Nuremberg Trials: A History from Beginning to End; Hourly History.

................................................................................................

Nuremberg Trials: A History

from Beginning to End

Hourly History.

................................................................................................

Worth reading, especially one hasn't time for works by William Shirer.

................................................................................................

"As the Allied leaders met in 1942 to plan their strategy against the Nazi conquests that were redrawing the map of Europe, they did not only have military matters on their minds. They agreed that the Nazi leaders needed to face justice for their heinous acts. Although British Prime Minister Winston Churchill was in favor of shooting the leaders, Soviet leader Josef Stalin said that in the Soviet Union, they preferred public trials for propaganda purposes. That the British leader, the product of centuries of legal tradition, should have espoused vengeance while the dictator Stalin supported a trial reveals the conundrum that faced the Allies: what to do with the Nazis?

"It was, in 1942, a hypothetical question. The Nazis virtually owned Europe thanks to their blitzkrieg victories and occupation of territory. They had already embarked on the policies of genocide that were intended to eradicate the Jews. ... "

Author assumes that world outside, specifically the Allies' leaders, knew about this genocide. That has not been admitted, if so.

" ... They had expanded their slaughter to include peoples they regarded as subhuman—not only the Jews, but the Slavs, Romani, homosexuals, and the mentally and physically handicapped. ... "

Again, that these things were known before Germany was defeated, or even pushed back, hasn't been admitted.

Has it?

" ... Anyone who stood in their way was an enemy; anyone who did not accept Germany’s right to subjugate what they deemed lesser beings was a traitor.

"The roots of their hatred for Jews ran deep. Although Jews had fought for Germany in the First World War, Adolf Hitler rose to power by insisting that Germany would have won the war if it had not been for the enemies at home. Germany had not been defeated in battle, he exclaimed, and his followers eagerly adopted his hateful policies. The Nazi Party came to power in 1933. By that time, their rallies in Nuremberg were already established as the stage upon which Hitler mesmerized his fanatical audiences with his promise that the Third Reich would achieve its deserved dominance over Europe, elevating the Aryan man above lesser humans. The rallies featured swastikas, the music of Wagner, goose-stepping marches, and of course, inflammatory orations by Hitler and his leaders."

Both words, Aryan and Swastika, are stolen from Sanskrit and from India. In addition, the originals have been twisted, not only literally, but far more horribly in their meaning.

The original word is Aarya, and is not about race, definitely not about any physical characteristics that define Europe, but about culture and conduct of the utmost enlightened bringing up that was defined in India's ancient culture.

The original symbol Swastika was twisted in its depictions and usage by nazis. The name of the symbol, Swastika, literally means Well-Being, in Sanskrit. It's a powerful occult symbol of antiquity, and if used for nefarious purposes or inappropriately, will turn on yhe user. This happened to Germany, which ultimately saw not only defeat but destruction.

................................................................................................

"When the tide of war turned and it became apparent that the Allies would win, the subject of a trial for war crimes rose to the top of the agenda. What better city for the site of the trial than Nuremberg? Although the Soviets wanted the trial to be held in the capital of Germany, Berlin had suffered massive bombing during the war. Nuremberg, on the other hand, had the Palace of Justice which, with some renovation, could host the trial, and the Grand Hotel, where reporters and other observers could stay."

Those matters were comparatively of secondary importance than the symbolism of Nuremberg, which also, apart from the nazi rallies, had been planned to receive major nazi renewal in terms of mind-bogglingly stupendous architecture, second only to Berlin.

"The suicide of Adolf Hitler and the death of President Franklin D. Roosevelt in April 1945 did not deter the determination to hold the war crimes trial. ... "

Latter event was celebrated by Hitler, who thought he'd certainly win now; he'd been abusive of FDR and attributed it to a Jewish lineage of the latter.

But recent researches, shown on an infochannel (Discovery?) documentary in recent years, state that Hitler escaped via Canaries in a submarine across South Atlantic, and lived out his life in a fortified fortress in a remote place surrounded by forests, and came occasionally out into society of his former associates who had managed to escaped across the South Atlantic.

" ... While some felt that a trial could accomplish nothing, others felt it necessary to establish the foundation for a judicial process that would punish the perpetrators of what would be described as crimes against humanity. Hitler could not be tried, but there were other Nazi leaders, most notably Hermann Goering, who were alive and could be brought to justice. Upon taking office, President Harry Truman was intent upon fulfilling the intentions of FDR to bring the war criminals to trial.

