The accusers were successful in unveiling the background of developments leading to the outbreak

of World War II, which cost around 50 million lives in Europe alone,[46] as well as the extent of the
atrocities committed in the name of the Hitler regime. Twelve of the accused were sentenced to
death, seven received prison sentences (ranging from 10 years to life sentence), three were
acquitted, and two were not charged. [47]

Executions[edit]
Main article: Nuremberg executions

The body of Hermann Göring, Oct. 16, 1946

The death sentences were carried out on 16 October 1946 by hanging using the standard drop
method instead of long drop. The U.S. Army denied claims that the drop length was too short, which
may cause the condemned to die slowly from strangulation instead of quickly from a broken neck,
[48]
 but evidence remains that some of the condemned men choked in agony for 14 to 28 minutes. [49]
[50]
 The executioner was John C. Woods.[51] The executions took place in the gymnasium of the court
building (demolished in 1983). [52]
Although the rumor has long persisted that the bodies were taken to Dachau and burned there, they
were actually incinerated in a crematorium in Munich, and the ashes scattered over the river Isar.
[53]
 The French judges suggested that the military condemned (Göring, Keitel and Jodl) be shot by
a firing squad, as is standard for military courts-martial, but this was opposed by Biddle and the
Soviet judges, who argued that the military officers had violated their military ethos and were not
worthy of the more dignified death by shooting. [citation needed] The prisoners sentenced to incarceration
were transferred to Spandau Prison in 1947.
Of the 12 defendants sentenced to death by hanging, two were not hanged: Martin Bormann was
convicted in absentia (he had, unknown to the Allies, died while trying to escape from Berlin in May
1945), and Hermann Göring committed suicide the night before the execution. The remaining 10
defendants sentenced to death were hanged.

Nuremberg principles[edit]
The definition of what constitutes a war crime is described by the Nuremberg principles, a set of
guidelines document which was created as a result of the trial. The medical experiments conducted
by German doctors and prosecuted in the so-called Doctors' Trial led to the creation of
the Nuremberg Code to control future trials involving human subjects, a set of research ethics
principles for human experimentation.
Of the indicted organizations the following were found not to be criminal:
 Reichsregierung [de]
 "The General Staff and High Command" was found not to comprise a group or organization
as defined by Article 9 of the London Charter 14 Members of the High Command were tried as
Criminals at the high command trial case 12 of the Subsequent Nuremberg Proceedings

 Sturmabteilung

Subsidiary and related trials[edit]

The American authorities conducted subsequent Nuremberg Trials in their occupied zone.
Other trials conducted after the first Nuremberg trial include the following:

 Auschwitz trial
 Belsen trial
 Belzec trial before the 1st Munich District Court in the mid-1960s, of eight SS men of
the Belzec extermination camp
 Chełmno trials of the Chełmno extermination camp personnel, held in Poland and in
Germany. The cases were decided almost twenty years apart
 Dachau trials
 Frankfurt Auschwitz trials
 Majdanek trials, the longest Nazi war crimes trial in history, spanning over 30 years
 Mauthausen-Gusen camp trials
 Hamburg Ravensbrück trials
 Sobibór trial held in Hagen, Germany, in 1965 against the SS men of the Sobibor
extermination camp
 Treblinka trials in Düsseldorf, Germany

American role in the trial[edit]

Chief American prosecutor Robert H. Jackson addresses the Nuremberg court. 20 November 1945.
While Sir Geoffrey Lawrence of Britain was the judge who was chosen to serve as the president of
the court, arguably, the most prominent of the judges at the trial was his American
counterpart, Francis Biddle.[54] Prior to the trial, Biddle had been Attorney General of the United
States but had been asked to resign by Truman earlier in 1945.[55]
Some accounts argue that Truman had appointed Biddle as the main American judge for the trial as
an apology for asking for his resignation.[55] Ironically, Biddle was known during his time as Attorney
General for opposing the idea of prosecuting Nazi leaders for crimes committed before the beginning
of the war, even sending out a memorandum on 5 January 1945 on the subject. [56] The note also
expressed Biddle's opinion that instead of proceeding with the original plan for prosecuting entire
organizations, there should simply be more trials that would prosecute specific offenders. [56]
Biddle soon changed his mind, as he approved a modified version of the plan on 21 January 1945,
likely due to time constraints, since the trial would be one of the main issues which was to be
discussed at Yalta.[57] At trial, the Nuremberg tribunal ruled that any member of an organization
convicted of war crimes, such as the SS or Gestapo, who had joined after 1939 would be considered
a war criminal.[58] Biddle managed to convince the other judges to make an exemption for any
member who was drafted or had no knowledge of the crimes being committed by these
organizations.[55]
Justice Robert H. Jackson played an important role in not only the trial itself, but also in the creation
of the International Military Tribunal, as he led the American delegation to London that, in the
summer of 1945, argued in favour of prosecuting the Nazi leadership as a criminal conspiracy.
[59]
 According to Airey Neave, Jackson was also the one behind the prosecution's decision to include
membership in any of the six criminal organizations in the indictments at the trial, though the IMT
rejected this on the grounds that it was wholly without precedent in either international law or the
domestic laws of any of the Allies.[60] Jackson also attempted to have Alfried Krupp be tried in place
of his father, Gustav, and even suggested that Alfried volunteer to be tried in his father's place.
[61]
 Both proposals were rejected by the IMT, particularly by Lawrence and Biddle, and some sources
indicate that this resulted in Jackson being viewed unfavourably by the latter. [61]
Thomas Dodd was a prosecutor for the United States. There was an immense amount of evidence
backing the prosecutors' case, especially since meticulous records of the Nazis' actions had been
kept. There were records taken in by the prosecutors that had signatures from specific Nazis signing
for everything from stationery supplies to Zyklon B gas, which was used to kill the inmates of the
deathcamps. Thomas Dodd showed a series of pictures to the courtroom after reading through the
documents of crimes committed by the defendants. The showing consisted of pictures displaying the
atrocities performed by the defendants. The pictures had been gathered when the inmates were
liberated from the concentration camps.[62]
Henry F. Gerecke, a Lutheran pastor, and Sixtus O'Connor, a Roman Catholic priest, were sent to
minister to the Nazi defendants.[63] Photographs of the trial were taken by a team of about a dozen
US Army still photographers, under the direction of chief photographer Ray D'Addario.[64]

Legacy[edit]

Courtroom 600 in June 2016 showing contemporary configuration

The Tribunal is celebrated for establishing that "crimes against international law are committed by
men, not by abstract entities, and only by punishing individuals who commit such crimes can the
provisions of international law be enforced."[65] The creation of the IMT was followed by trials of lesser
Nazi officials and the trials of Nazi doctors, who performed experiments on people in prison camps.
It served as the model for the International Military Tribunal for the Far East which tried Japanese
officials for crimes against peace and crimes against humanity. It also served as the model [citation
needed]
 for the Eichmann trial and for present-day courts at The Hague, for trying crimes committed
during the Balkan wars of the early 1990s, and at Arusha, for trying the people responsible for
the genocide in Rwanda.
The Nuremberg trials had a great influence on the development of international criminal law. The
Conclusions of the Nuremberg trials served as models for: