the re-armament of Nazi Germany fo ...
was tried for using slave labor and deporting civilians. In the Hostages case, several generals were tried for executing thousands of hostages and prisoners of war, looting, using forced labor, and deporting civilians in the
Balkans
The Balkans ( ), also known as the Balkan Peninsula, is a geographical area in southeastern Europe with various geographical and historical definitions. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains that stretch throughout the who ...
. Other generals were tried in the High Command Trial for plotting wars of aggression, issuing criminal orders, deporting civilians, using slave labor, and looting in the Soviet Union.
These trials emphasized the crimes committed during the Holocaust. The trials heard 1,300 witnesses, entered more than 30,000 documents into evidence, and generated 132,855 pages of transcripts, with the judgements themselves totaling 3,828 pages. The trials targeted 177 defendants and obtained 142 convictions, including 25 death sentences; the severity of sentencing was related to the defendant's proximity to mass murder. The case law of the trials fleshed out the skeleton provided by the Nuremberg charter and the IMT verdict.
Contemporary reactions
At the same time as the Nuremberg Charter was finalized, the Allies also signed the Potsdam Agreement, which provided for the mass expulsion of millions of Germans from central and eastern Europe, so that certain acts for which Nazis were convicted at Nuremberg were therefore made an official policy of the Allies. All four powers later fought independence movements using methods that had been ruled illegal at Nuremberg.
In all, 249 journalists were accredited to cover the IMT and 61,854 visitor tickets were issued. In France, some verdicts were met with outrage from the media and especially from organizations for deportees and resistance fighters, as they were perceived as too lenient. In the United Kingdom, although a variety of responses were reported, it was difficult to sustain interest in a long trial. Where the prosecution was disappointed by some of the verdicts, the defense could take satisfaction.
Many Germans at the time of the trials focused on finding food and shelter; few followed the trial closely. In a 1946 poll, 78 percent of Germans assessed the trial as fair, but four years later that had fallen to 38 percent, with 30 percent considering it unfair. Many Germans lumped criminal trials with
denazification
Denazification (german: link=yes, Entnazifizierung) was an Allied initiative to rid German and Austrian society, culture, press, economy, judiciary, and politics of the Nazi ideology following the Second World War. It was carried out by remov ...
victor's justice
Victor's justice is a term used to refer to a distorted application of justice to the defeated by the victorious party following an armed conflict. Victor's justice generally involves excessive or unjustified punishment of defeated parties and l ...
and the imposition of collective guilt. As the Cold War began, the rapidly changing political environment began to affect the effectiveness of the trials. The educational purpose of the Nuremberg Military Tribunals was a failure, in part because of the resistance to war crimes trials in German society, but also because of the United States Army's refusal to publish the trial record in German for fear it would undermine the fight against communism.
The German churches, both Catholic and Protestant, were vociferous proponents of amnesty, which had cross-party support in
West Germany
West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...
, which was established in 1949. By then, the Americans were hoping to use the offer of pardon to convicted war criminals in order to bind West Germany to the
Western Bloc
The Western Bloc, also known as the Free Bloc, the Capitalist Bloc, the American Bloc, and the NATO Bloc, was a coalition of countries that were officially allied with the United States during the Cold War of 1947–1991. It was spearheaded by ...
. Early releases of those convicted by the Nuremberg Military Tribunals began in 1949; and in 1951, High Commissioner
John J. McCloy
John Jay McCloy (March 31, 1895 – March 11, 1989) was an American lawyer, diplomat, banker, and a presidential advisor. He served as Assistant Secretary of War during World War II under Henry Stimson, helping deal with issues such as German sa ...
overturned most of the sentences. The last prisoner was released in 1958. The German public took the early releases as confirmation of what they saw as the illegitimacy of the trials. The IMT defendants required Soviet permission for release; Speer was not successful in obtaining early release, and Hess remained in prison until his death in 1987. By the late 1950s, the West German consensus on release began to erode, due to greater openness in political culture and new revelations of Nazi criminality, including the first trials of Nazi perpetrators in West German courts.