................................................................................................

"In the end, the Nuremberg trials consisted of thirteen trials involving more than one hundred defendants. The most famous of the trials was the first one, which involved determining the guilt or innocence of major Nazi leaders accused of being war criminals. Other trials included the Justice Trial involving sixteen German judges and Reich Ministry officials. Others included the Doctors’ Trial and the Einsatzgruppen Trial. When people hear of the Nuremberg trials, what usually comes to mind is the legal proceedings that brought Nazi leaders like Hermann Goering to face an international tribunal.

"In order to prosecute the Nazis, the attorneys decided that their case would be strongest if it were built upon the records and documents that the Nazis themselves had written. The Germans, as the chaotic end of the war made it apparent that they would not be the victors, had tried to destroy evidence of what they had done. Still, they could not get rid of all the records, and when the trial began, Allied prosecutors had approximately 3,000 tons of documents to submit as proof of what the Nazis had done."

Fact is, despite orders, nazis had delayed destruction of the papers, because they didn't believe Germany would lose, despite enemy being at the doors.

................................................................................................

"By the time the trials concluded, 199 defendants were tried, 161 convicted, and 37 sentenced to death."

Majority, however, not only escaped prosecution, but were certified innocent, mostly with help of church and local authorities, who knew them personally; great many escaped to lands across South Atlantic, using help of Vatican and Red Cross, and certifying one another as not war criminals. Some escaped to West Asia where some nations were intent on employing them. And, surprisingly, some escaped to US, not known or discovered publicly for most part, except very few.

"For some, the Nuremberg trials provided a legal indictment of the evils of the Nazi regime. While the defendants admitted that the crimes had taken place, they said that they were innocent of any crime because they had been following orders administered by a higher authority. The ignominy of their executions demonstrated that in the eyes of the world, Nazism was an evil which had to be punished. The Germany that rose from the ashes of the Nazi regime has been one where democracy is prized and the events of the Holocaust are condemned."

Officially so, yes. Privately, in their hearts, as taught in families, the picture might be very different.

An English colleague in Germany was told by a real estate dealer, when he'd balked at a house for rent bring 'not for foreigners', that he wasn't 'that kind of foreigner'.

Another, a born and brought up US citizen, a woman of the 'right' race too, incidentally, who'd narried a German and works in a highly reputed multinational concern in Germany, was told in street by a German to "go back to Turkey ", because she was speaking to her husband in English.

"However, FDR’s hope that the Nuremberg trials would render war illegal has not come to pass, nor is there any likelihood that it will ever happen. Wars continue to abound all over the globe, atrocities remain, and genocide is as prevalent as ever. Nonetheless, the Nuremberg trials were not a hollow assertion of victor’s justice; they established the foundation for a legal process by which the international legal community can accuse those who violate the standards of acceptable human conduct."

................................................................................................

"“The conscience of the peoples, who only yesterday were enslaved and tortured both in soul and body, calls upon you to judge and to condemn the monstrous attempt at domination and barbarism of all times.”

"—Francois de Menthon"

What could be milder description for enslave, torture, work to death, starve, and massacre, than "domination and barbarism"?

................................................................................................

"The Third Reich was intended to last one thousand years according to Adolf Hitler. In his role as the leader of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party and then as the chancellor of Germany, Hitler predicted that not only would Germany rise up as a superpower from the humiliating defeat the nation had suffered during World War I, but also as the super race, dominating the ethnic groups that the Nazis despised. ... "

Most people have, in an effort to be fair and imagining that that amounts to equal considerations for whatever each side says, have, in an effort to be fair, accepted the German claim that Germany had a "humiliating defeat" in WWI, forgetting the fact that Germany had no business stretching a local dispute between Serbia and Austria-Hungary into a war that became continental, to say the least. Had Germany not declared war on Russia, there would be no WWI.

But worse is the acceptance of post WWI German claims that French terms were vindictive and unfair, and German babies were starving to death because of French war reparations demanded.

Germany had imposed, whenever it won, far more reparations on countries it occupied or defeated, to begin with.

France had suffered humongous due to German forces inflicting destruction on forests, fields and homes in France, apart from loss of millions of young men.

But even more to the point, while Germany claimed German babies were starving to death, in reality Germany was depending huge quantities of gold marks in covert efforts to spread discontent in France politically, in an effort to wreck France financially by paying provocateurs for agitations and industrial havoc.

Those gold marks should have paid for needs of the babies in Germany, if Germany were honest.

But it was a bully that was humiliated because of being defeated in not standing over a destroyed Europe, except for Russia which did get destroyed in large part, especially the massacres wreaked on Romanov clans - a personal vendetta by Cousin Willy who'd felt humiliated by cousin Alexandra who rejected him and married Nicholas instead.

" ... At the Nazi Party rallies at Nuremberg between 1927 and 1938, Hitler reminded Germany of its great destiny. Germany had not been defeated in World War I, he proclaimed. Germany had not lost on the battlefield but had been betrayed at home by the Jews, the Communists, and the enemies who had stabbed the great nation in the back. The crowds at Nuremberg, euphoric over Hitler’s promise of a Germany reborn, responded with fervor to his vow that the enemies of the state would pay for their betrayal."

Blaming everyone else other than the real one at fault is typical of a base, ignoble character, not good enough to lead - and German leaders were manipulated into accepting such a leadership, not voted into power by German people.

................................................................................................

"Before Germany began its military conquest of Europe, the first targets of the Nazi regime were those that Hitler blamed for the defeat in the previous war. Jews and Slavs would be the targets of Nazi violence, and victims also included the mentally ill, the handicapped, the Romani, homosexuals, and anyone who did not fit the Nazi definition of German. As the boundaries of Germany spread with military conquest, it became easier to establish sites where Nazi atrocities could be implemented upon occupied lands. It seemed as if the Third Reich would last forever, and with such a future, there was no need to worry about what the world would think if the truth ever emerged."

It had been all planned, set in writing and generals informed personally by Hitler thereof in a high level secret conference in winter of 1938-39, including the dates of invasions of Poland (carried out almost exactly on the planned date), and also Russia, which got pushed by weeks due to Hitler being incensed at Balkan and ordering his forces to teach them a lesson, which cost precious weeks, delaying invasion of Russia, fatally for nazis - and fortunately for the world.

"By the winter of 1945, however, the fortunes of the Nazi war machine had dramatically altered. The blitzkrieg successes earlier in the decade were gone. Now the Russians were advancing after Germany’s disastrous defeat on the Eastern Front. Not only did the German military have to face the prospect of the Red Army intent on victory and revenge, but they also knew that they had to try to eradicate all evidence of what they had done since the Nazi Party ascended to power in 1933."

No, as a matter of fact, they'd been ordered to do so by top nazi leaders, but did not do so until it was too late; also, there's a confusion there by the author, in saying -

" ... Not only did the German military have to face the prospect of the Red Army intent on victory and revenge, but they also knew that they had to try to eradicate all evidence of what they had done since the Nazi Party ascended to power in 1933."

- there's confusion there, between military that was facing defeat, and nazis responsible for the atrocities who'd been responsible for atrocitiesperpetrated since 1933, and had been ordered to destroy documents related thereto.

................................................................................................

"The concentration camps were the most blatant source of incrimination against the Nazis. By this point, the Nazis had assembled more than 42,000 centers for incarcerating their enemies, which meant that, if they were going to hide their crimes, they had a lot to do and not much time to do it. A series of forced marches were undertaken, during which the Nazis attempted to move their prisoners away from the front and into Germany proper. The starved, weak, and ailing concentration camp inmates were forced to walk to their destinations as their guards murdered the prisoners who attempted to escape, shooting the ones who fell behind due to exhaustion."

Over half a century later, it's heartbreaking to read memoirs of survivors of the Holocaust. It's very informative, too, of various details not usually discussed.

"Auschwitz, the Nazi death camp located in occupied Poland, awaited the Russian and American forces approaching from the east and the west. More than a million prisoners of the camp had already been killed—6,000 Jews were put to death each day—and more were destined to die in the forthcoming death march. As the Nazis sought to empty the notorious camp, marching the inmates to other camps that were sometimes hundreds of miles away, teenager Shmuel Beller saw the guards shoot the prisoners who fell behind from exhaustion, some of them women and children."

