The Nuremberg Trials

By Hayal Getaneh
11c1
10/20/2016
 Table of Contents

Part 1
Background..Pg3
The Road to the Nuremberg TrialsPg3-Pg5
The Major War Criminals Trial..Pg5-Pg6
Subsequent Trials....Pg6-Pg7
AftermathPg7
Part 2 (A Deeper Analysis)
Background.Pg8-Pg12
The Trial.Pg12-Pg13
The Prosecution Case.Pg13-Pg15
The Defense Case.Pg16-Pg18
Summations and VerdictPg18-Pg21
Goerings Letter to the Allied Control Council....Pg21
AftermathPg21-Pg22
Part 3
The Nuremberg Trials: Chronology...Pg22-Pg33
References..Pg34
Part 4 Appendices
Defendants in the Major War Figures Trial..Pg35-Pg40
The Subsequent Nuremberg Trials...Pg41-42
Charter of the International Military Tribunal...Pg43-Pg47
Indictments..Pg47
2
Pictures....Pg48-Pg53
Background
Held for the purpose of bringing Nazi war criminals to justice, the Nuremberg
trials were a series of 13 trials carried out in Nuremberg, Germany, between
1945 and 1949. The defendants, who included Nazi Party officials and high-
ranking military officers along with German industrialists, lawyers and doctors,
were indicted on such charges as crimes against peace and crimes against
humanity. Nazi leader Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) committed suicide and was
never brought to trial. Although the legal justifications for the trials and their
procedural innovations were controversial at the time, the Nuremberg trials
are now regarded as a milestone toward the establishment of a permanent
international court, and an important precedent for dealing with later instances
of genocide and other crimes against humanity.

THE ROAD TO THE NUREMBERG TRIALS

Shortly after Adolf Hitler came to power as chancellor of Germany in 1933, he
and his Nazi government began implementing policies designed to persecute
German-Jewish people and other perceived enemies of the Nazi state. Over
the next decade, these policies grew increasingly repressive and violent and
resulted, by the end of World War II (1939-45), in the systematic, state-
sponsored murder of some 6 million European Jews (along with an estimated
4 million to 6 million non-Jews).

Did You Know?

The death sentences imposed in October 1946

were carried out by Master Sergeant John C.
Woods (1903-50), who told a reporter from Time
magazine that he was proud of his work. "The
way I look at this hanging job, somebody has to
do it . . . ten men in 103 minutes. That's fast
work."

3
In December 1942, the Allied leaders of Great Britain, the United States and
the Soviet Union issued the first joint declaration officially noting the mass
murder of European Jewry and resolving to prosecute those responsible for
violence against civilian populations, according to the United States
Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM). Joseph Stalin (1878-1953), the
Soviet leader, initially proposed the execution of 50,000 to 100,000 German
staff officers. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill (1874-1965) discussed
the possibility of summary execution (execution without a trial) of high-ranking
Nazis, but was persuaded by American leaders that a criminal trial would be
more effective. Among other advantages, criminal proceedings would require
documentation of the crimes charged against the defendants and prevent later
accusations that the defendants had been condemned without evidence.

There were many legal and procedural difficulties to overcome in setting up

the Nuremberg trials. First, there was no precedent for an international trial of
war criminals. There were earlier instances of prosecution for war crimes,
such as the execution of Confederate army officer Henry Wirz (1823-65) for
his maltreatment of Union prisoners of war during the American Civil
War (1861-65); and the courts-martial held by Turkey in 1919-20 to punish
those responsible for the Armenian genocide of 1915-16. However, these
were trials conducted according to the laws of a single nation rather than, as
in the case of the Nuremberg trials, a group of four powers (France, Britain,
the Soviet Union and the U.S.) with different legal traditions and practices.

The Allies eventually established the laws and procedures for the Nuremberg
trials with the London Charter of the International Military Tribunal (IMT),
issued on August 8, 1945. Among other things, the charter defined three
categories of crimes: crimes against peace (including planning, preparing,
starting or waging wars of aggression or wars in violation of international
agreements), war crimes (including violations of customs or laws of war,
including improper treatment of civilians and prisoners of war) and crimes
against humanity (including murder, enslavement or deportation of civilians or

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persecution on political, religious or racial grounds). It was determined that
civilian officials as well as military officers could be accused of war crimes.

The city of Nuremberg (also known as Nurnberg) in the German state of

Bavaria was selected as the location for the trials because its Palace of
Justice was relatively undamaged by the war and included a large prison
area. Additionally, Nuremberg had been the site of annual Nazi propaganda
rallies; holding the postwar trials there marked the symbolic end of Hitlers
government, the Third Reich.

THE MAJOR WAR CRIMINALS TRIAL: 1945-46

The best-known of the Nuremberg trials was the Trial of Major War Criminals,
held from November 20, 1945, to October 1, 1946. The format of the trial was
a mix of legal traditions: There were prosecutors and defense attorneys
according to British and American law, but the decisions and sentences were
imposed by a tribunal (panel of judges) rather than a single judge and a jury.
The chief American prosecutor was Robert H. Jackson (1892-1954), an
associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Each of the four Allied powers
supplied two judgesa main judge and an alternate.

Twenty-four individuals were indicted, along with six Nazi organizations

determined to be criminal (such as the Gestapo, or secret state police). One
of the indicted men was deemed medically unfit to stand trial, while a second
man killed himself before the trial began. Hitler and two of his top associates,
Heinrich Himmler (1900-45) and Joseph Goebbels (1897-45), had each
committed suicide in the spring of 1945 before they could be brought to trial.
The defendants were allowed to choose their own lawyers, and the most
common defense strategy was that the crimes defined in the London Charter
were examples of ex post facto law; that is, they were laws that criminalized
actions committed before the laws were drafted. Another defense was that the
trial was a form of victors justicethe Allies were applying a harsh standard to

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crimes committed by Germans and leniency to crimes committed by their own
soldiers.

As the accused men and judges spoke four different languages, the trial saw
the introduction of a technological innovation taken for granted today:
instantaneous translation. IBM provided the technology and recruited men and
women from international telephone exchanges to provide on-the-spot
translations through headphones in English, French, German and Russian.

In the end, the international tribunal found all but three of the defendants
guilty. Twelve were sentenced to death, one in absentia, and the rest were
given prison sentences ranging from 10 years to life behind bars. Ten of the
condemned were executed by hanging on October 16, 1946. Hermann Gring
(1893-1946), Hitlers designated successor and head of the Luftwaffe
(German air force), committed suicide the night before his execution with a
cyanide capsule he had hidden in a jar of skin medication.

SUBSEQUENT TRIALS: 1946-49

Following the Trial of Major War Criminals, there were 12 additional trials held
at Nuremberg. These proceedings, lasting from December 1946 to April 1949,
are grouped together as the Subsequent Nuremberg Proceedings. They
differed from the first trial in that they were conducted before U.S. military
tribunals rather than the international tribunal that decided the fate of the
major Nazi leaders. The reason for the change was that growing differences
among the four Allied powers had made other joint trials impossible. The
subsequent trials were held in the same location at the Palace of Justice in
Nuremberg.

These proceedings included the Doctors Trial (December 9, 1946-August 20,

1947), in which 23 defendants were accused of crimes against humanity,

6
including medical experiments on prisoners of war. In the Judges Trial (March
5-December 4, 1947), 16 lawyers and judges were charged with furthering the
Nazi plan for racial purity by implementing the eugenics laws of the Third
Reich. Other subsequent trials dealt with German industrialists accused of
using slave labor and plundering occupied countries; high-ranking army
officers accused of atrocities against prisoners of war; and SS officers
accused of violence against concentration camp inmates. Of the 185 people
indicted in the subsequent Nuremberg trials, 12 defendants received death
sentences, 8 others were given life in prison and an additional 77 people
received prison terms of varying lengths, according to the USHMM.
Authorities later reduced a number of the sentences.

AFTERMATH
The Nuremberg trials were controversial even among those who wanted the
major criminals punished. Harlan Stone (1872-1946), chief justice of the U.S.
Supreme Court at the time, described the proceedings as a sanctimonious
fraud and a high-grade lynching party. William O. Douglas (1898-1980),
then an associate U.S. Supreme Court justice, said the Allies substituted
power for principle at Nuremberg.

Nonetheless, most observers considered the trials a step forward for the
establishment of international law. The findings at Nuremberg led directly to
the United Nations Genocide Convention (1948) and Universal Declaration of
Human Rights (1948), as well as the Geneva Convention on the Laws and
Customs of War (1949). In addition, the International Military Tribunal supplied
a useful precedent for the trials of Japanese war criminals in Tokyo (1946-48);
the 1961 trial of Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann (1906-62); and the establishment
of tribunals for war crimes committed in the former Yugoslavia (1993) and in
Rwanda (1994).

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 A DEEPER ANALYSIS

BACKGROUND

No trial provides a better basis for understanding the nature and causes of evil
than do the Nuremberg trials from 1945 to 1949. Those who come to the trials
expecting to find sadistic monsters are generally disappointed. What is shocking
about Nuremberg is the ordinariness of the defendants: men who may be good
fathers, kind to animals, even unassuming--yet who committed unspeakable
crimes. Years later, reporting on the trial of Adolf Eichmann, Hannah Arendt
wrote of "the banality of evil." Like Eichmann, most Nuremberg defendants never
aspired to be villains. Rather, they over-identified with an ideological cause and
suffered from a lack of imagination or empathy: they couldn't fully appreciate the
human consequences of their career-motivated decisions.

