Nuremberg Trials

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The Nuremberg Trials are a series of trials most notable for the prosecution of prominent members of the political, military and economic leadership of National Socialist Germany. The trials were held in the city of Nuremberg, Germany, from 1945 to 1949, at the Nuremberg Palace of Justice. The first and best known of these trials was the Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal (IMT), which tried 24 of the most important captured leaders of Germany. It was held from November 20, 1945 to October 1, 1946. The second set of trials of lesser war criminals was conducted under Control Council Law No. 10 at the U.S. Nuremberg Military Tribunals (NMT), among them included the Doctors' Trial and the Judges' Trial.


Contents

[edit] Origin

Papers released on January 2, 2006 from the British War Cabinet in London have shown that as early as December 1942, the Cabinet had discussed their policy for the punishment of the leading Germans, if captured. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill had then advocated a policy of summary execution with the use of an Act of Attainder to circumvent legal obstacles, and was only dissuaded from this by pressure from the U.S. later in the war. In late 1943, during the Tripartite Dinner Meeting at the Tehran Conference, the Soviet leader, Joseph Stalin, proposed executing 50,000-100,000 German staff officers. Not realizing that Stalin was serious, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt joked that perhaps 49,000 would do. Churchill denounced the idea of "the cold blooded execution of soldiers who fought for their country." However, he also stated that war criminals must pay for their crimes, and that in accordance with the Moscow Document which he himself had written, they should be tried at the places where the crimes were committed. Churchill was vigorously opposed to executions "for political purposes."

U.S. Treasury Secretary, Henry Morgenthau Jr, suggested a plan for the total denazification of Germany; this was known as the Morgenthau Plan. The plan advocated the forced de-industrialization of Germany, along with forced labour and other draconian measures similar to those that the Germans themselves had planned for Eastern Europe. Both Churchill and Roosevelt supported this plan, and went as far as attempting its authorization at the Quebec Conference in September 1944. However, the Soviet Union announced its preference for a judicial process. Later, details were leaked to the public, generating widespread protest. Roosevelt, seeing strong public disapproval, abandoned the plan, but did not proceed to adopt support for another position on the matter. The demise of the Morgenthau Plan created the need for an alternative method of dealing with the Nazi leadership. The plan for the "Trial of European War Criminals" was drafted by Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson and the War Department. Roosevelt died in April 1945. The new president, Harry S. Truman, gave strong approval for a judicial process.

After a series of negotiations between the U.S., Britain, the Soviet Union, and France, details of the trial were worked out. The trials were set to commence on November 20, 1945, in the city of Nuremberg.


[edit] Creation of the Courts

At the meetings in Tehran (1943), Yalta (1945) and Potsdam (1945), the three major wartime powers, the United States, Soviet Union and the United Kingdom, agreed on the format of punishment for those responsible for war-crimes during World War II. France was also awarded a place on the tribunal.

The legal basis for the trial was established by the London Charter, issued on August 8, 1945, which restricted the trial to "punishment of the major war criminals of the European Axis countries". Some 200 German war crimes defendants were tried at Nuremberg, and 1,600 others were tried under the traditional channels of military justice. The legal basis for the jurisdiction of the court was that defined by the Instrument of Surrender of Germany, political authority for Germany had been transferred to the Allied Control Council, which having sovereign power over Germany could choose to punish violations of international law and the laws of war. Because the court was limited to violations of the laws of war, it did not have jurisdiction over crimes that took place before the outbreak of war on September 1, 1939.

The restriction of trial and punishment by the international tribunal to personnel of the Axis countries has led to accusations of victor's justice and that Allied war crimes could not be tried. It is, however, usual that the armed forces of a civilized country issue their forces with detailed guidance on what is and is not permitted under their military code. These are drafted to include any international treaty obligations and the customary laws of war. For example at the trial of Otto Skorzeny his defence was in part based on the Field Manual published by the War Department of the United States Army, on 1 October 1940, and the American Soldiers' Handbook. If a member of the armed forces breaks their own military code then they can expect to face a court martial. When members of the Allied armed forces broke their military codes, they could be and were tried, as, for example, at the Biscari Massacre trials. The unconditional surrender of the Axis powers was unusual and led directly to the formation of the international tribunals. Usually international wars end conditionally and the treatment of suspected war criminals makes up part of the peace treaty. In most cases those who are not prisoners of war are tried under their own judicial system if they are suspected of committing war crimes – as happened the end of the concurrent Continuation War. In restricting the international tribunal to trying suspected Axis war crimes, the Allies were acting within normal international law.

[edit] Location

The Soviet Union had wanted the trials to take place in Berlin, but Nuremberg was chosen as the site for the trials for specific reasons:

  • It was located in the American/French zone (at this time, Germany was divided into four zones).
  • The Palace of Justice was spacious and largely undamaged (one of the few that had remained largely intact through extensive Allied bombing of Germany). A large prison was also part of the complex.
  • Because Nuremberg had been appointed "City of the party rallies", there was symbolic value in making it the place of the NSDAP demise.

It was also agreed that France would become the permanent seat of the IMT and that the first trial (several were planned) would take place in Nuremberg.

