The Nuremberg Trials: How the Nazis were finally brought to justice

The origins of the Nuremberg Trials can be traced back to the early declarations of the Allied powers during World War II, as they began to address the need for legal action against Axis war criminals.

On October 30, 1943, the Moscow Declaration was signed by the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union, which stated that major war criminals whose offenses had no particular geographical location would be punished by a joint decision of the Allies.

This set the stage for what would eventually become the Nuremberg Trials.

Following the end of the war in Europe on May 8, 1945, the Allied powers took concrete steps to establish the legal basis for the trials.

On August 8, 1945, they signed the London Charter, formally known as the Charter of the International Military Tribunal (IMT).

The Charter defined the tribunal's constitution, functions, and, crucially, the laws and procedures according to which it would operate.

It outlined three broad categories of crimes: crimes against peace (planning, initiating, and waging wars of aggression), war crimes (violations of the laws and customs of war), and crimes against humanity (including murder, extermination, enslavement, and deportation).

The London Charter was a legal innovation, as it codified the principles that the international community would use to prosecute individuals for actions committed during wartime.

It also established the precedent that heads of state and responsible government officials could be held accountable for aggression and mass atrocities.

The Nuremberg Trials were thus grounded in a legal framework that was created to address the unprecedented scale and nature of the crimes committed during the Second World War.

The Nuremberg Trials brought to the dock 24 of the most prominent leaders of Nazi Germany, representing a cross-section of military, political, and economic power.

Among these defendants were names that had become synonymous with the Nazi regime's wartime atrocities and its machinery of death.

Hermann Göring, the highest-ranking Nazi official tried at Nuremberg and Hitler's designated successor for much of the war, faced charges alongside Joachim von Ribbentrop, the Reich's Foreign Minister, and Wilhelm Keitel, head of the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces.

The trials also targeted architects of the Holocaust and the oppressive policies of the regime, such as Ernst Kaltenbrunner, the highest-ranking SS leader to be tried, and Alfred Rosenberg, the chief racial theorist and overseer of the occupied Eastern territories.

Economic leaders, like Walther Funk, the Minister of Economics, and Hjalmar Schacht, the Reichsbank President, were charged for their roles in supporting the Nazi war effort, including the plunder of occupied territories.

The charges leveled against these individuals were as comprehensive as they were severe, reflecting the vast scope of Nazi criminality.

They included participation in a common plan or conspiracy to commit crimes against peace; planning, initiating, and waging wars of aggression; war crimes, such as the mistreatment and murder of prisoners of war, and the killing of hostages; and crimes against humanity, which encompassed the extermination of racial, religious, and political groups, enslavement, and other acts of inhumanity on a civilian population.

Organizations integral to the Nazi state were also in the tribunal's crosshairs.

The leadership corps of the Nazi Party, the Gestapo, the SS (including the Waffen-SS), and the General Staff and High Command of the German Armed Forces were indicted as criminal organizations.

Their members faced the possibility of being declared criminal en masse, subject to arrest and trial in other proceedings.

The first and most significant of the hearings was the Trial of the Major War Criminals, began on November 20, 1945.

The prosecution team, comprising members from the United States, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and France, presented their cases against the defendants, each taking turns to address the different charges laid out in the indictments.

The prosecution's case was built on a vast collection of documents, which included official military orders, reports from concentration camps, and correspondence between the defendants that detailed their involvement in the war crimes.

The prosecutors supplemented these documents with witness testimonies, both from survivors and former Nazis who had turned state's evidence.

The testimonies were harrowing and detailed the extent of the atrocities committed, from the planning and execution of the Holocaust to the aggressive wars waged against neighboring countries.

The defendants were given the right to a defense, a fundamental principle of justice that the Allies upheld even in the face of the heinous nature of the crimes.

Each defendant had legal counsel and was given the opportunity to present evidence, call witnesses, and cross-examine the prosecution's witnesses.

The defense strategies varied: some defendants claimed ignorance or that they were following orders, while others argued that the trials were ex post facto justice and therefore illegitimate.

Some even attempted to justify their actions by citing the brutalities of the Soviet regime.

The judges, drawn from the four Allied powers, were tasked with the challenging job of ensuring a fair trial and also with interpreting the new and untested international laws under which the tribunal was established.

The proceedings were complex and lengthy, with the tribunal sitting for 216 days.

The final judgments were delivered between September 30 and October 1, 1946.

Of the 24 original defendants, one had committed suicide before the trial, and another was deemed unfit to stand trial due to health reasons.

The Nuremberg Trials, while groundbreaking, were not without their legal challenges and criticisms.

One of the primary legal challenges was the concept of "ex post facto" law. This principle, rooted in Roman law and enshrined in many national legal systems, holds that one cannot be charged with a crime that was not classified as such at the time it was committed.

Critics argued that the London Charter established laws specifically for the purpose of the trials, thereby prosecuting individuals for actions that were not criminal at the time they were committed.

The prosecution countered this by asserting that the acts committed by the defendants were morally reprehensible and inherently criminal, and that the trials were enforcing existing international principles that prohibit such conduct.

Another significant legal challenge was the principle of "tu quoque" (Latin for "you also"), a defense raised by the accused, arguing that the Allies had also committed similar acts during the war, such as the bombing of civilian areas in Germany and Japan.

The tribunal addressed this by distinguishing between the legality of the war itself, which the Axis powers had initiated, and the conduct of the war, which could include questionable acts by the Allies.

However, the tribunal did not consider the "tu quoque" argument relevant to the determination of the defendants' guilt for their own crimes.