Twelve trials, involving over a hundred defendants and several different courts,
took place in Nuremberg from 1945 to 1949. By far the most attention--not
surprisingly, given the figures involved--has focused on the first Nuremberg trial
of twenty-one major war criminals. Several of the eleven subsequent Nuremberg
trials, however, involved conduct no less troubling--and issues at least as
interesting--as the Major War Criminals Trial. For example, the trial of sixteen
German judges and officials of the Reich Ministry (The Justice Trial) considered
the criminal responsibility of judges who enforce immoral laws. (The Justice Trial
became the inspiration for the acclaimed Hollywood movie, Judgment at
Nuremberg.) Other subsequent trials, such as the Doctors Trial and the
Einsatzgruppen Trial, are especially compelling because of the horrific events
described by prosecution witnesses.

In 1944, when eventual victory over the Axis powers seemed likely, President
Franklin Roosevelt asked the War Department to devise a plan for bringing war
criminals to justice. Before the War Department could come up with a plan,
however, Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau sent his own ideas on the subject
to the President's desk. Morgenthau's eye-for-an-eye proposal suggested
summarily shooting many prominent Nazi leaders at the time of capture and
banishing others to far off corners of the world. Under the Morgenthau plan,
8
German POWs would be forced to rebuild Europe. The Treasury Secretary's aim
was to destroy Germany's remaining industrial base and turn Germany into a
weak, agricultural country.

Secretary of War Henry Stimson saw things differently than Morgenthau. The
counter-proposal Stimson endorsed, drafted primarily by Colonel Murray Bernays
of the Special Projects Branch, would try responsible Nazi leaders in court. The
War Department plan labeled atrocities and waging a war of aggression as war
crimes. Moreover, it proposed treating the Nazi regime as a criminal conspiracy.

Roosevelt eventually chose to support the War Department's plan. Other Allied
leaders had their own ideas, however. Churchill reportedly told Stalin that he
favored execution of captured Nazi leaders. Stalin answered, "In the Soviet
Union, we never execute anyone without a trial." Churchill agreed saying, "Of
course, of course. We should give them a trial first." All three leaders issued a
statement in Yalta in February, 1945 favoring some sort of judicial process for
captured enemy leaders.

In April, 1945, two weeks after the sudden death of President Roosevelt, Supreme
Court Justice Robert Jackson received Samuel Rosenman at his Washington home.
Rosenman asked Jackson, on behalf of President Truman, to become the chief
prosecutor for the United States at a war-crimes trial to be held in Europe soon
after the war ended. Truman wanted a respected figure, a man of unquestioned
integrity, and a first-rate public speaker, to represent the United States. Justice
Jackson, Rosenman said, was that person. Three days later, Jackson accepted. On
May 2, Harry Truman formally appointed him chief prosecutor. But prosecutor of
whom, and under what authority? Many questions remained unanswered.

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Several Nazi leaders would escape trial and punishment. Two days before
Jackson's appointment, in a bunker twenty feet below the Berlin sewer system,
Adolf Hitler shot himself. Soon thereafter, Heinrich Himmler--perhaps the most
terrifying figure in the Nazi regime--took a cyanide crystal while being examined
by a British doctor and died within minutes. Also unavailable for trial were Joseph
Goebbels (dead) and Martin Bormann (missing).

Still, many important Axis leaders had fell into Allied hands, either through
surrender or capture. Deputy Fuhrer Rudolph Hess had been held in England
since 1941, when he had parachuted into the English sky in a solo effort to
convince British leaders to make peace with the Nazi government.
Reischsmarschall Hermann Goering surrendered to Americans on May 6, 1945.
He spent his first evening in captivity happily drinking and singing with American
officers--officers who later were reprimanded by General Eisenhower for the
special treatment they conferred. Hans Frank, "the Jew Butcher of Cracow,"
received less hospitable treatment from American soldiers in Bavaria, who forced
him to run through a seventy-foot line of soldiers, getting kicked and punched the
whole way. Other suspected war criminals were rounded up on May 23 by British
forces in Flensburg, site of the last Nazi government. The Flensburg group
included Karl Doenitz (Hitler's successor as fuhrer), Field Marshall Wilhelm Keitel,
Nazi Party philosopher Alfred Rosenberg, General Alfred Jodl, and Armaments
Minister Albert Speer. Eventually, twenty-two of these captured major Nazi
figures would be indicted.

On June 26, Robert Jackson flew to London to meet with delegates from the other
three Allied powers for a discussion of what to do with the captured Nazi leaders.
Every nation had its own criminal statutes and its own views as to how the trials
should proceed. Jackson devoted considerable time to explaining why the
criminal statutes relating to wars of aggression and crimes against humanity that
he proposed drafting would not be ex post facto laws. Jackson told negotiators
from the other nations, "What we propose is to punish acts which have been
10
regarded as criminal since the time of Cain and have been so written in every
civilized code." The delegates also debated whether to proceed using the Anglo-
American adversarial system with defense lawyers for the defendants, or whether
instead to use the judge-centered inquisitive system favored by the French and
Soviets.

After ten days of discussion, the shape of the proceedings to come became
clearer. The trying court would be called the International Military Tribunal, and
it would consist of one primary and one alternate judge from each country. The
adversarial system preferred by the Americans and British would be used. The
indictments against the defendants would prohibit defenses based on superior
orders, as well as tu quoque (the "so-did-you" defense). Delegates were
determined not to let the defendants and their German lawyers turn the trial into
one that would expose questionable war conduct by Allied forces.

Jackson believed that the war crimes trials should be held in Germany. Few
German cities in 1945, however, had a standing courthouse in which a major trial
could be held. One of the few cities that did was Nuremberg, site of Zeppelin
Field and some of Hitler's most spectacular rallies. It was also in Nuremberg that
Nazi leaders proclaimed the infamous Nuremberg Laws, stripping Jews of their
property and basic rights. Jackson liked that connection. The city was 91%
destroyed, but in addition to the Palace of Justice, the best hotel in town--the
Grand Hotel--was miraculously spared and would serve as an operating base for
court officers and the world press. Over the objection of the Soviets (who
preferred Berlin), Allied representatives decided to conduct the trial in
Nuremberg.

On August 6, the representatives signed the Charter of the International Military

Tribunal, establishing the laws and procedures that would govern the Nuremberg
trials. Six days later, a cargo plane carrying most of major war trial defendants
11
landed in Nuremberg. Allied military personnel loaded the prisoners into
ambulances and took them to a secure cell block of the Palace of Justice, where
they spent the next fourteen months.

Judges for the IMT met for the first time on October 13. The American judge was
Francis Biddle, who was appointed to the job by Harry Truman--perhaps out of a
feeling of guilt after the President dismissed him as Attorney General. Robert
Jackson pressured Biddle, who desperately wanted the position of chief judge, to
support instead the British judge, Sir Geoffrey Lawrence. Jackson thought the
selection of a British as president of the IMT would ease criticism that the
Americans were playing too large a role in the trials. Votes from the Americans,
British, and French elected Lawrence chief judge.

With a November 20 opening trial date approaching, Nuremberg began to fill with
visitors. A prosecutorial staff of over 600 Americans plus additional hundreds
from the other three powers assembled and began interviewing potential
witnesses and identifying documents from among the 100,000 captured for the
prosecution case. German lawyers, some of whom were themselves Nazis,
arrived to interview their clients and began trial preparation. Members of the
world press moved into the Grand Hotel and whatever other quarters they could
find and began writing background features on the upcoming trial. Nearly a
thousand workers rushed to complete restoration of the Palace of Justice.

THE TRIAL

On the opening day of the trial, the twenty-one indicted war trial defendants took
their seats in the dock at the rear of the sage-green draped and dark paneled
room. Behind them stood six American sentries with their backs against the wall.
At 10 a.m., the marshal shouted, "Attention! All rise. The tribunal will now enter."
12
The judges from the four countries walked through a door and took their seats at
the bench. Sir Geoffrey Lawrence rapped his gavel. "This trial, which is now to
begin," said Lawrence, "is unique in the annals of jurisprudence." The Major War
Figures Trial was underway in Nuremberg.

The trial began with the reading of the indictments. The indictments concerned
four counts. All defendants were indicted on at least two of the counts; several
were indicted on all four counts. Count One, "conspiracy to wage aggressive
war," addressed crimes committed before the war began. Count Two, "waging an
aggressive war (or "crimes against peace"), addressed the undertaking of war in
violation of international treaties and assurances. Count Three, "war crimes,"
addressed more traditional violations of the laws of war such as the killing or
mistreatment of prisoners of war and the use of outlawed weapons. Count Four,
"crimes against humanity," addressed crimes committed against Jews, ethnic
minorities, the physically and mentally disabled, civilians in occupied countries,
and other persons. The greatest of these crimes against humanity was, of course,
the mass murder of Jews in concentration camps--the so-called "Final Solution."
For an entire day, defendants listened as prosecutors read a detailed list of the
crimes they stood accused of committing.

THE PROSECUTION CASE

The next day Robert Jackson delivered his opening statement for the prosecution.
Jackson spoke eloquently for two hours. He told the court, "The wrongs which we
seek to condemn and punish have been so calculated, so malignant, and so
devastating that civilization cannot tolerate their being ignored because it cannot
survive their being repeated."

The prosecution case was divided into two main phases. The first phase focused
on establishing the criminality of various components of the Nazi regime, while

13
the second sought to establish the guilt of individual defendants. The first
prosecutorial phase was divided into parts.

The prosecution presented the case that the Austrian invasion constituted an
aggressive war, then proceeded over the course of two weeks to show the same
for invasions of Czechoslovakia, Poland, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Holland,
Luxembourg, Greece, Yugoslavia, and the Soviet Union. Prosecution proof on the
counts of conspiring to wage and then waging an aggressive war consisted mainly
of documentary evidence.