This has been mentioned in every memoir by every survivor who wrote one, if they'd been on such a march, which was often enough the case.

................................................................................................

"Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS, had already begun to read the writing on the wall in November of 1944 when he issued an order to destroy the gas chambers at the largest of the three main camps at Auschwitz, even though Adolf Hitler had previously given an order that the remaining Jews left in Europe must be destroyed. But by the end of 1944, the camp officials could see the way the war was going and they heeded Himmler. They dismantled part of the gas chambers. Meanwhile, the Sonderkommando, the Jews whose macabre duty it had been to operate the chambers, were ordered to do the breaking down of the facility.

"By January, as the Soviets drew nearer, the Germans blew up the remaining structures, leaving ruins behind. At the same time, approximately 60,000 prisoners were assembled into columns to march out of the camp. The remaining 7,000 left behind were regarded as too weak to make the journey out of southern Poland en route to Germany. The conditions were grueling and barbaric, even compared to what they had endured inside the camp. The German plan was to continue to make use of the inmates by using them as slave labor within the Reich.

"Of those left in the camps because they were regarded as too weak to make what the Germans called an “evacuation,” 700 were killed by the SS. Yet the chaos that was beginning to overcome the government had spread to the camps as well, and the guards started to realize that they had to look out for their own welfare. Some officers chose to flee. The ones who remained at their posts began to burn the documents that attested to the activities of the camp.

................................................................................................

"When the Soviets reached the camp on January 27, 1945, they found evidence that the harried Nazis had not been able to destroy: there were the emaciated prisoners, the children who had been the victims of grotesque medical experiments, and the storerooms where personal belongings that had belonged to the prisoners had been stored, including more than 7.7 tons of human hair, 370,000 men’s suits, and 837,000 women’s coats and dresses.

"Although the Soviet soldiers did what they could to provide aid for the doomed prisoners, half of the 7,000 died not long after the camp was liberated, the advance of their starvation and disease too pronounced to be mediated. Those who were left were displaced persons; in many cases, they had no home to return to, as the map of Europe had been so thoroughly fragmented by the Nazi occupation of the continent."

That sentence - "they had no home to return to", was most often correct, but for more specific reasons. Jews had been deprived of their homes, given to others while the jews were forced into ghettos prior to being transported to extermination camps, and whole families, whole clans were massacred, few survivors left having most often no families.

That "the map of Europe had been so thoroughly fragmented" is a non-sequitur, however true in this context; while regions had changed hands often in these few years, and again after the war, survivors did something a choice of destination, through helping agencies.

It was rarely their old hometowns, where others had taken their homes.

"As their defeat loomed, the Nazis held to the desperate hope that their secrets could not be revealed by the dead. Yet because of the decision to try the Nazis for their crimes, the dead victims would have a voice that would cry out to the world and be heard. The evidence that the Nazis sought to destroy in order to conceal the extent of their barbaric deeds was too overwhelming to be hidden. It was there in photographs, in mass graves, in documents, and it was there in the form of the survivors. Nuremberg, once the scene for Nazi spectacle, would be where the voices of the victims would be heard."

................................................................................................

"“All who shared in the guilt shall share in the punishment.”

"—Franklin D. Roosevelt"

................................................................................................

"Everyone on the Allied side agreed that retribution was necessary, but there was no single consensus of opinion on just how to bring justice to the Nazis for the crimes they had committed.

"Almost from the beginning of the alliance, the Allies had sought a way to accuse the Nazis for their systematic slaughter of the victims of their policy of racial purity. Victory in World War II for the Allies was far from a foregone conclusion in December 1942. Nonetheless, Franklin D. Roosevelt of the United States, Winston Churchill of Great Britain, and Josef Stalin of the U.S.S.R. issued their first joint declaration noting the mass murder of the Jews of Europe with a resolution to prosecute the ones responsible."

They knew?????!!!!

"The Soviets and the British, who had directly suffered from the Nazi attacks, were more punitive in their intentions than the Americans. At one point, Stalin proposed trying and executing as many as 100,000 German staff officers. Churchill suggested executing high-ranking Nazis without a trial. But the Americans believed that a criminal trial would document the charges and avoid subsequent accusations that the defendants were condemned without evidence.