Legacy
The International Military Tribunal, and the drafters of its charter, invented
international criminal law
International criminal law (ICL) is a body of public international law designed to prohibit certain categories of conduct commonly viewed as serious atrocities and to make perpetrators of such conduct criminally accountable for their perpetrati ...
essentially from nothing. During the two decades after the trial, opinions were predominantly negative. The main legal criticisms of the trial focused on questions of retroactivity, selectivity, and jurisdiction. The most controversial charge was crimes against peace. The charge of crimes against humanity, the charge of conspiracy, and imposing criminal penalties on individuals for breaches of international law were also novel but attracted little criticism. Some defenders of the trial argued that the legal principle of '' nullum crimen sine lege'' (no crime without law) was not binding in international proceedings. The selectivity in trying Germans but not the Allies has garnered the most persistent criticism.
The International Military Tribunal for the Far East (Tokyo Trial) borrowed many of its ideas from the IMT, including all four charges. On 11 December 1946, the
United Nations General Assembly
The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA or GA; french: link=no, Assemblée générale, AG) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN), serving as the main deliberative, policymaking, and representative organ of the UN. Curr ...
unanimously passed a resolution affirming "the principles of international law recognized by the Charter of the Nuremberg Tribunal and the judgment of the Tribunal". In 1950, the
International Law Commission
The International Law Commission (ILC) is a body of experts responsible for helping develop and codify international law. It is composed of 34 individuals recognized for their expertise and qualifications in international law, who are elected by t ...
drafted the Nuremberg principles to codify international criminal law, although the Cold War prevented the adoption of these principles until the 1990s. Further developments in international criminal law in the aftermath of the trials included the
Genocide Convention
The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG), or the Genocide Convention, is an international treaty that criminalizes genocide and obligates state parties to pursue the enforcement of its prohibition. It was ...
(1948) and the
Fourth Geneva Convention
The Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, more commonly referred to as the Fourth Geneva Convention and abbreviated as GCIV, is one of the four treaties of the Geneva Conventions. It was adopted in Augus ...
Rwanda
Rwanda (; rw, u Rwanda ), officially the Republic of Rwanda, is a landlocked country in the Great Rift Valley of Central Africa, where the African Great Lakes region and Southeast Africa converge. Located a few degrees south of the Equator ...
(ICTR), which were widely seen as part of the legacy of the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials. The
Rome Statute
The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court is the treaty that established the International Criminal Court (ICC). It was adopted at a diplomatic conference in Rome, Italy on 17 July 1998Michael P. Scharf (August 1998)''Results of the R ...
establishing a permanent
International Criminal Court
The International Criminal Court (ICC or ICCt) is an intergovernmental organization and international tribunal seated in The Hague, Netherlands. It is the first and only permanent international court with jurisdiction to prosecute individuals ...
(ICC), which had been proposed in 1953, was finally agreed to in 1998.
The trials were the first use of
simultaneous interpretation Simultaneous interpretation (SI) is when an interpreter translates the message from the source language to the target language in real-time. Unlike in consecutive interpreting, this way the natural flow of the speaker is not disturbed and allows f ...
, which stimulated technical advances in translation methods. The Palace of Justice houses a museum on the trial and the courtroom became a tourist attraction, drawing 13,138 visitors in 2005. The IMT is one of the most well-studied trials in history, and it has also been the subject of an abundance of books and scholarly publications, along with motion pictures such as ''
Judgment at Nuremberg
''Judgment at Nuremberg'' is a 1961 American epic courtroom drama film directed and produced by Stanley Kramer, written by Abby Mann and starring Spencer Tracy, Burt Lancaster, Richard Widmark, Maximilian Schell, Werner Klemperer, Marlene Dietr ...
'' (1961) and ''
The Memory of Justice
''The Memory of Justice'' is a 1976 documentary film directed by Marcel Ophuls. It explores the subject of atrocities committed in wartime and features Joan Baez, Karl Dönitz, Hermann Göring, Hans-Joachim Kulenkampff, Yehudi Menuhin, Alber ...
Avalon Project
The Avalon Project is a digital library of documents relating to law, history and diplomacy. The project is part of the Yale Law School Lillian Goldman Law Library.
The project contains online electronic copies of documents dating back to the be ...
trials
In law, a trial is a coming together of parties to a dispute, to present information (in the form of evidence) in a tribunal, a formal setting with the authority to adjudicate claims or disputes. One form of tribunal is a court. The tribunal, w ...