NUREMBERG

TRIALS
Lucia Moreira, Daniela Silva
CeRP del Este

National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD

 Date: October 18, 1945
KEY INFORMATION

Location: Germany, Nürnberg

Context: Holocaust - World War II
Main points:
WHAT WERE THE NUREMBERG TRIALS?
THE MAJOR WAR CRIMINALS' TRIAL
THE IMPACT OF TECHNOLOGY
AFTERMATH
Nuremberg Trials
Series of 13 trials that were carried out in
Nuremberg, Germany, between 1945
and 1949.
Purpose: to bring Nazi war criminals to
justice.
Crimes charged
1. Crimes against peace
2. Crimes against humanity
3. War crimes
4. “a common plan or conspiracy to
commit” the criminal acts listed in the
first three counts.
 The Nuremberg
trials are now
regarded as a
milestone toward
the establishment
of a permanent
AERIAL VIEW OF THE NUREMBERG PALACE international court.
OF JUSTICE
National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD
ADOLF HITLER HAD
COMMITTED SUICIDE
AND COULD NOT BE
SENTENCED.

German Federal Archives

(Bundesarchiv), Bild 183-H1216-
0500-002; photographer,
o.Ang.Creative Commons Legal Code
THE MAJOR WAR CRIMINALS’ TRIAL
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 MAJOR WAR CRIMINALS’ TRIAL
NOVEMBER 20, 1945, TO OCTOBER 1, 1946

Twenty-four individuals were indicted, along with six Nazi

organizations determined to be criminals.
The defendants were allowed to choose their own lawyers.
The most common defense strategy: the crimes defined were
laws that criminalized actions committed before the laws
were drafted.
The impact of
technology
IBM translators
Filming

Encyclopædia Britannica
Interesting fact:
3,000 tons of documents
AFTERMATH
199 defendants were tried at Nuremberg
161 were convicted and 37 were sentenced to death,
including 12 of those tried by the IMT.
Holocaust crimes were included in a few of the trials but were
the major focus of only the US trial of Einsatzgruppen leaders.
Ten of the condemned were executed by hanging on October
16, 1946. Hermann Göring (1893-1946)
AFTERMATH
The trials were step forward for the establishment of international law.
The findings at Nuremberg led directly to:
the United Nations Genocide Convention (1948)
Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948)
the Geneva Convention on the Laws
Customs of War (1949).
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).
Thank you.

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/th
e-nuremberg-trials
https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-
ii/nuremberg-trials
https://www.britannica.com/event/Nurnberg-trials