The Nuremberg Trials
The Allies and the Trials
• Winston Churchill did not want a trial
– Thought all should be hung
• Americans and Russians wanted a trial
• How do you try people for the murder of
millions of people that had been made
“legal” under Hitler?
The Lieber Code
• Compiled by Frances Lieber and given to
American soldiers during the Civil War
– It detailed how civilians, prisoners of war, and
spied were to be treated
– Other nations, including Britain, France, and
Germany prepared similar manuals
– View the code
– See important parts of the code
The Hague
• Held in 1907 in Hague, Netherlands
– Focused on the rights of civilians and soldiers
who have surrendered
Previous Violations
• World War I- Germany while unprovoked,
invaded Belgium
– Treaty of Versailles said Kaiser Wilhelm was to
be tried for aggression, but those trials never
took place
• 1915- Turks massacred the Armenians in
genocide- no trials took place
• Video of Armenian Genocide
Warnings
• Oct. 25, 1941- joint warning from Churchill
and Roosevelt that punishing war crimes
would be a major goal of the war
• Jan. 13, 1942- Inter-Allied Conference on
the Punishment of War Crimes issued a
joint resolution referring to the Hague
Convention and the punishment of those
responsible for war crimes
Warnings
• Nov. 1, 1943- Moscow Declaration issued
by Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin.
• “Let those who have hitherto not imbued
their hands with innocent blood beware lest
they join the rank of the guilty, for most
assuredly, the Three Allied Powers will
pursue them to the uttermost ends of the
earth and deliver them to their accusers in
order that just may be done.”
Warnings
• March 24, 1944- Roosevelt issues another
appeal to the German people to disassociate
themselves from the terrible crimes against
humanity that are being carried out in their
name.
The Crimes
• Crime of conspiracy
– Leaders, organizers, instigators, and
accomplices in the formulation or execution of
a common plan, or a conspiracy to commit any
of the following crimes are responsible for all
acts performed by any persons in executing
such a plan.
The Crimes
• Crimes against peace
– Planning, preparing or initiating a war of
aggression.
• War Crimes
– This meant breaking the rules of war. It
included killing prisoners or war and destroying
homes and property
The Crimes
• Crimes against humanity
– The murder, extermination, enslavement,
deportation, and other inhumane acts
committed against any civilian population
before or during the war.
Who should be tried?
• The first job facing the court at Nuremberg
was to decide who should be tried.
• 24 Nazi’s were indicted
• 22 stood trial
• The rest were turned over to local trials
How the trials were set up
• Allies formed the International Military
Tribunal (IMT) to bring the Nazi leaders to
trial
– Tribunal is a court of justice
• The defendants were made aware of all
charges, each was entitled to a lawyer and
had the right to plead his own case, offering
witnesses and evidence on his behalf.
Palace of Justice
The Palace of Justice in
Nuremberg, where the
International Military
Tribunal trial of war
criminals was held. The
flags of the four
prosecuting countries
(French, American,
British, and Soviet) hang
above the entrance.
The Nuremberg Trials
• Began Nov. 20, 1945
and lasted 10 months
• Chief prosecutor was
Robert H. Jackson,
justice on United
States Supreme Court
– Opening Statement by
Jackson
Statement by Jackson
• “We must never forget that the record on
which we judge these defendants today is
the record on which history will judge us
tomorrow. To pass these defendants a
poisoned chalice is to put it to our own lips
as well.”
• Click to hear link
The Prosecution
• Used the Nazi’s own records
• Tried to show the Nazis planned a war and
planned to conquer the world if they could
– A crime against peace
• A minor part of the prosecution was
documents and witnesses of the Holocaust
The Evidence
• U.S. Army staffers organizing
stacks of German documents
collected by war crimes
investigators as evidence for the
International Military Tribunal.
— National Archives and
Records Administration,
College Park, Md.
The Defense
• Too much evidence to claim the Holocaust
didn’t happen
– Had to make case on other issues
• Said tribunal had no legal authority
• Said they were just following orders
The Defense
• Vehemently denied responsibility for
crimes against humanity
The Defense
• Used the argument Fuhrer-prinzip
– Nazi “leadership principal”
– All orders given in Germany were Hitler’s
orders and the punishment for not obeying was
death.
The Nuremberg Trials
• The details of what the Nazi’s had done
became vivid to the rest of the world
• After a trial that lasted nearly a year,
verdicts were mixed
Sentences
• Martin Bormann
– Hitler’s secretary, was
tried in absentia, never
captured, sentenced to
die
Sentences
• Hermann Goering–
–
–
–
Highest ranking official, 2nd to Hitler
Commanded the Luftwaffe
Set up the Gestapo
Sentenced to death, but took poison hours
before he was to be hung
Sentences
• Jochaim von Ribbentrop
– Hitler’s foreign minister
– Deported Jews from occupied countries “to the
East”
Sentences
• Julius Streicher
– Published Der
Stuermer, an
antisemitic newspaper
– Found guilty of
“inciting the
population to abuse,
maltreat, and slay their
fellow citizens.”
Sentences
• Rudolf Hess
– The deputy leader of
the Nazi Party
– 3rd in command
– Spent the rest of his
life in Spandau prison
in Berlin
Later Trials
• The first Nuremberg Trials were followed
by a dozen others.
• Those accused
– Military leaders
– High-ranking SS and police officers
– Doctors who performed selections and medical
experiments
– Businessmen who used slave labor
– USHMM article on later trials
Later Trials
• The Allies extradited many Nazis to nations
once occupied by Germany
• Norwegians convicted Prime Minister
Vidkun Quisling
• French convicted Henri-Philippe Petain
Later Trials
• Rudolf Hess
– Tried by the Poles and the Czechs
– Was the Commandant at Auschwitz
– Sentenced to life in prison
Results of the Nuremberg Trials
• Told the world in great detail about the
Holocaust
• Established the principle that individuals
can’t escape responsibility for their actions
by saying they were following orders
• Set the standards for judging the actions of
nations in the future
Geneva Conventions
• Comprised of 4 treaties and 3 protocols that set the
standards in international law for humanitarian
treatment of the victims of war
• Established how prisoners of war were to be
treated and called for the protection of the
wounded and civilians in and around a war zone
• Have been ratified in whole or with reservations
by 194 countries.
Adolf Eichmann Trial
• Some high ranking Nazis escaped from the
Allies
– One was Adolf Eichman
• Did more than any other Nazi to persecute
Jews
• Was in charge of deporting Jews from all
over Europe to death camps
Tracking Down Eichmann
• Simon Wiesenthal, a Holocaust survivor,
was instrumental in tracking Eichmann to
Argentina
• Found in 1949, but by then, most countries
had lost interest and would not extradite
Nazis
The Trial of Adolf Eichmann
• April 11, 1961
Eichmann walks into a
courtroom in
Jerusalem, Isreal
– Put in bulletproof glass
booth, for his
protection
• Main focus was
crimes against the
Jewish people
Eichmann’s Defense
• His main defense was “just following
orders”
• He also lied about how much authority he
had, what he knew, and what he did.
Eichmann’s sentence
• Was sentenced to death
• He is the only person executed by the State
of Israel
Effect of Eichmann Trial
• More Holocaust survivors came forward to
tell their stories
• More scholars studied the Holocaust
“Nazi Hunters”
• Individuals and organizations known as
“Nazi Hunters” still actively seek to bring
Nazis to trial.
• The Butcher of Lyons was sentenced to life
in prison in 1987.
Is it ever too late to seek justice?
View USHMM article