The concept of "superior orders," often summarized by the phrase "I was only following orders," was another contentious legal issue.

Many defendants claimed they were not personally responsible for their actions because they were acting under the orders of higher authorities.

The tribunal rejected this defense, establishing the principle that following orders is not a sufficient defense for war crimes or crimes against humanity, especially when the orders in question are unlawful and the crimes are as egregious as those committed by the Nazi regime.

Critics also pointed to the trials as an example of "victor's justice," suggesting that the trials were a form of judicial retribution where the victors of the war imposed their will on the vanquished.

This criticism was underscored by the fact that only the Axis powers were tried for war crimes, while any questionable actions by the Allies were not subject to similar scrutiny.

The culmination of the Nuremberg Trials came with the delivery of judgments and sentences, a process that unfolded between September 30 and October 1, 1946.

The International Military Tribunal handed down its decisions after months of testimony, evidence presentation, and legal arguments that had been closely followed by the international community.

The verdicts were a mix of death sentences, prison terms, and acquittals, reflecting the varied roles and degrees of involvement of the defendants in the Nazi regime's crimes.

Hermann Göring, once the second-most powerful man in the Third Reich, was sentenced to death by hanging, as were eleven other defendants, including Joachim von Ribbentrop, the former Foreign Minister, and Wilhelm Keitel, the head of the Armed Forces High Command.

These sentences were meant to signify the gravity of their crimes and the responsibility they bore for the war and the Holocaust.

The tribunal did not impose collective punishment; each defendant was judged on the basis of individual guilt, with the sentences reflecting their level of involvement and complicity in the regime's criminal activities.

Seven defendants, such as Rudolf Hess, Hitler's former deputy, were given prison sentences ranging from 10 years to life imprisonment.

These individuals were deemed culpable but to a lesser extent than those who received the death penalty.

The tribunal recognized different levels of responsibility and sought to administer justice accordingly, rather than meting out a one-size-fits-all punishment.

Notably, the tribunal acquitted three of the defendants: Hjalmar Schacht, Franz von Papen, and Hans Fritzsche.

These acquittals were significant as they demonstrated the tribunal's commitment to the principle of fair trial and due process, acknowledging that not all members of the Nazi government or its functions were equally responsible for the commission of war crimes or crimes against humanity.

Following the conclusion of the main Nuremberg Trials, a series of additional proceedings were held to bring lower-ranking officers and officials to justice, as well as those who played key roles in the Nazi regime's economic and administrative apparatus.

These subsequent trials, twelve in total, took place between December 1946 and April 1949, and were conducted before U.S. military tribunals rather than the International Military Tribunal.

They are often referred to collectively as the "Subsequent Nuremberg Proceedings" or the "Nuremberg Military Tribunals."

One of the most notable of these was the Doctors' Trial, which began on December 9, 1946.

This trial prosecuted 23 defendants, including doctors and administrators, who were involved in the horrific medical experiments conducted on prisoners in concentration camps.

The trial resulted in the conviction of 16 of the accused, with seven receiving death sentences, and it brought to light the extent to which medical professionalism had been perverted under the Nazi regime.

Another significant proceeding was the Judges' Trial, where 16 legal officials and lawyers were tried for their roles in the implementation of the racial purity laws of the Third Reich, which included the sterilization laws and other policies integral to the regime's genocidal practices.

This trial underscored the complicity of the judiciary in the crimes of the Nazi state.

The subsequent trials also included the Pohl Trial, which focused on officials who ran the economic enterprises of the SS, including the exploitation of forced labor, and the Flick Trial, which targeted industrialists who used slave labor and plundered occupied territories.

These trials highlighted the collusion between industry and the Nazi government in the exploitation and destruction of millions of lives.

The outcomes of these trials varied, with some defendants receiving death sentences, others long prison terms, and some being acquitted.

The sentences reflected the tribunals' assessments of the individual's level of involvement and culpability in the crimes of the Nazi regime.

The principles established at Nuremberg laid the groundwork for modern international criminal law.

One of the most significant outcomes was the affirmation that individuals and leaders could be held accountable for their actions in an international setting.

This principle challenged the long-held notion of sovereign immunity, which had protected state leaders and officials from prosecution.

The trials also contributed to the development and definition of terms such as genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes.

The legal definitions and the precedents set at Nuremberg would later be incorporated into international treaties and conventions.

In 1948, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Genocide Convention, which defined genocide in legal terms and marked a direct response to the atrocities revealed at Nuremberg.

The following year, the Geneva Conventions were updated to include the protection of civilian persons in time of war, reflecting the lessons learned from the war and the trials that followed.

The trials' influence extended to the establishment of permanent international judicial bodies.

The International Law Commission, created in 1947, was tasked with developing a new international code of crimes against the peace and security of mankind.

This work eventually led to the establishment of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in 1998, which was designed to prosecute individuals for international crimes, building on the legacy of Nuremberg.

The Nuremberg Trials also had a significant cultural and educational legacy. They brought the horrors of the Holocaust and other Nazi crimes to light, documenting them in an unprecedented legal and historical record.

This documentation has been crucial in countering Holocaust denial and educating subsequent generations about the dangers of totalitarianism, racism, and the violation of human rights.

Moreover, the trials influenced the development of human rights law. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948, was inspired by the revelations of human rights abuses during the war and the subsequent trials.

The Nuremberg Trials thus played a role in the emergence of a global human rights movement, emphasizing the protection of individual rights irrespective of nationality or government.