A second part of the prosecution case concerned the Nazi's use of slave labor and
concentration camps. Evidence introduced during this part of the prosecution
case brought home the true horror of the Nazi regime. For example, on
December 13, 1945, U. S. prosecutor Thomas Todd introduced USA Exhibit #253:
tanned human tattooed skin from concentration camp victims, preserved for Ilse
Koch, the wife of the Commandant of Buchenwald, who liked to have the flesh
fashioned into lampshades and other household objects for her home. Then Todd
introduced USA Exhibit #254: the fist-shaped shrunken head of an executed Pole,
used by Koch as a paperweight.

On December 18, the prosecution began introducing evidence to establish the

criminality of the Nazi party leadership, the Reich Cabinet, the SS, the Gestapo,
the SD, the SA, and the German High Command. Some of the evidence brought
cries and gasps from spectators. A British prosecutor, seeking to establish the
criminality of the SS, read an affidavit from Dr. Sigmund Rasher, a professor of
medicine who performed experiments on inmates at Dashau concentration camp.
The affidavit described an experiment conducted to determine what method to
use to save German fliers pulled out of freezing North Sea waters. Rasher
ordered inmates stripped naked and then thrown into tanks of freezing water.
Chunks of ice were added, as workers repeatedly thrust thermometers into the
14
rectums of unconscious inmates to see if they were sufficiently chilled. Then the
inmates were pulled out of the tanks to see which of four methods of warming
might work best. Experimenters dropped most inmates into either tanks of hot
water, warm water, or tepid water. One quarter of the inmates were placed next
to the bodies of naked female inmates. (Rapid warming with hot water was
determined to be most effective.) Rasher stated in his affidavit that most of the
inmates used in the experiment went into convulsions and died.

In January, a series of concentration camp victims testified about their

experiences. Marie Claude Vallant-Couturier, a 33-year-old French woman,
provided particularly powerful testimony about what she saw at Auschwitz in
1942. Vallant-Couturier described how a Nazi orchestra played happy tunes as
soldiers separated those destined for slave labor from those that would be
gassed. She told of a night she was "awakened by horrible cries. The next day we
learned that the Nazis had run out of gas and the children had been hurled into
the furnaces alive."

On February 18, 1946, Soviet prosecutors introduced a film entitled Documentary

Evidence of the German Fascist Invaders. The film, which consisted mostly of
captured German footage, showed Nazi atrocities accompanied by Russian
narration. In one scene a boy is shown being shot because he refused to give his
pet dove to an SS man. In another scene, naked women are forced into a ditch,
then made to lie down as German soldiers--smiling for the camera--shoot them.

The prosecution rested on March 6. After the thirty-three witnesses and

hundreds of exhibits that had been produced, no one could deny that crimes
against humanity had been committed in Europe.

The major war trial defendants listen to testimonies.

15
THE DEFENSE CASE

Hermann Goering took his seat in the witness chair wearing a gray uniform and
yellow boots. His defense attorney, Otto Stahmer, asked whether the Nazi party
had come to power through legal means. In a long answer delivered without
notes, Goering gave his account of the Nazi rise to power. He told the court,
"Once we came to power, we were determined to hold on to it under all
circumstances." Goering was unrepentant. He evaded no questions; offered no
apologies. He testified that the concentration camps were necessary to preserve
order: "It was a question of removing danger." The leadership principle, which
concentrated all power in the Fuhrer, was "the same principle on which the
Catholic Church and the government of the USSR are both based." Commenting
on Goering's performance in the witness box, Janet Flanner of the New Yorker
described Goering as "a brain without a conscience."

The courtroom was crowded on March 18, when Robert Jackson began his long
awaited cross-examination of Goering. Goering at first managed to deflect most
of Jackson's intended blows, often providing lengthy answers that buttressed
points he made on his direct examination, such as the fact that he had opposed
plans to invade Russia. Only by the third day of cross-examination did Jackson
begin scoring points. He asked Goering whether he signed a series of decrees
depriving Jews of the right to own businesses, ordering the surrender of their gold
and jewelry to the government, barring claims for compensation for damage to
their property caused by the government. Goering, trembling at times, was given
little opportunity to do more than admit the truth of Jackson's assertions. After
describing the awful events of Kristallnacht, November 9, 1938, when 815 Jewish
shops were destroyed and 20,000 Jews arrested, Jackson asked Goering whether
words he was quoted as saying at a meeting of German insurance officials
(concerned about the loss of non-Jewish property on consignment at the Jewish
shops) was accurate: "I demand that German Jewry shall for their abominable
crimes make a contribution of a billion marks....I would not like to be a Jew in
16
Germany." Goering admitted that the quote was accurate. When Jackson finally
ended his four-day cross-examination, reviews came in mixed. Most observers
believed Goering had shown himself to be a brilliant villain.

Over the course of the next four months, lawyers for each of the defendants
presented their evidence. In most cases, the defendants themselves took the
stand, trying to put their actions in as positive of a light as possible. Many of the
defendants claimed to know nothing of the existence of concentration camps or
midnight killings. Typical was Joachim von Ribbentrop. Asked on cross-
examination, "Are you saying that you did not know that concentration camps
were being carried out on an enormous scale? Ribbentrop replied, "I knew
nothing about that." Prosecutor Maxwell-Fyfe then displayed a map showing a
number of concentration camps located near several of Ribbentrop's many
homes. Other defendants used their testimony to emphasize that they were
merely following orders--although the IMT disallowed defense of superior orders,
the issue was raised anyway in the hope that it might affect sentencing.

Sometimes defense evidence actually strengthened the prosecution's case. Such

was the case on April 15, when the attorney for Gestapo and SD Chief Ernst
Kaltenbrunner called Colonel Rudolf Hoess to the stand. Hoess was the
commandant of Auschwitz. Why he was called as a defense witness remains a
mystery. Speculation is that it was thought his testimony, revealing his very large
role in the gassing of thousands of inmates, might make Kaltenbrunner's guilt
seem small in comparison. Hoess's matter-of-fact account of mass executions
using Zyklon B gas--sometimes 10,000 inmates killed in a single day--left many in
the courtroom stunned.

A few of the defendants confessed their mistakes and offered apologies for their
actions. Wilhelm Keitel regretted "orders given for the conduct of war in the East,
which were contrary to accepted usages of war." Hans Frank, Nazi Governor of
17
Poland, answered "Yes" when asked whether he "ever participated in the
annihilation of the Jews." "My conscience does not allow me simply to throw the
responsibility simply on minor people....A thousand years will pass and still
Germany's guilt will not have been erased." Albert Speer, Minister of Armaments,
was the most willing of all defendants to accept blame. "This war has brought an
inconceivable catastrophe," Speer testified, "Therefore, it is my unquestionable
duty to assume my share of responsibility for the disaster of the German people."
After Speer finished his testimony the London Daily Telegraph described it as "a
tremendous indictment which might well stand for the German people and
posterity as the most important and dramatic event of the trial."

As June ended, the last of the twenty-one defendants, Hans Fritzsche, completed
his testimony. The defense rested.

SUMMATIONS AND VERDICT

Defense summations had been underway for two days when they were
interrupted on July 6 for the trial in absentia of Martin Bormann, the notorious
Jew-hater who served as Hitler's private secretary and who transmitted his most
barbaric orders. Rumors abounded that Bormann might be in Spain, Argentina, or
some German hideaway, but the Allies had been unsuccessful in tracking him
down. Bormann's lawyer, Friedrich Bergold, offered an unusual defense, but
perhaps the only one open to him: he argued that his client was dead. (Bormann's
remains were finally identified in Berlin in 1972.)

After the Bormann case concluded, summations for the defense resumed. Robert
Jackson stopped coming to court, using the time instead to draft his own closing
argument--one that he hoped would make a strong moral statement to the world.

18
Defense summations continued for over two more weeks, finally concluding with
the closing argument for Rudolf Hess, on July 25.

The courtroom in the Palace of Justice, which had largely emptied for the defense
summations, was full again on July 26, 1946, for the much anticipated closing
argument of Robert Jackson. Jackson took shots at each of the defendants in
turn. His strongest attacks were reserved for Goering. In the dock, Goering--with
perverse pride--kept a count of references to him. Speer and the other repentant
defendants got off the lightest. Jackson concluded his summation with a passage
from Shakespeare:

"These defendants now ask this Tribunal to say that they are not guilty of
planning, executing, or conspiring to commit this long list of crimes and wrongs.
They stand before the record of this Trial as bloodstained Gloucester stood by the
body of his slain king. He begged of the widow, as they beg of you: 'Say I slew
them not.' And the Queen replied, 'Then say they were not slain. But dead they
are...' If you were to say of these men that they are not guilty, it would be as true
to say that there has been no war, there are no slain, there has been no crime."

The last stage of the long trial was a defense of the Nazi organizations, followed
by final statements by each of the defendants. On Saturday, August 31, the first
of the indicted defendants, Hermann Goering, moved to the middle of the dock
where a guard held before him a microphone suspended from a pole. Goering
told the court that the trial had been nothing more than an exercise of power by
the victors of a war: justice, he said, had nothing to do with it. Rudolf Hess
offered an odd final statement, filled with references to visitors with "strange"
and "glassy" eyes. He ended by saying it had been his "pleasure" to work "under
the greatest son which my people produced in its thousand-year history." Some
defendants offered apologies. Some wept. Albert Speer offered a warning. He
spoke of the even more destructive weapons now being produced and the need
to eliminate war once and for all. "This trial must contribute to the prevention of

19
wars in the future," Speer said. "May God protect Germany and the culture of the
West."

