Hitler's Legacy: Nuremberg Trials
On October 18, 1945, the chief prosecutors lodged an indictment
with the War Crimes Tribunal charging 24 individuals with a variety
of crimes and atrocities, including the deliberate instigation
of aggressive wars, extermination of racial and religious groups,
murder and mistreatment of prisoners of war, and the murder, mistreatment,
and deportation to slave labour of hundreds of thousands of inhabitants
of countries occupied by Germany during the war.
Among the accused were the Nationalist Socialist leaders Hermann
Göring and Rudolf Hess, the diplomat Joachim von Ribbentrop,
the munitions maker Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach, Field
Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, Grand Admiral Erich Raeder, and 18 other
military leaders and civilian officials. Seven organizations that
formed part of the basic structure of the Nazi government were
also charged as criminal. These organizations included the SS
(Schutzstaffel "Defense Corps"), the Gestapo (Geheime
Staatspolizei, "Secret State Police"), the SA (Sturmabteilung,
"Storm Troops"), and the General Staff and High Command
of the German armed forces.
The trial began on November 20, 1945. Much of the evidence
submitted by the prosecution consisted of original military, diplomatic,
and other government documents that fell into the hands of the
Allied forces after the collapse of the German government.
The judgment of the International Military Tribunal was handed
down on September 30-October 1, 1946. Among notable features of
the decision was the conclusion, in accordance with the London
Agreement, that to plan or instigate an aggressive war is a crime
under the principles of international law. The tribunal rejected
the contention of the defense that such acts had not previously
been defined as crimes under international law and that therefore
the condemnation of the defendants would violate the principle
of justice prohibiting ex post facto punishments. It also rejected
the contention of a number of the defendants that they were not
legally responsible for their acts because they performed the
acts under the orders of superior authority, stating that "the
true test . . . is not the existence of the order but whether
moral choice (in executing it) was in fact possible."
With respect to war crimes and crimes against humanity, the
tribunal found overwhelming evidence of a systematic rule of violence,
brutality, and terrorism by the German government in the territories
occupied by its forces. Millions of persons were destroyed in
concentration camps, many of which were equipped with gas chambers
for the extermination of Jews, Roma (Gypsies), and members of
other ethnic or religious groups. Under the slave-labor policy
of the German government, at least 5 million persons had been
forcibly deported from their homes to Germany. Many of them died
because of inhuman treatment. The tribunal also found that atrocities
had been committed on a large scale and as a matter of official
policy.
Of the seven indicted organizations, the tribunal declared
criminal the Leadership Corps of the National Socialist Party,
the SS, the SD (Sicherheitsdienst, "Security Service"),
and the Gestapo.
Twelve defendants were sentenced to death by hanging, seven
received prison terms ranging from ten years to life, and three,
including the German politician and diplomat Franz von Papen and
the president of the German Central Bank Hjalmar Horace Greeley
Schacht, were acquitted. Those who had been condemned to death
were executed on October 16, 1946. Göring committed suicide
in prison a few hours before he was to be executed.
After the conclusion of the first Nuremberg trial, 12 more
trials were held under the authority of Control Council Law No.
10, which closely resembled the London Agreement but provided
the war crimes trials in each of the four zones of occupied Germany.
About 185 individuals were indicted in the 12 cases. Those
indicted included doctors who had conducted medical experiments
on concentration camp inmates and prisoners of war, judges who
had committed murder and other crimes under the guise of the judicial
process, and industrialists who had participated in the looting
of occupied countries and in the forced-labor program. Other persons
indicted included SS officials, who had headed the concentration
camps, administered the Nazi racial laws, and carried out the
extermination of Jews and other groups in the eastern territories
overrun by the German army; and high military and civilian officials
who bore responsibility for these and other criminal acts and
policies of the Third Reich. A number of doctors and SS leaders
were condemned to death by hanging, and approximately 120 other
defendants were given prison sentences of various durations; 35
defendants were acquitted.
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