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The subsequent Nuremberg trials were a series of 12 military tribunals for war crimes against members of the leadership of
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 ...
between December 1946 and April 1949. They followed the first and best-known Nuremberg trial before the International Military Tribunal which concluded in October 1946. In contrast, the subsequent trials were conducted before U.S. military courts rather than an international court. They are also collectively known as the Nuremberg Military Tribunals. These trials dealt with German industrialists accused of using slave labor and plundering occupied countries, and high-ranking army officers accused of atrocities against prisoners of war. The subsequent trials were held in the same location, at the Palace of Justice in Nuremberg.


Background

Although it had been initially planned to hold more than just one international trial at the IMT, the growing differences between the victors of the second world war (the United States, United Kingdom, France, and
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
) made this impossible. However, the Control Council Law No. 10, which the Allied Control Council had issued on 20 December 1945, empowered any of the occupying authorities to try suspected war criminals in their respective occupation zones. Based on this law, the U.S. authorities proceeded after the end of the initial Nuremberg Trial against the major war criminals to hold another twelve trials in Nuremberg. The judges in all these trials were American, and so were the prosecutors; the Chief of Counsel for the Prosecution was
Brigadier General Brigadier general or Brigade general is a military rank used in many countries. It is the lowest ranking general officer in some countries. The rank is usually above a colonel, and below a major general or divisional general. When appointed t ...
Telford Taylor. In the other occupation zones similar trials took place.


Trials

The twelve U.S. trials before the Nuremberg Military Tribunals (NMT) took place from 9 December 1946 to 13 April 1949. The trials were as follows:


Result

The Nuremberg process initiated 3,887 cases of which about 3,400 were dropped. 489 cases went to trial, involving 1,672 defendants. 1,416 of them were found guilty; fewer than 200 were executed, and another 279 defendants were sent to life in prison. By the 1950s almost all of them had been released. Many of the longer prison sentences were reduced substantially by an amnesty under the decree of high commissioner John J. McCloy in 1951, after intense political pressure. Ten outstanding death sentences from the ''Einsatzgruppen'' Trial were converted to prison terms. Many others who had received prison sentences were released outright.


Criticism

Some of the NMTs have been criticised for their conclusion that "morale bombing" of civilians, including its nuclear variety, was legal, and for their judgement that, in certain situations, executing civilians in reprisal was permissible.


See also

* Auschwitz Trial held in
Kraków Kraków (), or Cracow, is the second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city dates back to the seventh century. Kraków was the official capital of Poland until 159 ...
, Poland in 1947 against 40 SS-staff of the Auschwitz concentration camp death factory * Frankfurt Auschwitz Trials, 1963–1965 * Majdanek Trials, held against Majdanek extermination camp officials. Longest Nazi war crimes trial in history, spanning over 30 years * Chełmno Trials of the Chełmno extermination camp personnel, held in Poland and in Germany. The cases were decided almost twenty years apart * Sobibor Trial held in
Hagen Hagen () is the 41st-largest city in Germany. The municipality is located in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It is located on the south eastern edge of the Ruhr area, 15 km south of Dortmund, where the rivers Lenne and Volme (met by t ...
, Germany in 1965, concerning the
Sobibor extermination camp Sobibor (, Polish: ) was an extermination camp built and operated by Nazi Germany as part of Operation Reinhard. It was located in the forest near the village of Żłobek Duży in the General Government region of German-occupied Poland. As a ...
* Belzec Trial before the 1st
Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Ha ...
District Court in the mid-1960s, eight SS-men of the Belzec extermination camp * Belsen Trial in Lüneburg, 1945 * Command responsibility doctrine of hierarchical accountability * Dachau Trials held within the walls of the former Dachau concentration camp, 1945–1948 *
Mauthausen-Gusen camp trials The Mauthausen-Gusen camp trials were a set of trials of SS concentration camp personnel following World War II, heard by an American military government court at Dachau. Between March 29 and May 13, 1946, and then from August 6 to August 21, 1947, ...
, 1946–1947 * Ravensbrück Trial * Research Materials: Max Planck Society Archive


References


Further reading

* * * *


External links


The NMT proceedings
at the Mazal Library.

{{Authority control * 1946 in Germany 1947 in Germany 1948 in Germany 1949 in Germany History of Nuremberg