[edit] Participants

Each of the four countries provided one judge and an alternate, as well as the prosecutors. The judges were:

The chief prosecutors were Robert H. Jackson for the United States, Sir Hartley Shawcross for the UK, Lieutenant-General R. A. Rudenko for the Soviet Union, and François de Menthon and Auguste Champetier de Ribes for France. Assisting Jackson was the lawyer Telford Taylor and assisting Shawcross were Major Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe and Sir John Wheeler-Bennett. Shawcross also recruited a young barrister Anthony Marreco, who was the son of a friend of his, to help the British team with the heavy workload. Robert Falco was an experienced judge who had tried many in court in France.

[edit] Accused

There were 24 accused. They were:

  • Martin Bormann -Sentenced to death. Successor to Hess as Party Secretary. Sentenced to death in absentia, remains found in 1972.
  • Karl Dönitz -10 years imprisonment. Leader of the Kriegsmarine from 1943, succeeded Raeder. Initiator of the U-boat campaign. Became President of Germany following Hitler's death. In evidence presented at the trial of Karl Dönitz on his orders to the U-boat fleet to breach the London Rules, Admiral Chester Nimitz stated that unrestricted submarine warfare was carried on in the Pacific Ocean by the United States from the first day that nation entered the war. Dönitz was found guilty of breaching the 1936 Second London Naval Treaty, but his sentence was not assessed on the ground of his breaches of the international law of submarine warfare.
  • Hans Frank -Sentenced to death. Reich Law Leader 1933-1945 and Governor-General of the General Government in occupied Poland 1939-1945. Expressed repentance.
  • Wilhelm Frick -Sentenced to death. Hitler's Minister of the Interior 1933-1943 and Reich Protector of Bohemia-Moravia 1943-1946. Authored the Nuremberg Race Laws.
  • Hans Fritzsche -Acquitted. Popular radio commentator, and head of the news division of the Propaganda Ministry. Tried in place of Joseph Goebbels.
  • Walther Funk -Life imprisonment. Hitler's Minister of Economics. Succeeded Schacht as head of the Reichsbank. Released due to ill health on May 16, 1957.
  • Hermann Göring -Sentenced to death. Reichsmarschall, Commander of the Luftwaffe 1935-1945, Chief of the 4-Year Plan 1936-1945, and several departments of the SS. Committed suicide the night before his execution.
  • Alfred Jodl -Sentenced to death. Wehrmacht Generaloberst, Keitel's subordinate and Chief of the O.K.W.'s Operations Division 1938-1945. Subsequently exonerated by German court in 1953.
  • Ernst Kaltenbrunner -Sentenced to death Highest surviving SS-leader. Chief of RSHA 1943-45, the central intelligence organ. Also, commanded many of the Einsatzgruppen and several labour camps.
  • Wilhelm Keitel -Sentenced to death Head of Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW) 1938-1945.
  • Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach -Unfit for trial Major industrialist. C.E.O of Krupp A.G 1912-45. Medically unfit for trial. The prosecutors attempted to substitute his son Alfried (who ran Krupp for his father during most of the war) in the indictment, but the judges rejected this as being too close to trial. Alfried was tried in a separate Nuremberg trial for his use of slave labor, thus escaping the worst notoriety and possibly death.
  • Robert Ley -Suicide Head of DAF, The German Labour Front. Suicide on October 25, 1945, before the trial began.
  • Baron Konstantin von Neurath -15 years imprisonment Minister of Foreign Affairs 1932-1938, succeeded by Ribbentrop. Later, Protector of Bohemia and Moravia 1939-43. Resigned in 1943 due to dispute with Hitler. Released (ill health) November 6, 1954.
  • Franz von Papen -Acquitted Chancellor of Germany in 1932 and Vice-Chancellor under Hitler in 1933-1934. Ambassador to Austria 1934-38 and ambassador to Turkey 1939-1944. Although acquitted at Nuremberg, von Papen was reclassified as a war criminal in 1947 by a German de-Nazification court, and sentenced to eight years' hard labour. He was acquitted following appeal after serving two years.
  • Erich Raeder -Life imprisonment Commander In Chief of the Kriegsmarine from 1928 until his retirement in 1943, succeeded by Dönitz. Released (ill health) September 26, 1955.
  • Alfred Rosenberg -Sentenced to death Racial theory ideologist. Later, Minister of the Eastern Occupied Territories 1941-1945.
  • Fritz Sauckel -Sentenced to death Gauleiter of Thuringia 1927-1945. Plenipotentiary of the slave labor program 1942-1945.
  • Hjalmar Schacht -Acquitted Prominent banker and economist. Pre-war president of the Reichsbank 1923-1930 & 1933-1938 and Economics Minister 1934-1937. Admitted to violating the Treaty of Versailles.
  • Arthur Seyss-Inquart -Sentenced to death Instrumental in the Anschluss and briefly Austrian Chancellor 1938. Deputy to Frank in Poland 1939-1940. Later, Reich Commissioner of the occupied Netherlands 1940-1945. Expressed repentance.
  • Albert Speer -20 years imprisonment Hitler's favorite architect and personal friend, and Minister of Armaments from 1942. In this capacity, he was ultimately responsible for the use of slave labourers from the occupied territories in armaments production. Expressed repentance.
  • Julius Streicher -Sentenced to death Gauleiter of Franconia 1922-1945. Incited hatred and murder against the Jews through his weekly newspaper, Der Stürmer.
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