The International Military Tribunal, informally known as the Nuremberg trials, was a tribunal set up by the Allied Powers to prosecute the highest-ranking surviving leaders of Nazi Germany for war crimes, crimes against humanity and waging wars of aggression after the Second World War. 24 German political, military and industry leaders were indicted by the Tribunal, which lasted from November 1945 until October 1946. Two of those indicted were not tried, and three were acquitted; the remaining 19 defendants were convicted, including one who was tried in absentia. The Tribunal established international law, setting the precedent that war criminals could be tried by non-German states and allowing further prosecution of Nazi war criminals.
History[]
Background[]
Between 1939 and 1945, the Axis Powers, led by Nazi Germany, waged war across Europe in what was known as the Second World War. Various countries were invaded, including Poland, France, the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia and Greece. Numerous violations of the Geneva Conventions on the rules of warfare were committed, by the Axis, which were accompanied by the systemic mass murder of millions of Jews and other "undesirables" during the Holocaust.
During the war, the Allied Powers issued the Moscow Declaration pledging to punish Nazi leaders after the war. Towards the end of the war in 1945, when the Axis were all but crushed, Allied leadership began to debate what was to be done with German leaders. Britain suggested simply executing them without trial, but the rest of the Allies wanted to see them officially found guilty of their crimes. The Soviet Union suggested show trials, but the United States insisted on a fair trial. On 2 May 1945, US President Harry S. Truman announced that an international tribunal would be held. Six days later, Germany's Acting Fuhrer Karl Dönitz officially surrendered, ending the war.
Establishment[]
The London Conference was held between Britain, France, the Soviet Union and the United States from June to August 1945 in order to establish what form the trials would take. The conference produced the Nuremberg Charter setting down the rules and procedures of the Tribunal; Article 7 in particular prohibited the defendants from claiming immunity from prosecution on the grounds of national sovereignty. The Charter limited the scope of the trials to German war crimes; the leaders of other Axis nations were tried in their own countries. The specific charges against the defendants were conspiracy to wage aggressive war, crimes against peace (waging wars of aggression), war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Trial[]
The Tribunal was held at the Palace of Justice in Nuremberg. It was to be presided over by Soviet judge Iona Nikitchenko, American judge Francis Biddle, British judge Geoffrey Lawrence and French judge Henri Donnedieu de Vabres. Acting for the prosecution was Robert H. Jackson on behalf of the US, Hartley Shawcross and David Maxwell Fyfe on behalf of Britain, Auguste Champetier de Ribes on behalf of France and Roman Rudenko on behalf of the Soviet Union.
The most senior Nazis - Adolf Hitler, Joseph Goebbels and Heinrich Himmler - had committed suicide at the end of the war, but other members of the Nazi leadership were in Allied custody. 24 defendants were prosecuted on charges of conspiracy to wage aggressive war, crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity:
- Martin Bormann, Nazi Party Secretary. Tried in absentia as he had not been located at the time of the Tribunal (it was eventually discovered he had been killed trying to flee in the last days of the war).
- Karl Dönitz, head of the German Navy from 1943 - 1945 and Acting Fuhrer in the last days of the war after Hitler's suicide.
- Hans Frank, Governor-General of Occupied Poland.
- Wilhelm Frick, Minister of the Interior and Protector of Bohemia and Moravia.
- Hans Fritzsche, head of the news division of the Reich Propaganda Ministry.
- Walther Funk, Minister of Economics.
- Hermann Göring, commander of the German air force and Deputy Fuhrer for much of the war.
- Rudolf Hess, Nazi Party Secretary and Deputy Fuhrer until his capture near the beginning of the war.
- Alfred Jodl, military Chief of Operations.
- Ernst Kaltenbrunner, head of the Reich Security Main Office, the state organ responsible for the intelligence service, the secret police, the criminal police and the paramilitary death squads known as the Einsatzgruppen.
- Wilhelm Keitel, Defence Minister and High Commander of the Armed Forces.
- Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach, CEO of Friedrich Krupp AG. He had been indicted in error; his son Alfried, charged at a separate trial, was the CEO during the war.
- Robert Ley, German Labour Front leader.
- Konstantin von Neurath, Protector of Bohemia and Moravia and Foreign Minister until he resigned after a dispute with Hitler.
- Franz von Papen, Vice Chancellor prior to the war.
- Erich Raeder, commander of the German navy until his retirement in 1943.