"The following year, the war continued, and while the Allies were having some success, the Nazis still controlled Europe and gave every indication that they intended to own the continent and do what they pleased with its civilians. In the Moscow Declaration of October 1943, the Allied leaders—again Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin—stated that the Nazi war criminals would be brought to justice. “All who shared in the guilt,” FDR stated, “shall share in the punishment.”"

Author's saying -

"Nazis still controlled Europe and gave every indication that they intended to own the continent and do what they pleased with its civilians"

- here, means, two million people killed in whole villages destroyed with fire and people burnt alive in toto, shot dead if attempting to escape.

................................................................................................

"Punishment, however, was likely to be complicated, and by the end of the war, the thirst for vengeance was rampant. Churchill wanted to see the Nazi leaders hunted down and shot. The U.S. Treasury Secretary, Henry Morgenthau, concurred, proposing that Germany’s economy should be reverted to agricultural rather than industrial and the leaders shot. New York newspapers got hold of what was called the Morgenthau Plan and leaked it, causing outrage among the public."

That last bit is surprising, until one realises just how much inroads had been made by nazis in US social fabric, deliberately planting agents of various sorts carrying out activities from high society teas attended by handsome tall blond blue eyed young German males who deprecated propaganda against nazis, while pamphlets were printed and mailed at expenses of US taxpayers through a senator or congressman allowing use of his franking, and street rallies had old Jews - who happened to be walking by - beaten seemingly with rolled newspapers that in reality hid it on rods, so they had cracked skulls, while policemen watched.

That US had a large contingent of German speaking population, especially in states in middle, was perhaps relevant, perhaps not so much, to proliferation of nazi sympathisers, but certainly was to sympathy for Germany.

................................................................................................

"Secretary of War Henry Stimson recommended trying Nazi organizations, like the Gestapo, for criminal conspiracy. Stimson convinced President Roosevelt that execution of the Nazi leaders would constitute vengeance rather than justice. A war crimes tribunal, on the other hand, would not only present the case in a judicial environment, but it also had the possible outcome of making war illegal.

"Then, FDR died just as the Nazi empire was in its death throes. President Harry Truman, who succeeded Roosevelt, gave his support to the idea of holding a trial. He named Robert H. Jackson, an associate justice on the Supreme Court, as the Chief of Counsel, and initiated the process for an international trial.

"The leaders of the Allied countries, including France, signed the London Charter of the International Military Tribunal (IMT) in August 1945, creating the court which would try the Nazi cases. This was a unique judicial experiment with no precedent and no ground rules. Who was to be put on trial? What would the charges be? Where should the trials be held?

"Perceiving the need for more than the definition of war crimes that were outlined by the Geneva Conventions, the Allies sought to prosecute the Nazis for waging aggressive war, violating sovereignty, and perpetrating crimes against humanity. Because these charges had not been defined according to international law, the Allies faced accusations that they were punishing people for actions which had not been established as crimes at the time that they had been committed. Nor were Allied acts of aggression to be considered.

................................................................................................

"Nonetheless, for the first time, political and military leaders would be held accountable by an international authority for the atrocities that had been committed in the name of a state. ... "

"Robert H. Jackson acknowledged that the participants in the London Agreement discussions wrangled over certain points. Nevertheless, Jackson believed in the ultimate purpose of the trials, and with that far-off goal in mind, he set himself to devising a framework that would allow the prosecution to proceed. In order to do this, it was necessary to avoid a scenario which would permit the Germans to assert that they could not be charged for actions that had not been illegal when they were committed. Nor could they make the assertion that the Allies had also violated the Geneva Convention.

"In the end, there were four charges brought against the Nazi defendants:

"Count One: Conspiracy to wage aggressive war, which would address the crimes that had been committed before the start of the war. This count would be argued by the Americans.

"Count Two: Waging an aggressive war or crimes against peace, which tackled the undertaking of war in violation of international treaties and assurances. British prosecutors would present the argument on Count Two.

"Count Three: War crimes, which was concerned with the killing and mistreatment of prisoners of war, the use of slave labor, bombing of civilian populations, retaliatory killings, violations of the Hague and Geneva Conventions, and the use of outlawed weapons. Count Three was to be presented by a collaboration between the French and Soviet prosecutors.

"Count Four: Crimes against humanity, also to be presented by the French and the Soviets, would pursue justice for the Jews, ethnic minorities, the physically and mentally handicapped, civilians in occupied countries, and others.