On Tuesday, October 1, the twenty-one defendants filed into the courtroom for
the last time to receive the verdicts of the tribunal. Sir Geoffrey Lawrence told
the defendants that they must remain seated while he announced the verdicts.
He began with Goering: "The defendant, Hermann Goering, was the moving force
for aggressive war, second only to Adolf Hitler....He directed Himmler and
Heydrich to 'bring about a complete solution of the Jewish question.'" There was
no mitigating evidence. Guilty on all four counts. Lawrence continued with the
verdicts. In all, eighteen defendants were convicted on one or more count, three
(Schact, Von Papen, and Fritzsche) were found not guilty. The three acquitted
defendants did not have long to enjoy their victory. In a press room surrounded
by reporters, they received from a German policeman warrants for their arrests.
They were to next be tried in German courts for alleged violations of German law.

Sentences were announced in the afternoon for the convicted defendants. Again,
Lawrence began with Goering: "The International Military Tribunal sentences you
to death by hanging." Goering, without expression, turned and left the
courtroom. Ten other defendants (Ribbentrop, Keitel, Rosenberg, Frank, Frick,
Kaltenbrunner, Streicher, Sauckel, Jodl, and Seyss-Inquart) were also told they
would die on a rope. Life sentences were handed down to Hess, Funk, and
Raeder. Von Schirach and Speer received 20-year sentences, Von Neurath a 15-
year sentence, while Doenitz got a 10-year sentence. The trial had lasted 315
days.

Over the next two weeks, the condemned men met for the last times with family
members and talked with their lawyers about their last-ditch appeal to the Allied
Control Council, which had the power to reduce or commute sentences. On
October 9, the Allied Control Council, composed of one member from each of the
four occupying powers, met in London to discuss appeals from the IMT. After

20
over three hours of debate, the ACC voted to reject all appeals. Four days later,
the prisoners were informed that there last thin hope had disappeared.

Goerings Letter

On October 15, the day before the scheduled executions, Goering sat at the small
desk in his prison cell and wrote a note:

"To the Allied Control Council:

I would have had no objection to being shot. However, I will not facilitate
execution of Germany's Reichsmarschall by hanging! For the sake of Germany, I
cannot permit this. Moreover, I feel no moral obligation to submit to my enemies'
punishment. For this reason, I have chosen to die like the great Hannibal."

Then Goering removed a smuggled cyanide pill and put it in his mouth. At 10:44
p.m., a guard noticed Goering bringing his arm to his face and then began making
choking sounds. A doctor was called. He arrived just in time to see Goering take
his last breath.

A few hours later, at 1:11 a.m. on October 16, Joachim von Ribbentrop walked to
the gallows constructed in the gymnasium of the Palace of Justice. Asked if he had
any last words, he said, "I wish peace to the world." A black hood was pulled
down across his head and the noose was slipped around his neck. A trapdoor
opened. Two minutes later, the next in line, Field Marshal Keitel, stepped up the
gallows stairs. By 2:45 a.m., it was all over.

AFTERMATH

Trials of Germans continued in Nuremberg for over two more years. The
International Military Tribunal was done with its work, however. All judges for
the subsequent Nuremberg trials would be drawn from the American judiciary.
21
The Nuremberg trials continue to generate discussion. Questions are raised both
about the legitimacy of the tribunals and the appropriateness of individual
verdicts they reached.

More important, perhaps, is the question of whether Nuremberg mattered. No

one could deny that the trials served to provide thorough documentation of Nazi
crimes. In over half a century, the images and testimony that came out of
Nuremberg have not lost their capacity to shock. The trials also helped expose
many of the defendants for the criminals they were, thus denying them a
martyrdom in the eyes of the German public that they might otherwise have
achieved. There are no statues commemorating Nazi war heroes. The revelations
of Nuremberg may also have contributed to building democracy in Germany. The
Nuremberg trials did not, however, fulfill the grandest dreams of those who
advocated them. They have not succeeded in ending wars of aggression. They
have not put an end to genocide. Crimes against humanity are with us still.

The Nuremberg Trials: Chronology

Defendants rise in the courtroom in Nuremberg

August, 1944

Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau submits his plan for post-war

treatment of Nazi leaders to President Roosevelt. He proposes shooting
many leaders upon capture, using German POWs to rebuild Europe, and
tearing down industry and remaking Germany as an agricultural society.

September 15, 1944

Colonel Murray Bernays, of the War Department's Special Project Branch,

proposes part of the framework that will be used in Nuremburg. Bernays

22
proposes treating the Nazi regime as a criminal plot. William Chanler, a
friend of Secretary of War Stinson, suggests another part of the
framework: making the waging of a war of aggression a crime.

February, 1945

Meeting at Yalta, FDR, Churchill and Stalin agree that a prosecution of

Axis leaders should follow the expected conclusion of World War II.

April, 1945

President Trumant asks Samuel Rosenman to approach Supreme Court

Justice Robert Jackson and inquire about his willingness to serve as
chief U. S. prosecutor in a war crimes trial.

April 30, 1945

Adolph Hitler commits suicide in his bunker below the Berlin sewer
system.

May 2, 1945

President Truman appoints Robert Jackson as chief U. S. counsel for the

prosecution of Nazi war criminals.

May 6, 1945

Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering surrenders to the Allies. Goering is at

first toasted with champagne, but later is transferred to Bad Mondorf in
Luxembourg.

23
May 7, 1945

Colonel General Alfred Jodl signs the terms of unconditional surrender for
Germany in Rheims World War II in Europe ends.

May 23, 1945

British tanks enter Flensburg, Germany. In Flensburg, the British take

several of the Nazis that will be tried in the Major War Figures Trial,
including Donitz, Jodl, Keitel, Rosenberg, and Speer. Heinrich Himmler,
the most powerful and terrifying of the Nazi leaders after Hitler, commits
suicide.

June 26, 1945

Robert Jackson departs Washington to meet with his Allied counterparts

in London to discuss legal proceedings against Nazi officials. Numerous
disagreements are discussed, including whether to use the adversarial
system favored by the americans and British, or the inquisitive system
favored by the French and Soviets. The Allies agree to prohibit the use of
the defense of superior orders, although they agree to allow its
consideration in mitigation of sentence.

July 7, 1945

Robert Jackson visits Nuremberg--a city 91% destroyed by Allied bombs.

He inspects the Palace of Justice and decides to recommend it as a site

24
for the upcoming trials. The Soviets prefer that the trials take place in
Berlin, within their zone of occupation.

July 21, 1945

Jackson returns to Nuremberg with British and French representatives.

They inspect possible housing accomodations.

August 8, 1945

The London Agreement is signed by the Allies, enabling the prosecution

of war criminals.

August 12, 1945

Major war criminals that had been housed in Luxembourg are flown to
Nuremberg, where they are incarcerated in a prison adjacent to the
Palace of Justice.

September 5, 1945

Robert Jackson meets with President Truman. Truman proposes naming

former attorney general Francis Biddle as the American judge at
Nuremberg. Jackson, who does not think highly of Biddle, suggests
alternatives, but Biddle gets the appointment.

October 14, 1945

British representative Sir Geoffrey Lawrence is elected President of the

International Military Tribunal (IMT).

25
October 19, 1945

Indictments are issued against the major war figures.

October 25, 1945

Robert Ley, former chief of the German Labor Front and one of the
prisoners awaiting trial, commits suicide.

November 20, 1945

The trial of the major war criminals by the International Military Tribunal
begins at 10 a.m. in Nuremberg, Germany.

November 21, 1945

The defendants enter their pleas of "Not Guilty." Goering tries to make a
statement, but is prevented by the Court from doing so. Justice Robert
Jackson delivers his opening statement for the prosecution.

November 29, 1945

The prosecution introduces a film shot by Allied photographers in

liberated areas. The graphic footage of Nazi horrors causes weeping in
the courtroom. Some defendants appeared shocked by what they see;
others seem bored.

26
December 13, 1945

The prosecution introduces grissly evidence from Buechenwald

concentration camp. Items include tattoed human skin (favored by the
commandant's wife for use in tablelamps and other household
furnishings) and the head of an executed Pole used as a paperweight by
Commandant Karl Koch.

December 18, 1945

The prosecution begin introducing evidence to prove the criminality of

seven German organizations: the Nazi party leadership, the German High
Command, the SS, the SA, the SD, the Reich Cabinet, and the Gestapo.

January 4, 1946

Colonel Telford Taylor makes the prosecution case against the German
High Command. His impressive performance will help secure his
appointment as lead prosecutor in the subsequent Nuremberg trials.

January 8, 1946

The prosecution begin its case against individual defendants.

January 28, 1946

During the French phase of the prosecution, French journalist Marie

Claude Vaillant-Courturier provides heart-wrenching eyewitness
testimony of atrocities at Auschwitz.

February 11-12, 1946

27
Chief Soviet Prosecutor Roman Rudenko examines Field Marshal Friedrich
Paulus, who provides testimony relating to German activities in the
eastern Europe that incriminates Goering, Jodl, and Keitel.

February 16, 1946

The decision is made to end the practice of allowing all the defendants to
eat together on days the court is in session. From this date on, the
defendants eat in groups of four--except for Goering who is left to eat
alone in an attempt to reduce his influence over the rest of the
defendants.

February 18, 1946

Russian prosecutors offer into evidence a 45-minute film, including

footage from captured German films, showing shocking evidence of
atrocities.

March 5, 1946

In Fulton, Missouri, Winston Churchill delivers his famous "Iron Curtain"

speech, urging the West to unite against the Soviets.