- Joachim von Ribbentrop, Foreign Minister.
- Alfred Rosenberg, Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories.
- Fritz Sauckel, Labour Minister.
- Hjalmar Schacht, President of the Reichsbank until he was removed and sent to a concentration camp in 1944.
- Baldur von Schirach, head of the Hitler Youth.
- Arthur Seyss-Inquart, Deputy Governor of Occupied Poland and Governor of the Netherlands.
- Albert Speer, Minister of Armaments.
- Julius Streicher, publisher of the Der Sturmer newspaper.
Robert Ley committed suicide before the trial, and Gustav Krupp was declared medically unfit for trial. The remaining 22 defendants came to trial when the Tribunal opened on 20 November 1945. All pleaded not guilty.
The prosecution opened on 21 November, with a speech from Robert H. Jackson. The American prosecution was quickly derailed by the prosecution's disorganized presentation of evidence, focussing more on describing atrocities than actually trying to link them to any specific defendant. However, they were able to secure testimony from several other captive war criminals implicating state organs lead by defendants Kaltenbrunner, Göring, Keitel and Jodl to the mass murder of Jews and civilians. The British prosecution focussed on the invasions of Poland and the Soviet Union. The French prosecution attempted to convince the court that Germanization programs instituted in France were a crime against humanity, but failed. The Soviet prosecution was able to secure testimony from General Friedrich von Paulus implicating Keitel, Jodl and Göring in the invasion of the Soviet Union, but was undermined when the defence exposed that the Katyn massacre, the murder of 22, 000 prisoners which the Soviets attempted to blame the Nazis for, was in fact carried out by the Soviets. Footage of the liberation of Nazi concentration camps was shown to the court, and orders signed by various defendants sanctioning the killings of prisoners, the deportation of Jews and other illegal acts were presented. The defence attempted to pin all the blame on Hitler, Himmler, the absent Bormann, Reinhard Heydrich, who has been assassinated in 1942, and Race and Settlement Office head Adolf Eichmann, who remained at large until the 1960s. The majority of defendants argued that they had not been directly responsible for atrocities or else had not known what result their orders would have in practice. Several Nazi officials were called to testify by the defence, but many implicated the defendants in atrocities.
The Tribunal closed on 31 August 1946. The Tribunal returned a verdict that there had been a premeditated conspiracy to wage an aggressive war, and ruled the Nazi Party Leadership Corps, the Gestapo secret police, the Schutzstaffel paramilitaries and the Sicherheistdienst intelligence agencies illegal. Eight of the 22 defendants were convicted of conspiracy to wage aggressive war, twelve of crimes against peace, sixteen of war crimes and sixteen of crimes against humanity. Only three of the defendants - Fritzsche, von Papen and Schacht - were acquitted on all counts, although two of them would later be convicted by the German "denazification" tribunals. Bormann, Frank, Frick, Göring, Jodl, Kaltenbrunner, Keitel, von Ribbentrop, Rosenberg, Sauckel, Seyss-Inquart and Streicher were sentenced to death. Funk, Hess and Raeder received life sentences. The other four - Dönitz, von Neurath, von Schirach and Speer - received prison sentences between 10 and 20 years.
Aftermath[]
The death sentences were carried out on 16 October 1946. Under the precedent set by the Tribunal, those guilty of war crimes, crimes against humanity and waging aggressive war could now be tried by other countries for their actions. This precedent allowed the United States to conduct the Subsequent Nuremberg trials, a series of twelve military trials against less high-ranking war criminals. These were followed by a series of trials conducted against those who had actually carried out atrocities at concentration camps. The Dachau trials, the trial of all camp staff detained by the United States held at the Dachau camp, were the main camp trials, but others were conducted by other Allied nations. The United States also conducted the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, a military tribunal under the same principle as the Nuremberg tribunal against Japanese war criminals.
On a wider scale, the Tribunal set the precedent for international law, laws such as crimes against humanity over which all nations have jurisdiction. The United Nations later expanded this definition to include genocide, which had been outside the purview of the Nuremberg tribunal (evidence relating to the genocide of the Jews had only been allowed when it took place against citizens of Occupied countries). This resulted in the establishment of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in 1993 to prosecute those responsible for genocide and war crimes in Yugoslavia, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in 1994 to prosecute perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide, and ultimately the International Criminal Court to prosecute war criminals from all nations.