................................................................................................

"Still, there were some who were troubled by the justification for the trials as well as the format that the trials would follow. The trials would adhere to the Anglo-American and not the European procedure. The defendants would not have a voice in the selection of the eight presiding judges, the defendants had no right to appeal the final verdicts, and actual international law was not the basis for the London Agreement.

"In response, the team of 46 prosecutors led by Jackson agreed that the defendants could select their own attorneys, who would be provided with legal help, should they want it, the cost to be borne by the London Agreement. The defendants would also be able to appeal their verdict to the Allied Control Council.

"Although the Soviets felt that the trials should be held in Berlin, Germany’s capital, the other countries saw Nuremberg as the proper setting. It had a symbolic significance as the location of the annual Nazi Party rally, and it was through the Nuremberg Laws that Hitler had deprived German Jews of their civil rights. Also, Nuremberg had not been bombed as badly as Berlin and the city’s Palace of Justice and accompanying prison could be modified for use. In addition, Nuremberg was located in the American sector of Germany after the country been divided into four sections, each under the control of one of the four Allied countries.

................................................................................................

"Nevertheless, the city of Nuremberg had to prepare for the trial of the century. Restoration work was soon underway on the Palace of Justice, although it had largely escaped damage by Allied bombers. It contained 20 courtrooms and a prison capable of holding 1,200 prisoners. The Allies doubled the main courtroom in size and built visitors’ and press galleries.

"Meanwhile, the American prosecutorial staff, along with hundreds more from the Soviets, French and British, had been interviewing witnesses and identifying significant documents captured from the Germans. The Nazi defendants were meeting with their German attorneys, some of them Nazis as well, to get ready for the trial. Media personnel from all over the globe found lodgings in the Grand Hotel and anywhere else available so that they would have a place to stay during the trial; in the meantime, they occupied their time with the writing of feature articles about the trial.

"The trial would be the first of its kind, and there were inherent challenges posed by an international tribunal on the world stage. The combination of languages—English, French, German, Russian—to be in daily use during the proceedings required a means of translation that would not bog down the trials. IBM had recently developed an instantaneous translation system that would enable every participant in the trial to hear real-time translations via headsets. The microphones were equipped with yellow lights reminding those speaking to do so slowly for the benefit of the translators; red lights indicated the need to stop and repeat a statement that had been made. Because of this simultaneous translation, the trial would proceed four times faster than it would have if only consecutive translation had been available. The length of the trial and the volume of evidence would provide ample time to prove the guilt of the Nazi regime."

................................................................................................

"“What we propose is to punish acts which have been regarded as criminal since the time of Cain and have been so written in every civilized code.”

"—Robert H. Jackson"

................................................................................................

"Six days after the signing of the Charter of the International Military Tribunal, which outlined the procedures for the Nuremberg trials, a cargo plane with most of the major Nazi war trial defendants on board landed in Nuremberg. The prisoners were loaded into ambulances by Allied military personnel and taken to a cell block in the Palace of Justice. There the defendants would stay for the next fourteen months.

"The prison guards, who were equipped with blackjacks but not guns, had strict orders on how to treat their notorious prisoners. Conversations between prisoners and guards were to remain brief. Eyes were to be kept on the prisoners at all times, with only two-second breaks to look elsewhere. There were no locks on the doors and keys were not used. The doors to the cells were bolted on the outside, three-quarters of the way down the door. There was a 15-inch square window in each cell door so that the prisoners were under surveillance, even when they went to the bathroom, for 24 hours a day. They had to sleep with their hands outside the blankets. At ten o’clock at night, when the lights dimmed, the guards put up a screen in front of the window and hooked up a lamp with a shield around it so that it could shine into the cell. The prisoners slept in the light.

"The prisoners were allowed to attend church services, although Hermann Goering’s guard was dubious that the famed Nazi attended church out of religious zeal. His guard noted that “the only reason he went to church (is that) Goering didn’t like . . . to be confined to his cell.”

................................................................................................

"The judges may have felt that they were sequestered as well, admittedly under very different circumstances, as the IMT met for the first time on October 13, 1945.