March 6, 1946

The Soviets finish their presentation and the prosecution rests. The news
of Churchill's speech gives the defendants renewed hope.

March 8, 1946

The defense begins its case.

28
March 13, 1946

Goering begins his testimony.

March 18-22, 1946

Goering is cross-examined.

March 29, 1946

Robert Jackson appoints Telford Taylor to succeed him as chief

prosecutor in the subsequent Nuremberg trials.

April 1-2, 1946

Ribbentrop testifies.

April 11, 1946

Kaletenbrunner testifies.

April 1-, 1946

Rudolf Hoess (not to be confused with defendant Rudolf Hess),

commandant at Auschwitz concentration camp, provides graphic
testimony of mass executions at his camp.

April 18, 1946

Hans Frank testifies.

29
April 26, 1946

Julius Streicher testifies

April 30, 1946

Hjalmar Schact testifies.

May 3, 1946

Walther Funk testifies.

May 8, 1946

Grand Admiral Karl Donitz testifies.

May 20, 1946

Grand Admiral Erich Raeder testifies.

May 23, 1946

Baldur von Schirach testifies.

May 28, 1946

Fritz Sauckel testifies.

June 3, 1946

30
General Alfred Jodl testifies.

June 10, 1946

Arthur Seyss-Inquart testifies.

June 14, 1946

Franz von Papen testifies.

June 21, 1946

Albert Speer testifies.

July 4, 1946

Defense summations begin in the Major War Criminals Trial.

July 26, 1946

The prosecution begins its summation in the Major War Criminals Trial.

July 30, 1946

The defense of the seven indicted Nazi organizations begins.

August 20, 1946

Goering returns to the witness stand.

31
August 30, 1946

Testimony is completed in the Major War Criminals Trial.

August 31, 1946

Defendants make their final statements.

September 2, 1946

The justices meet to discuss verdicts in the Major War Criminals Trial.

October 1, 1946

The verdicts against the major war criminals are handed down by the
International Military Tribunal. Eleven of the twenty-one defendants are
sentenced to death.

October 13, 1946

The Allied Control Council--with the power to reduce or commute

sentences--rejects all appeal in the Major War Criminals Trial.

October 15, 1946

Goering commits suicide by swallowing a smuggled cyanide pill.

October 16, 1946

Ten of the war criminals are hanged in Nuremberg.

32
October 25, 1946

The United States Military Government for Germany establishes Military

Tribunal I, which will try twenty-three Nazi physicians in the first of
eleven subsequent trials in Nuremberg.

April 10, 1947

Military Tribunal II-A sentences twenty convicted defendants in the

Einsatzgruppen Trial. Fourteen of the defendants, members of German
mobile killing units, are sentenced to death.

August 21, 1947

Military Tribunal I sentences sixteen Nazi doctors found guilty in the

Doctors Trial. Seven doctors are sentenced to death.

December 4, 1947

Military Tribunal III sentences ten convicted officials in the Reich Ministry
of Justice and judges of the People's and Special Courts, as the Justice
Trial concludes.

April 13, 1949

Military Tribunal IV-A sentences nineteen defendants found guilty in the

Ministries Trial, a trial involving three Reich Ministers and eighteen other
members of the Nazi party hierarchry accused of war crims and crimes
against humanity. Although appeals continue in this case until January of
1951, sentencing in the Ministries Trial brings an end to the four-year-long
series of Nuremberg trials.

33
 References

Links
www.history.com

nuremberg.law.harvard.edu/

law2.umkc.edu/

Bibliography
Conot, Robert E., Justice at Nuremberg. New York: Harper and Row, 1983.
Davidson, Eugene, The Trial of the Germans. University of Missouri Press, 1966.
Gilbert, G. M., Nuremberg Diary. 1947.
Goldhagen, Daniel Jonah. Hitler's Willing Executioners. New York: Alfred E. Knopf, 1996.
Marrus, Michael R., The Nuremberg War Crimes Trial 1945-46: A Documentary
History. 1997.
Meltzer, Milton. Never To Forget: The Jews of the Holocaust. New York:
HarperCollins, 1976.
Persico, Joseph E., Nuremberg: Infamy on Trial. Viking, 1994.
Rice Jr., Earle, Nazi War Criminals. Lucent Books, 1998.
Rice Jr., Earle, The Nuremberg Trials. Lucent Books, 1997.
Taylor, Telford. The Anatomy of the Nuremberg Trials. New York: Alfred E. Knopf, 1992.

