American jurists in occupied Germany developed international law with the concept of crimes against humanity, then grappled with its meaning. Interpreters and translators were the unspoken heroes of the Nuremberg Trials. Their work at Nuremberg was a groundbreaking development in simultaneous interpretation. Following victory, the Allies turned to the legal system to hold Axis leaders accountable. In an unprecedented series of trials, a new meaning of justice emerged in response to war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by both the Germans and the Japanese throughout the war.
The first international war crimes tribunal in history revealed the true extent of German atrocities and held some of the most prominent Nazis accountable for their crimes. Justice Robert H. The Nuremberg Trials. List of Judges.
List of Chief Prosecutors. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin stating: "The United Kingdom, the United States and the Soviet Union have received from many quarters evidence of atrocities, massacres and cold-blooded mass executions which are being perpetrated by Hitlerite forces in many of the countries they have overrun.
List of Defendants. List of Organizations. The Trial Between November 20, to October 1, , the Tribunal tried 24 of the most important military and political leaders of the Third Reich and heard evidence against 21 of the defendants. Verdict and Executions On October 1, , the Tribunal convicted 19 of the defendants and acquitted three. List of Executions. Subsequent Nuremberg Trials From December to April , a series of twelve additional military tribunals for war crimes against Nazi Germany leaders were held by the United States in the Palace of Justice.
Unfortunately, most perpetrators have never been tried or punished. Nevertheless, the postwar trials did set important legal precedents. Today, international and domestic tribunals seek to uphold the principle that those who commit wartime atrocities should be brought to justice. The Nuremberg trials are the best known of the postwar trials. In the postwar period, tens of thousands of German perpetrators and their non-German collaborators were tried by courts in Germany or in the nations that Germany occupied during World War II or that collaborated with the Germans in the persecution of civilian populations.
Efforts to bring the perpetrators of Nazi crimes to justice have persisted well into the 21st century. The trials of perpetrators of Nazi crimes set lasting legal precedents and helped to establish the now widely accepted principle that crimes like genocide and crimes against humanity should not go unpunished. Before World War II , trials had never played a major role in efforts to restore peace after international conflict.
After World War I, for example, the victorious Allies forced Germany to give up territory and pay large sums in reparations as punishment for waging an aggressive war. During World War II, however, as Nazi Germany and its Axis allies committed atrocities on a massive scale, trying those responsible for such crimes in a court of law became one of the war aims of the Allied powers. The declaration stated that at the time of an armistice, Germans deemed responsible for atrocities would be sent back to those countries in which the crimes had been committed.
There, they would be judged and punished according to the laws of the nation concerned. It assigned the IMT jurisdiction over crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, which include such crimes as "murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation The most famous of the war crimes trials held after the war is the trial of 22 leading German officials before the IMT in Nuremberg. This trial began on November 20, The IMT reached its verdict on October 1, , convicting 19 of the defendants and acquitting 3.
The IMT sentenced 3 defendants to life imprisonment and 4 to prison terms ranging from 10 to 20 years. These trials are often referred to collectively as the Subsequent Nuremberg Proceedings.
Between December and April , US prosecutors tried persons and won convictions of 97 defendants. Among the groups who stood trial were: leading physicians; Einsatzgruppen members; members of the German justice administration and German Foreign Office; members of the German High Command; and leading German industrialists.
In the immediate postwar years, each of the four Allied powers occupying Germany and Austria—France, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and the United States — tried a variety of perpetrators for wartime offenses committed within their zone of occupation. The overwhelming majority of these post war crimes trials involved lower-level Nazi officials and functionaries. Much of our early knowledge of the German concentration camp system comes from the evidence and eyewitness testimonies at some of these trials.
Allied occupation officials saw the reconstruction of the German court system as an important step in the denazification of Germany. Allied Control Council Law No. In , Germany was formally divided into two separate countries. Both countries continued to hold trials against Nazi-era defendants in the following decades. In the early morning hours of October 16, , the Nazi war criminals were hanged one-by-one from a scaffolding erected in a prison gymnasium.
The executions, which took nearly two hours to complete, were administered by the U. The U. Army denied the report. While the trial of the 24 high-ranking Nazi leaders before the international tribunal was the most notable of the judicial proceedings held at Nuremberg, 12 additional trials occurred there between and Growing differences among the Allies as the Cold War began caused the subsequent trials to be conducted before U.
But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! Twice a week we compile our most fascinating features and deliver them straight to you. Live TV. This Day In History. History Vault. Nuremberg was chosen as the location for the trials because of its symbolic value.
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