"The four chief prosecutors of the IMT were also from the four Allied nations. By choosing Robert H. Jackson to represent the United States, President Truman demonstrated that the Americans regarded the trials as a momentous and serious episode in the pursuit of justice. The other Allied nations were led to choose their own prosecutors with equal regard: Sir Hartley Shawcross of Great Britain, Francois de Menthon of France, who would later be replaced by Auguste Champetier de Ribes, and Roman Rudenko of the Soviet Union.

"Upon taking office after FDR’s death, Harry Truman fired the current attorney general Francis Biddle but appointed him as a judge for Nuremberg. As alternate, he named John Parker, who had been a potential Supreme Court justice were it not for his rulings against the labor unions. Truman didn’t want to upset labor, and so he deftly managed to give Parker a prestigious assignment while having the freedom to appoint someone else to the vacancy on the Supreme Court.

"Great Britain chose Sir Geoffrey Lawrence as their primary judge. The British alternate justice, Norman Birkett, was one of the nation’s foremost criminal lawyers and had famously represented Wallis Simpson in her 1936 divorce which freed her to marry King Edward VIII.

"The French judges had bilingualism in their favor; Henri Donnedieu de Vabres spoke German fluently, while the alternate, Robert Falco, who had served on the highest French Court, spoke English.

"The Soviet Union’s Iona Nikitchenko had been a prosecutor but was then named a judge. Alternate Alexander Volchkov had previously been a diplomat, prosecutor, and criminal judge.

"The alternate judges did not have an official vote in any of the decisions, but they still had a role to play during the eight months of evidence and testimony.

................................................................................................

"The search for documentary evidence that the prosecutors could use began immediately after Jackson was appointed as prosecutor. The Office of the United States Chief of Counsel had a staff of more than 600 working on building the case against the Nazis. The IMT quickly obtained copies of the Nuremberg Laws, which had been adopted by the Nazi government in 1935. The originals of the laws would have presented a powerfully damning piece of evidence, as defendants Wilhelm Frick and Rudolf Hess had signed them. However, unbeknownst to the prosecutors, the originals were in possession of American general—and collector—George S. Patton. He had been given the original Nuremberg Laws but had neglected to deliver them to the appropriate authorities. Instead, Patton had defied the directive by General Dwight D. Eisenhower regarding the seizure of German government records and brought them home with him to California after the end of the war. Luckily, there were other pieces of evidence for the prosecution to use."

This is a strong evidence of definite misbehaviour on part of the famous man, not mentioned generally, including in the film on his life which leads one to think that his superiors had been unfair in sidelining him, perhaps only for an abusive word or so.

But that was unfair depiction of the said superiors, even if only implicit, and this misbehaviour mentioned here must have been part of a character pattern they saw.

................................................................................................

"On October 6, 1945, the International Military Tribunal’s four chief prosecutors handed down indictments against 24 high-ranking Nazi officials, including Hermann Goering, Rudolf Hess, Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, Head of the Armed Forces Wilhelm Keitel, Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick, Head of Security Forces Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Governor-General of Occupied Poland Hans Frank, Governor of Bohemia and Moravia Konstantin von Neurath, Head of the Navy Erich Raeder and his successor Karl Doenitz, Armed Forces Commander Alfred Jodl, Minister of Occupied Eastern Territories Alfred Rosenberg, Hitler Youth Head Baldur von Schirach, Nazi publisher Julius Streicher, Forced Labor Allocation Head Fritz Sauckel, Armaments Minister Albert Speer, and Commissioner for the Occupied Netherlands Arthur Seyss-Inquart.

"Adolf Hitler, of course, had already committed suicide on April 30, 1945, after he realized that there was no hope of escaping the advancing Soviet army. ... "

Recent research suspects otherwise, indicating that he'd been spirited out via a submarine from Canaries across South Atlantic, and lived out his life quietly in a fortified bunker-like little fortress in a remote location in forests, occasionally outing amongst a vlmpany of his erstwhile fellow nazis who'd Aldo managed to escape across South Atlantic.

" ... His secretary Martin Bormann obeyed the Führer’s order to burn his body and that of his wife, Eva Braun, in the Reich chancellery garden."

Probably a double.

................................................................................................

"Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels, who became the chancellor of Germany following Adolf Hitler’s death, committed suicide, along with his wife, on May 1, and not before poisoning their six children. Head of the SS Heinrich Himmler also committed suicide a few weeks later on May 23, one day after he was captured by the British. He swallowed a cyanide crystal during his physical examination and died within minutes.