34
 Appendices
Defendants in the Major War Figures Trial
IN THE
DEFENDANT IMAGE I.Q. DEFENDANT'S
WORDS
Doenitz, Karl
German admiral
"Politicians brought the
who would
Nazis to power and started
eventually
the war. They are the ones
command entire
who brought about these
navy. Chosen by 138 disgusting crimes, and now
Hitler to succeed
we have to sit there in the
him as
dock with them and share
fuhrer. Negotiated
the blame!" (5/27/46)
surrender following
Hitler's suicide.
"Don't let anybody tell you
that they had no
idea. Everybody sensed
Frank, Hans there was something
Governor-general horribly wrong with the
of Nazi-occupied system." (11/29/45) "Hitler
130 has disgraced Germany for
Poland, called the
"Jew butcher of all time! He betrayed and
Cracow." disgraced the people that
loved him!...I will be the
first to admit my guilt."
(4/17/46)
"Hitler didn't want to do
things my way. I wanted
things done legally. After
all, I am a lawyer."
Frick, Wilhelm (4/24/46).... "The mass
Minister of the 124 murders were certainly not
Interior thought of as a
consequence of the
Nuremberg Laws, [though]
it may have turned out that
way."
"I have been tricked and
trapped by the Himmler
murder machine, even
Fritzsche,
when I tried to put a check
Hans
on it...Let us explain our
Head of the Radio
position to the world, so
Division, one of
130 that at least we won't die
twelve departments under this awful burden of
in Goebbel's
shame." (11/21/45) "I have
Propoganda
the feeling I am drowning
Ministry
in filth....I am choking in
it."--(2/21/46, after
watching film of atrocities).
35
PROSECUTION
NOTES IN THE END
POINTS
On 9/17/42 Doenitz issued
Called by Hitler "the
the "Laconia Order" to the
Rommel of the Seas"....Said
German submarine
"I would rather eat dirt than
fleet. The order forbid
have my grandson grow up Served 10-year-
rescuing enemy survivors sentence. Died in
of sunken ships: "Be
in the Jewish spirit and
faith"...Went on radio after 1981.
hard. Remember, the
assassination attempt on
enemy has no regard for
Hitler to call it "a cowardly
women and children when
attempt at murder."
he bombs German cities."
"The Jews must be
eliminated. Whenever we
catch one, it is his
In April of 1930, Hitler
end"...."This territory
asked Frank to secretly
[Poland] is in its entirety Hanged--wearing a
investigate a rumor that he
the booty of the German beatificsmile--in
Reich"...."I have not been
had Jewish blood. Frank
Nuremberg on Oct.
reported back that there was
hesitant in declaring that 16, 1946
a 50-50 chance that Hitler
when a German is shot, up
was one-quarter Jewish.
to 100 Poles shall be shot
too."--from the diary of
Hans Frank.
Frick drafted, signed, and
administered laws that
Frick was one of
abolished opposition
eleven defendants
parties, and suppressed
Frick claimed not to be an sentenced to death.
trade unions and Jews
anit-Semite. He said he He said, "Hanging--I
(including the infamous
drafted the Nuremberg Laws didn't expect anything
Nuremberg Laws). Frick
for "scientific reasons": to different....Well, I
knew that the insane,
protect the purity of German hope they get it over
aged, and disabled
blood. with fast." (10/1/46)
("useless eaters") were
Frick was hanged on
being systematically
Oct. 16, 1946.
killed, but did nothing to
stop it.
Fritzsche was
acquitted by the
IMT. He said, "I am
entirely
Fritzsche was one of two overwhelmed--to be
Fritzsche's radio
defendants turned over to the set free right here, not
broadcasts (he was a
IMT by even to be sent back
popular commentator)
Russians.... Fritzsche often to Russia. That was
included strong Nazi
appeared on the verge of a more than I hoped
propoganda.
breakdown during the trial. for." He was later
tried and convicted by
a German court, then
freed in 1950. He
died in 1953.
 "I signed the laws for the
aryanization of Jewish
property. Whether that
makes me legally guilty or
not, is another matter. But
it makes me morally guilty,
Funk, Walther there is no doubt about
Minister of 124 that. I should have listened
Economics
to my wife at the end. She
said we'd be better off
dropping the whole
minister business and
moving into a three-
bedroom flat." (7/8/46)
"I joined the Party precisely
because it was
revolutionary, not because
of the ideological stuff."
(12/11/45)...."The whole
conspiracy idea is
Goering,
cockeyed. We had orders
Hermann
to obey the head of
Reichsmarschall
state. We weren't a band of
and Luftwaffe (Air
criminals meeting in the
Force) Chief; 138 woods in the dead of night
President of
to plan mass murders...The
Reichstag; Director
four real conspirators are
of "Four Year
missing: The Fuhrer,
Plan"
Himmler, Bormann, and
Goebbels." (1/5/46)..."This
is a political trial by the
victors and it will be a good
thing when Germany
realizes that..." (6/13/46)
"It is just incomprehensible
how those things
[atrocities] came
about...Every genius has
Hess, Rudolf the demon in him. You
Deputy to the
120 can't blame him [Hitler]--it
Fuhrer and Nazi is just in him...It is all very
Party Leader
tragic. But at least I have
the satisfaction of knowing
that I tried to do something
to end the war." (12/16/45)
36
Funk agreed with
Himmler to receive gold
Funk said, "The only
from the SS (including
accusation I can make to
gold teeth and rings taken
myself is...that I should have Funk was sentenced
from those killed in
resigned in 1938 when I saw to life imprisonment
concentration camps) and
deposit in the
how they robbed and by the IMT. He was
Reichsbank. Funk told
smashed Jewish property." released in 1957
(12/15/45)....Funk was often because of poor
subordinates not to ask
seen crying during the health. He died in
questions about the
presentation of prosecution 1959.
shipments. He either
evidence and needed
knew or should have
sleeping pills at night.
known the source of the
gold received.
Goering surrendered to
American officers. The
officers offered Goering
drinks and sang songs with
As Director of the Four him, but the next day were
Goering committed
Year Plan, Goering bore reprimanded by an outraged
suicide on the day
responsibility for the Dwight
before his scheduled
elimination of Jews from Eisenhower...Goering was
hanging by taking a
political life and for the the most popular prisoner
cyanide pill that was
destruction and takeover with the American guards
smuggled into his
of Jewish businesses and because he seemed to take
cell. Goering wrote
property....He was quoted an interest in their lives....He
in his suicide note, "I
as saying, "I wish you had seemed to wield a great deal
would have no
killed 200 Jews and not of influence with the other
objection to getting
destroyed such valuable defendants, and prison
shot," but he thought
property"...He looted art administrators sought to
hanging was
treasures from occupied isolate him as much as
inappropriate for a
territories and arranged for possible....Goering said,
man of his position.
use of slave labor.... "We don't have much to say
about our fate. The forces of
history and politics and
economics are just to big to
steer." (3/9/46)
During his detention
Jackson called Hess "the
following his failed putsch,
engineer tending to the
Hitler dictated Mein Hess was sentenced
Party machinery." He
Kampf to Hess...Hess to life in prison. He
maintained the
mysteriously flew to remained--lost in his
organization as a ready
England in 1941 in an own mental fog-- in
and loyal instrument of
power. He signed decrees
attempt to end the war on his Spandau prison (for
own terms. He stayed there many years as its only
persecuting Jews and was
until the war ended....Hess prisoner) until he
a willing participant in
suffered from paranoid committed suicide in
aggression against
delusions, apathy, amnesia, 1987 at age 93.
Austria, Czechoslavakia,
and was diagnosed as having
and Poland.
a "hysterical personality."
 "The indictment knocked
me on the head. First of
all, I hand no idea at all
about 90 per cent of the
accusations in it. The
Jodl, Alfred crimes are horrible beyond
Chief of
belief, if they are
Operations for the 127 true. Secondly, I don't see
German High
how they can fail to
Command
recognize a soldier's
obligation to obey
orders. That's the code I've
live by all my
life." (11/1/45)
"When I saw the newspaper
Kaltenbrunner headline 'GAS CHAMBER
, Ernst EXPERT CAPTURED' and
Chief of RSHA (an an American lieutenant
organization which explained it to me, I was
includes offices of pale in amazement. How
113 can they say such things
the Gestapo, the
SD, and the about me?" (4/11/46)..."I
Criminal Police) have only done my duty as
and Chief of an intelligence organ, and I
Security Police refuse to serve as an ersatz
for Himmler."
"We all believed so much
in him [Hitler]--and we
stand to take all the blame--
and the shame! He gave us
the orders. He kept saying
Keitel, that it was all his
responsibility."
Wilhelm
912/25/45)..."I will suffer
Chief of Staff of 129
more agony of conscience
the German High and self-reproach in this
Command
cell than anybody will ever
know." (1/6/46)..."the only
thing that is impossible is
for me to there [in court]
like a louse and lie."
(4/6/46)
37
Jodl gave orders for the
German army's campaign
against Holland, Belgium,
Norway, and Poland. He
also planned attacks
against Greece and
Yugoslavia....Jodl was
quoted as saying, "Terror
attacks against English
centers of population
...will paralyze the will of
the people to resist."
Kaltenbrunner and RSHA
bear responsibity for "The
Final Solution" to the
Jewish question--and the 6
million jews killed by
Einsatzgruppen (2 million)
and in concentration
camps (4
million). Kaltenbrunner
ordered prisoners in
Dachau and other camps
liquidated just before the
camps would have been
liberated by Allies.
Keitel signed orders
authorizing the killing of
captured commandos and
reprisals against the
families of Allied
volunteers...He drafted the
"Night and Fog" decree
that authorized the
nighttime arrests and
secret killings of
suspected members of the
resistance..He
planned attacks on
Czechoslavakia, Poland,
Belgium, Holland, and
other countries.
Jodl signed Germany's
unconditional surrender on
Jodl was hanged in
May 7, 1945, ending the war
Nuremberg on Oct.
in Europe....He strongly
disagreed with many of
16, 1946. Critics
have called Jodl's
Hitler's harsh orders: "The
order to kill the escaped
death sentence harsh
in relation to the
British fliers--there was
sentences received by
absolutely no justification
other German officers
for that. From then on, I
of similar rank.
knew what kind of a man
Hitler was." (4/6/46)
Kaltenbrunner was described
as "a Nazi out of central
casting:" six-foot-six, a huge
neck, cruel mouth, and a scar
across his left cheek...He
was shunned by most of the
other defendants...His
lawyer tried to portray him Kaltenbrunner was
as a stooge for Himmler, hanged on Oct. 16,
rather than his right-hand 1946 in Nuremberg.
man....Kaltenbrunner
believed fertile German
women had a duty to
produce babies, and if their
husbands couldn't get them
pregnant, other men ought to
be given the job.
Keitel's sons were killed in
the German attack on the
Soviet Union that Keitel
helped execute...Keitel, on
Hitler's orders, sent two Keitel was one of ten
generals to Rommel (who
defendants hanged in
had supported attempts to the Palace of Justice
assassinate Hitler) offering in the early morning
him the the choice of a
hours of October 16,
court-martial or suicide....In
1946.
prison, Keitel worked on his
autobiography....Prison
pyschiatrist G. M. Gilbert
said Keitel "had no more
backbone than a jellyfish."
 While Neurath was
"Hitler was a liar, of At 73, Neurath was the
Foreign Minister,
course--that became more oldest defendant in the
Germany "was only
Neurath, and more clear. He simply Major War Figures
breaking one treaty at a Neurath was
Konstantin von had no respect for the Trial. He seemed to be
time."...While serving at sentenced to fifteen
Minister of Foreign truth. But nobody showing signs of incipient
Reich Protector of years in prison. He
Affairs (until recognized it at first...He senility...When Chamberlain
125 must have done his
Bohemia and Moravia,
offered to come to Germany
was released because
1938), then Reich Neurath abolished of poor health in
Protector for conspiring with his little to discuss ways of averting
political parties and trade 1954, and died two
Bohemia and gang of henchmen late at war, Neurath urged Hitler to
unions....He knew war years later.
Moravia night. Sometimes he would receive him..."I was always
crimes were being
call at 1, 2, or 3 in the against punishment without
committed under his
morning."(12/15/45) the possibility of a defense."
authority.
While the trial was in
progress, Von Papen had
"I think [Hitler] wanted the
best for Germany at the many heated exchanges with
Von Papen helped Goering....Von Papen was a
beginning, but he became
consolidate Nazi control moderating force in the early
Papen, Franz an unreasoning evil force
in 1933. He strengthened years of the Nazi regime. In
von with the flattery of his
the position of Nazis in 1934, he gave a speech
Reich Chancellor followers--Himmler,
Austria to help pave the highly critical of restrictions Von Papen was
prior to Hitler, Goering, Ribbentrop, etc...I
134 tried to persuade him he
way for the takeover. He on individual liberties...Von
acquitted.
Vice Chancellor appealed to the Pope to Papen said, "I've been
under Hitler, was wrong in his anti-
support Hitler. Von Papen portrayed as an intriguing
Ambassador to Jewish policies many a
remained in office even devil. But I can prove I have
Turkey time. He seemed to listen
after learning of political always worked for peace....I
at first, but later on, I had
killings and other crimes. am confident in American
no influence on him."
(10/30/45) justice, and am glad to have
the truth brought to light
through this trial."
Raeder was one of two
defendants handed over by
"I have no illusion about the Russians, and was put on
this trial. Naturally, I will Raeder was sentenced
the list of major war trial
Raeder, Erich be hanged or shot. I flatter Raeder advocated attacks
defendants at the insistence
to life in prison. He
Commander in myself to think that I will by submarines on neutral served nine years
134 ships in violation of
of the Soviet Union...Raeder
before his release in
Chief of the be shot; at least I will retired in 1943...He opposed
German Navy request it. I have no desire international law. 1955. He died in
invading Russia, but then
to serve a prison sentence 1960 at age 84.
attacked Russian submarines
at my age." (5/20/46) six days before the invasion
began.
In prison, Ribbentrop kept
Rippentrop participated
asking everyone from
in aggressive plans
doctors to cell guards to
against
"We are only living barbers for legal
Czechoslavakia...He
shadows--the remains of a advice....Prison pyschiatrist
helped plan attacks on
Ribbentrop, dead era--an era that died G. M. Gilbert saw Rippentrop was
Poland and
Joachim von 129 with Hitler. Whether a few
Russia...Ribbentrop
Rippentrop as "a confused hanged on October
Foreign Minister of us live another 10 or 20 and demoralized 16, 1946.
played a role in the "Final
years, it makes no opportunist.".... Ribbentrop's
Solution" when he acted to
difference." (3/27/46) erratic behavior caused his
hasten the deportation of
lawyer to complain, "This
Jews to concentration
man is impossible to
camps in the East.
defend."

