Nuremberg Trials
The Nuremberg Trials were a series of military tribunals held after World War II to prosecute key leaders of Nazi Germany for war crimes. Initiated by the Allied Powers—primarily the United States, Britain, the Soviet Union, and France—the trials aimed to bring accountability for the atrocities committed during the war. The main tribunal convened in November 1945 in Nuremberg, Germany, where twenty-two prominent Nazi officials were charged with counts including conspiracy to wage war, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.
The proceedings, which lasted nearly a year, involved extensive evidence presentation and legal defense arguments. Ultimately, the trials concluded with the execution of twelve defendants, while others received various prison sentences or were acquitted. In addition to the primary trials, subsequent American Military Tribunals addressed crimes carried out by lesser-known individuals and groups associated with the Nazi regime.
These trials were significant for establishing a precedent in international law, emphasizing the importance of due process and accountability for war crimes, and have influenced many subsequent efforts to address human rights violations globally. While the Nuremberg Trials had their criticisms, they marked a pivotal moment in the pursuit of justice following widespread atrocities.
Nuremberg Trials
The Event Series of trials of former Nazi leaders after World War II
Dates November 21, 1945, to October 1, 1946 (International Military Tribunal); December 9, 1946, to April 13, 1949 (American military tribunals)
Place Nuremberg, Bavaria, Germany
The Nuremberg Trials prosecuted political, military, and economic leaders of Germany after World War II. The International Military Tribunal, consisting of the United States, Britain, France, and the Soviet Union, prosecuted high-ranking Nazi officers charged with being war criminals. The later American military tribunals tried lesser-ranked, alleged criminals in the American occupation zone.
As early as 1943, the leaders of the United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union declared their intention to punish German leaders after World War II. The United States was the strongest supporter for a full trial. In April, 1945, U.S. secretary of war Henry L. Stimson, and the War Department in general, created a plan to prosecute the major German war criminals. After the unconditional surrender of Germany, the Allied Powers, which now included France, signed the London Agreement, establishing the ground rules for a major trial. Then, in October, 1945, the Allied Powers established a combined International Military Tribunal to prosecute the surviving, captured German leaders at Nuremberg. Francis Biddle was chosen as the principal and John Parker as the alternate American judges. The chief prosecutor for the United States was Robert H. Jackson, assisted by Telford Taylor and Richard Sonnenfeldt.
Trial of the Major War Criminals
In November, 1945, the International Military Tribunal began proceedings against twenty-two leaders of Nazi Germany at the Palace of Justice in Nuremberg. The tribunal charged each of the German leaders with at least two out of four counts, including the conspiracy to wage crimes against peace, the waging of crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. The first two counts included the planning, preparation, initiation, and waging of wars of aggression. This included the wars against Poland, Britain, and France in 1939; Denmark, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg in 1940; and Yugoslavia, Greece, the Soviet Union, and the United States in 1941. The third count of war crimes included murder, ill-treatment, or deportation to slave labor of civilians; murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war or persons on the seas; killing of hostages; plunder of public or private property; and wanton destruction of cities, towns, and villages. The last count of crimes against humanity included murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, and other inhumane acts committed against civilians before and during the war, in addition to persecutions on political, racial, or religious grounds.
The defendants included Hermann Göring, Rudolf Hess, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Wilhelm Keitel, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Alfred Rosenberg, Hans Michael Frank, Wilhelm Frick, Julius Streicher, Walther Funk, Hjalmar Schacht, Karl Dönitz, Erich Raeder, Baldur von Schirach, Fritz Sauckel, Alfred Jodl, Martin Bormann, Franz von Papen, Arthur Seyss-Inquart, Albert Speer, Konstantin von Neurath, and Hans Fritzsche. Bormann was tried in absentia. The prosecution also indicted six organizations, including the Nazi Party, the Schutzstaffel (SS), the Sicherheitsdienst (SD), the Gestapo, the Sturmabteilung (SA), and the high command of the German armed forces.
During the following ten months, the International Military Tribunal listened to the prosecution present evidence and to the defendants and their counsel. On October 1, 1946, the judges announced their verdicts and sentences concerning the defendants. Eight of the defendants were found guilty of count one, twelve of count two, sixteen of count three, and sixteen of count four. Twelve of the defendants were sentenced to hang. However, just ten were executed by hanging because Bormann was still missing and Göring committed suicide the night before the execution. Three defendants, including Hess, Funk, and Raeder, received life sentences in prison. Schirach and Speer got twenty-year sentences, Neurath a fifteen-year sentence, and Dönitz a ten-year sentence. Schacht, Von Papen, and Fritzsche were acquitted of all charges. The death sentences were carried out on October 16, 1946.
American Military Tribunals at Nuremberg
On December 25, 1945, the Allied Powers agreed to Allied Control Council law number 10. The agreement allowed the Allied Powers that occupied Germany to establish military tribunals for the prosecution of less conspicuous German war criminals in their assigned occupation zones. The United States held its tribunals at the Palace of Justice at Nuremberg from December, 1946, to April, 1949. The Americans organized the hearings into twelve different trials, charging and prosecuting a total of 185 Germans. These cases included charges against medical doctors that conducted medical experiments on inmates in concentrations camps; SS officers that administered concentration camps and slave-labor programs; high-ranking military officers that committed offenses against prisoners of war; SS units responsible for mass murder; members of the Foreign Office and other ministries who assisted in creating Hitler’s new order; and industrialists who contributed to the suffering of Jews through the confiscation of property, forced labor, and extermination. In the end, the trials led to the execution of twenty-four defendants, twenty life sentences, eighty-seven shorter prison terms, the release of nineteen individuals for various reasons, and thirty-five acquittals.
Impact
At the Nuremberg Trials, the Allied Powers overcame the desire to indiscriminately execute prisoners at the end of the war, instead subjecting them to the rule of law. The Nuremberg Trials had its flaws, but the tribunals had a great influence on the development of international law and served as the model for future war-crime trials.
Bibliography
Davenport, John. The Nuremberg Trials. San Diego, Calif.: Lucent Books, 2006. An introduction for youth to the trials and their aftermath.
Davidson, Eugene. The Trial of the Germans: An Account of the Defendants Before the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg. New York: Macmillian, 1966. Deals with some of the philosophical issues concerning war trials in general and Nuremberg specifically. Discusses the precedent set by the Allies and how these trials served models for similar ones in the future.
Mettraux, Guénaël, ed. Perspectives on the Nuremberg Trial. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. A collection of essays that looks at the implications of the Nuremberg trials. Essays cover philosophical and political issues represented by the trial. Includes historical perspectives on the role of international law.
Washington, Ellis. The Nuremberg Trials: Last Tragedy of the Holocaust. Lanham: University Press of America, 2008. A critique of the Nuremberg trials and of the Allied Powers’ postwar methodology for bringing war criminals to justice.