38

"I didn't say that the Jews
are inferior. I didn't even
maintain they are a race. I
Rosenberg,
merely saw that the mixture
Alfred
of different cultures didn't
Chief Nazi
work." (1/12/46)..."We let
Philosopher and
127 50,000 Jewish intellectuals
Reichminister for get across the border. Just
the Eastern
as I wanted Lebensraum for
Occupied
Germany, I thought Jews
Territories
should have a Lebensraum
for themselves--outside of
Germany." (12/15/45)
"I was given this
assignment which I could
Sauckel, Fritz not refuse--and besides, I
Chief of Slave 118 did everything possible to
Labor Recruitment
treat [the foreign slave
laborers] well." (2/23/46)
"I have full confidence in
the judges, and I am not
afraid of the outcome. A
Schacht,
few of the defendants are
Hjalmar
not guilty; most of them are
Reichsbank
sheer criminals."
President and 143 (10/23/45)..."All I wanted
Minister of
was to build up Germany
Economics before
industrially....The only
the War
thing they can accuse me of
is breaking the Versailles
Treaty." (11/1/45)
"I had no reason to be anti-
Semitic...until someone
made me read the
American book, The
International Jew, at the
impressionable age of
Schirach,
17. You have no idea what
Baldur von
130 a great influece this book
Hitler Youth had on the thinking of
Leader
German youth...At the age
of 18, I met Adolf Hitler. I
must admit I was inspired
by him...and became one of
his staunchest supporters."
(10/27/45)
39
Rosenberg helped plan
attack on
Rosenberg was born in
Norway....Developed
Estonia and did not move to
policies of Germanization,
Germany until he was
exploitation, and
25.....Rosenberg's book
extermination of
promoting the Nazi Rosenberg was
opponents of Nazi
rule...His directives
philosophy was called The hanged on October
Myth of the Twentieth 16, 1946.
provided for the
Century....He arranged the
segregation of Jews in
theft of fine art and furniture
Ghettos, facilitating their
from Jewish apartments in
mass killing. He set
Paris.
quotas of laborers to be
sent to the Reich.
Soon after taking office,
Sauckel seemed confused
Sauckel had the governing
during most of the
authorities in the occupied
trial....Historian Joseph
territories establish
Persico described Sauckel as
compulsory labor service
"the least imposing figure Sauckel was hanged
in Germany...His program
among the defendants, a on October 16, 1946.
resulted in the deportation
little man with a shining
for slave labor of 5 million
dome, sad brown eyes, and a
people, many of whom
silly mustache patterned
had to endure cruel
after the Fuhrer's."
working conditions.
Schacht spent 10 months in
Schacht was an early 1944 in a concentration
supporter of the Nazi Pary camp because of suspicion Schacht was found
and supported the he was plotting against not guilty by the
appointment of Hitler to Hitler....Said Schacht of the IMT. Schacht was
the post of Chancellor. experience, "I could hear the later convicted by a
Schacht used the facilities people being forced to German court and
of the Reichsbank to undress and march out to sentenced to eight
facilitate the German their death--and the shooting years. He was freed
rearmament effort and in the woods. It was in 1950. He died in
organize the economy for beastly.".....Schacht had the 1970 at age 93.
war. highest IQ of any of the
defendants.
Schirach began to become
disillusioned with Hitler Schirach was
Von Schirach subjected
around 1942: "About 1942, I sentenced to 20 years
German youth to an
think I first began to notice in prison by the
extensive program of Nazi
that Hitler was becoming IMT. He was
propaganda....He
slightly insane...In 1943 we released from
participated in the
had a serious quarrel [over Spandau Prison in
deportation of the Jews
the treatment of Jews]. He 1966. He died in
from Vienna.
flew at me in a rage...I fell 1974 at age 67.
from grace after that."
 "The southern German has
the imagination and
emotionality to subscribe to
Seyss-Inquart,
a fanatic ideology, but he is
Arthur ordinarily inhibited from
Austrian excesses by his natural
Chancellor, then 141 humaneness. The Prussian
Reich does not have the
Commissioner for imagination to conceive in
the Netherlands terms of abstract racial and
political theories, but when
he is told to do something,
he does it." (4/46)
"I would like to sit down
and write one final blast
about the whole damn Nazi
mess and mention names
Speer, Albert and details and let the
Reichminister of German people see once
128
Armaments and and for all what rotten
Munitions corruption, hypocrisy, and
madness the whole system
was based on!-I would
spare no one, including
myself." (2/46)
"The Jews are making a
mistake if they make a
martyr out of me; you will
see. I didn't create the
Streicher,
problem; it existed for
Julius
106 thousands of years."
Anti-Semitic Editor (12/16/45)...."I am the only
of Der Sturmer
one in the world who
clearly saw the Jewish
menace as an historical
problem." (11/14/45)
40
In Seyss-Inquart's fiefdom of
Seyss-Inquart ruthlessly
the Netherlands, over 40,000
suppressed opposition to
Dutch were shot as hostages,
the Nazi occupation in the
and another 50,000 died of
Netherlands. He, in Seyss-Inquart was
starvation. In all, 56% of
collaboration with the SS,
Dutch Jews died during the
hanged on October
was involved in the 16, 1946.
Nazi occupation....He
shooting or sending to
limped from an injury
concentration camp of
received in an old mountain-
opponents of occupation.
climbing accident.
Speer, an architect, was for
years the closest anyone
came to being a friend of
Speer transmitted to Speer served his 20-
Hitler. Hitler at one time
Sauckel estimates of year sentence. He
numbers of slave workers
gave Speer a watercolor of a
Gothic church....Speer was wrote two books
needed, then allocated
the leader of the anti- about his life. He
those workers to various
Goering faction of died in 1981 at age
armaments and munitions
defendants: those willing to 76.
plants.
condemn Nazi policies and
accept some degree of
blame.
Streicher was known as
"the number one Jew-
baiter." He organized a
Streicher, a vulgar man, was
boycott of Jewish
despised by most of his
businesses in 1933 and
fellow defendants...Streicher
advocated the Nuremberg Streicher was hanged
Decrees of 1935. In 1938
collected pornography. He
on October 16, 1946.
said that he bought it from
he arranged for demolition
Jews to show what filth they
of a synagogue in
read....
Nuremberg and began to
call for annihilation of the
Jewish race.
 The Subsequent Nuremberg Trials: An Overview

On December 20, 1945, the Allied Control Council issue Control Law No. 10, establishing the basis for "the
prosecution of war criminals and similar offenders." Each of the occupying authorities was authorized, in its
occupation zone, to try persons suspected of committing war crimes. The Military Governor of the American
Zone subsequently enacted Ordinance No. 7, establishing military tribunals with the power to try and
punish. Each of thetribunals was comprised of three American lawyers, usually past or present members of
state judiciaries. The judges were recruited by the War Department. Basic information on each of the eleven
subsequent trials appears in the table below.

TRIAL
CASE NAME DATES
(Numbered by date of DEFENDANTS AND CHARGES (Opening VERDICT
indictments.) statements to
verdict.)
Twenty-three Nazi physicians charged with
Dec. 9,1946 Sixteen defendants convicted
#1 conducting inhuman experiments on German
to (including seven sentenced to
The Doctors (or civilians and nationals of other countries. The
Aug. 20, death), seven
Medical) Case experiments ranged from studying the effects of
1947 acquitted.
high altitude and malaria to sterilization.
Former German Field Marshall Erhard Milch
charged with murder and cruel treatment of Jan. 2,1947
#2 Convicted and sentenced to life in
POWs, and with participation in experiments to
Milch Case* prison.
dealing with effects of high altitude and Apr.16,1947
freezing.
Nine members of the Reich Ministry of Justice
and seven members of the People's and Special 10 defendants convicted, 4
#3 Mar. 5,1947
Courts charged with using their power as acquitted (one defendant died
The Justice (or to
prosecutors and judges to commit war crimes before verdict and a mistrial was
Judges) Case Dec. 4, 1947
and crimes against humanity. (This trial inspired declared in one case).
the movie Judgment at Nuremberg.)
Oswald Pohl and seventeen other members of
15 defendants convicted, 3
#4 WVHA (Economic and Administrative Office) Apr. 8, 1947
acquitted. Three defendants were
The Pohl/WVHA charged with war crimes against POWs in to
sentenced to death, the rest to
Case* concentration camps which WVHA controlled Nov. 3, 1947
prison terms.
after spring of 1942.
Six members of the Flick Concern, a group of
industrial enterprises (including coal mines and
Apr. 19, Three defendants (including
steel plants) charged with using slave labor and
#5 1947 to Friedrich Flick) convicted and
POWs, deporting persons for labor in Geman-
The Flick Case Dec. 22, sentenced to prison, three
occupied territories, and plundering private
1947 acquitted.
property--the "Aryanization" of Jewish
properties.

41
 Twenty-four defendants, all in the IG Farben
#6 Aug. 27, Thirteen defendants found guilty
industrial concern, charged with plunder and
The I. G. Farben 1947 to on one or more charged and
spoliation of private property in German-
Case Jul. 30, 1948 sentenced to prison.
occupied territories and other war crimes.
Twelve defendants, officers in the German
Armed Forces, charged with murdering Eight defendants found guilty and
Jul. 15, 1947
thousands of civilians in Greece, Yugoslavia, sentenced to prison, two
#7 to
and Albania, commiting acts of devastation in acquitted. Two other defendants
The Hostage Case Feb. 19,
Norway and other countries, drafting orders committed suicide before the
1948
denying POWs rights, and ordering the verdict.
slaughter of surrendered troops.
Fourteen defendants, officials in the Race and
Settlement Office and the Office for the Oct. 20,
#8 Thirteen defendants found guilty
Strenghtening of Germandom, charged with 1947 to
The on one or more charge, one
crimes against humanity relating to murder, Mar. 10,
R. U. S. H. A. Case defendant acquitted.
deportation, and torture on political, racial, and 1948
religious grounds.
Twenty-four defendants, all
All twenty-four defendants were
#9 members of German mobile killing units, the
Sep. 29, found guilty on one or more
The Einsatzgruppen, charged with the murder and
1947 to charge. Fourteen defendants were
Einsatzgruppen ill-treatment of POWs and civilians in occupied
Apr. 9, 1948 sentenced to die, but ten later had
Case countries, and with wanton destruction not
their sentences reduced.
justified by military necessity.
Alfred Krupp and eleven other defendants, all
Dec. 8, Eleven defendants were found
members of the Krupp industrial concern,
#10 1947 guilty on one or more charge and
charged with enslavement and other war crimes,
The Krupp Case to sentenced to jail terms, one
including the plunder of public and private
Jul. 31, 1948 defendant acquitted.
property.
Twenty-one defendants, including three Reich
Ministers, as well other members of the Nazi Jan. 6, 1948 Nineteen defendants found guilty
#11 Party hierarchy, charged with waging wars of to on at least one charge and
The Ministries Case aggression, violating international treaties, and Apr. 13, sentenced to terms ranging from
committing various crimes of war and crimes 1949 four to twenty-five years.
against humanity.

42
Charter of the International Military Tribunal
August 8, 1945

(Selected Articles)

ARTICLE 1

In pursuance of the Agreement signed on the 8th day of August 1945 by the
Government of the United States of America, the Provisional Government of the
French Republic, the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and
Northern Ireland, and the Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics,
there shall be established an International Military Tribunal (hereafter called "the
Tribunal") for the just and prompt trial and punishment of major war criminals of the
European Axis.

ARTICLE 2

The Tribunal shall consist of four members, each with an alternate. One member and
one alternate shall be appointed by each of the Signatories. The alternates shall, so far
as they are able, be present at all sessions of the Tribunal. In case of illness of any
member of the Tribunal or his incapacity for some other reason to fulfill his functions,
his alternate shall take his place....

ARTICLE 6

The Tribunal established by the Agreement referred to in Article 1 hereof for the trial
and punishment of the major war criminals of the European Axis countries shall have
the power to try and punish persons who, acting in the interests of the European Axis
countries, whether as individuals or as members of organizations, committed any of
the following crimes.
The following acts, or any of them, are crimes coming within the jurisdiction of the
Tribunal for which there shall be individual responsibility:

(a) Crimes against Peace: namely, planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war
of aggression, or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or
assurances, or participation in a Common Plan or Conspiracy for the accomplishment
of any of the foregoing;

43
(b) War Crimes: namely, violations of the laws or customs of war. Such violations
shall include, but not be limited to, murder, ill-treatment or deportation to slave
labor or for any other purpose of civilian population of or in occupied territory,
murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war or persons on the seas, killing of
hostages, plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns,
or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity;
(c) Crimes against Humanity: namely, murder, extermination, enslavement,
deportation, and other inhumane acts committed against any civilian population,
before or during the war,14 or persecutions on political, racial, or religious grounds
in execution of or in connection with any crime within the jurisdiction of the
Tribunal, whether or not in violation of domestic law of the country where
perpetrated.

Leaders, organizers, instigators, and accomplices participating in the formulation or

execution
of a Common Plan or Conspiracy to commit any of the foregoing crimes are
responsible for all acts performed by any persons in execution of such plan.

ARTICLE 7

The official position of defendants, whether as Heads of State or responsible officials

in Government departments, shall not be considered as freeing them from
responsibility or mitigating punishment.

ARTICLE 8

The fact that the defendant acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior
shall not free him from responsibility, but may be considered in mitigation of
punishment if the Tribunal determine that justice so requires.

ARTICLE 9

At the trial of any individual member of any group or organization the Tribunal may
declare (in connection with any act of which the individual may be convicted) that the
group or organization of which the individual was a member was a criminal
organization.
After receipt of the Indictment the Tribunal shall give such notice as it thinks fit that
the Prosecution intends to ask the Tribunal to make such declaration and any member
of the organization will be entitled to apply to the Tribunal for leave to be heard by
44
the Tribunal upon the question of the criminal character of the organization. The
Tribunal shall have power to allow or reject the application. If the application is
allowed, the Tribunal may direct in what manner the applicants shall be represented
and heard.

ARTICLE 10

In cases where a group or organization is declared criminal by the Tribunal, the

competent national authority of any Signatory shall have the right to bring individuals
to trial for membership therein before national, military, or occupation courts. In any
such case the criminal nature of the group or organization is considered proved and
shall not be questioned.

ARTICLE 11

Any person convicted by the Tribunal may be charged before a national, military, or
occupation court, referred to in Article 10 of this Charter, with a crime other than of
membership in a criminal group or organization and such court may, after convicting
him, impose upon him punishment independent of and additional to the punishment
imposed by the Tribunal for participation in the criminal activities of such group or
organization....

ARTICLE 13

The Tribunal shall draw up rules for its procedure. These rules shall- not be
inconsistent with the provisions of this Charter.

ARTICLE 14

Each Signatory shall appoint a Chief Prosecutor for the investigation of the charges
against and the prosecution of major war criminals.
The Chief Prosecutors shall act as a committee for the following purposes:

(a) to agree upon a plan of the individual work of each of the Chief Prosecutors and
his staff,
(b) to settle the final designation of major war criminals to be tried by the Tribunal,
(c) to approve the Indictment and the documents to be submitted therewith,
(d) to lodge the Indictment and the accompanying documents with the Tribunal,
(e) to draw up and recommend to the Tribunal for its approval draft rules of
procedure, contemplated by Article 13 of this Charter. The Tribunal shall have power
to accept, with or without amendments, or to reject, the rules so recommended.
45
 The Committee shall act in all the above matters by a majority vote and shall
appoint a Chairman as may be convenient and in accordance with the principle of
rotation: provided that if there is an equal division of vote concerning the
designation of a defendant to be tried by the Tribunal, or the crimes with which he
shall be charged, that proposal will be adopted which was made by the party which
proposed that the particular defendant be tried, or the particular charges be
preferred against him....

ARTICLE 16

In order to ensure fair trial for the defendants, the following procedure shall be
followed:

(a) 'Me Indictment shall include full particulars specifying in detail the charges
against the defendants. A copy of the Indictment and of all the documents lodged
with the Indictment, translated into a language which he understands, shall be
furnished to the defendant at a reasonable time before the Trial.
(b) During any preliminary examination or trial of a defendant he shall have the right
to give any explanation relevant to the charges made against him.
(c) A preliminary examination of a defendant and his trial shall be conducted in, or
translated into, a language which the defendant understands.
(d) A defendant shall have the right to conduct his own defense before the Tribunal
or to have the assistance of counsel.
(e) A defendant shall have the right through himself or through his counsel to
present evidence at the Trial in support of his defense, and to cross-examine any
witness called by the Prosecution....

ARTICLE 18

The Tribunal shall:

(a) confine the Trial strictly to an expeditious hearing of the issues raised by the
charges,
(b) take strict measures to prevent any action which will cause unreasonable delay,
and rule out irrelevant issues and statements of any kind whatsoever,

46
(c) deal summarily with any contumacy, imposing appropriate punishment, including
exclusion of any defendant or his counsel from some or all further proceedings, but
without prejudice to the determination of the charges.

ARTICLE 19

The Tribunal shall not be bound by technical rules of evidence. It shall adopt and
apply to the greatest possible extent expeditious and nontechnical procedure, and shall
admit any evidence which it deems to have probative value....

ARNCLE 26

The judgment of the Tribunal as to the guilt or the innocence of any defendant shall
give the reasons on which it is based, and shall be final and not subject to review.

ARTICLE 27

The Tribunal shall have the right to impose upon a defendant on conviction, death or
such other punishment as shall be determined by it to be just.

Indictments
Count One: Conspiracy to Wage Aggressive War

This count helped address the crimes committed before the war began, showing a plan
to commit crimes during the war.

Count Two: Waging Aggressive War, or "Crimes Against Peace"

Including the planning, preparation, initiation, and waging of wars of aggression,
which were also wars in violation of international treaties, agreements, and
assurances.

Count Three: War Crimes

These were the more traditional violations of the law of war including treatment of
prisoners of war, slave labor, and use of outlaws weapons.

47
Count Four: Crimes Against Humanity
This count involved the actions in concentration camps and other death
rampages.
Diagram of the Palace of Justice

48
 The Palace of Justice (site of the trials)

Courtroom in the Palace of Justice being readied

for trial

Prison in the Palace of Justice where defendants held

American soldiers stand guard in the main cellblock

at Nuremberg prison

49
 Former SS members are forced to sort Nazi records
in preparation for trial
Pressroom in the Palace of Justice

Hermann Goering enters the defendants' dock

Robert Jackson delivers his opening statement

Courtroom scene showing defendants in the

Major War Criminals Trial

50
 Judges and their alternates listen to testimony

Defendant Hans Frank (Nazi Governor of Poland)

in the witness box

Defendants rise as judges enter courtroom

Witnesses wait for lunch during trial recess

51
 German defense lawyers listen to testimony

Courtroom scene

American judges Francis Biddle and (alt.) John

Parker discuss case

Defendant Baldur von Shirach meets with his lawyer

in prison

52
 Defendant Albert Speer

Body of Hermann Goering after committing

suicide in prison

53