"These ringleaders of the Nazi reign of terror could not be tried for their crimes. The day after Hitler’s suicide, Martin Bormann left the bunker, taking with him Hitler’s final orders to Admiral Karl Doenitz. He seemed to vanish from history after this point, although sightings were reported of him. In any case, Bormann was to be tried in absentia by the IMT.

................................................................................................

"Of the 24 indicted Nazi leaders, 22 were tried: one, Robert Ley, had committed suicide while in custody; another, Gustav Krupp, was declared medically unfit due to illness. Now the world would see the Nazis who had exercised such power over Germany and indeed, Europe, during the years of the war."

Goering, too, committed suicide before he could be executed as per judgement.

"The court adjourned to Nuremberg for the Trial of Major War Criminals on November 20, 1945; it would last until October 1, 1946."

................................................................................................

"“This trial, which is now to begin, is unique in the annals of jurisprudence.”

"—Sir Geoffrey Lawrence"

................................................................................................

"After the indictments had been delivered, the stage was set for the trials to begin. The courtroom was waiting for the pantheon of Nazi defendants who began the day in a manner far removed from what they would have when they were leaders in the Nazi Party. The defendants, once the masters of their regime, were awakened at six o’clock on the morning of November 20, 1945, had a breakfast of oatmeal and coffee, shaved and dressed. ..."

Late November in Germany, six in the morning - German clock set to Berlin time, so local time around five, dark and cold, unheated rooms? And the breakfast probably a torture in its sparse simplicity, especially for Goering, used to his private palatial estate where he had huge fare for every meal for guests as well!

" ... Their garb for court consisted of uniforms minus the pageantry of insignias for the military defendants and suits and ties for the civilians. ... "

Another specific torture for Goering personally, who had assigned himself several offices, several designations and designed uniforms of splendour.

" ... At nine in the morning, they were taken through the prison’s covered walkway to an elevator that opened into the prisoners’ dock in the courtroom. There, they were seated in the order that their names appeared on the indictment."

That'd keep Goering away from Hitler’s architect, who argued for accepting responsibility despite individual lack of guilt, for sake of Germany.

Where did they seat Hess?

"At 9:30 that morning, 250 journalists entered the courtroom, representing 23 different countries. The journalists who gathered in Nuremberg included some of the media’s most celebrates names: Walter Cronkite for the United Press, Howard K. Smith and William L. Shirer for CBS radio, Janet Flanner and Rebecca West for the New Yorker, Drew Middleton for The New York Times, Marguerite Higgins representing the New York Herald Tribune, Wes Gallagher for the Associated Press, and John Dos Passos for Life."

Note, Shirer was there.

................................................................................................

"At 10:00 am, the International Military Tribunal court convened. The judges representing Great Britain, France, the United States, and the Soviet Union took their seats at the bench. The president of the tribunal, Sir Geoffrey Lawrence of Great Britain, rapped his gavel and the trial was underway. The American Francis Biddle had wanted to be the chief judge, but Robert Jackson wished to counter the perception that the Americans were playing an outsized role in the proceedings and he pressed Biddle to support the naming of Lawrence to the position, which came to pass with votes from the British, French, and Americans.

"Not long after Lawrence rapped the oak gavel to open the proceedings, his gavel was actually stolen. Lawrence had to restore order in the courtroom by tapping a pen or pencil for the duration of the trial."

Theft committed by a local?

"The first day of the trial was spent almost entirely on the reading of the indictments. Before lunchtime on the second day, the defendants entered their pleas of “not guilty.” Hermann Goering, who had written a speech to go with his plea, was cut off from speaking by Lawrence.

"Rudolf Hess was much more concise, simply yelling, “Nein!” (“No!”) when it was his turn to speak.

................................................................................................

"That afternoon, Robert Jackson, who headed a legal team made up of more than 640 lawyers, researchers, secretaries, and guards, delivered the opening statements of the trial, speaking for over five hours. Jackson used the writings from the Nazis, who had been such sticklers for documentation, to build his case.

"One of the prosecution staff observed, “The documentary evidence . . . is just unbelievable. Their own reports illustrated with pictures are far better than any of the studies we have compiled on the persecution of Jews, crimes against humanity, etc. The Germans certainly believed in putting everything in writing.” This process of relying not on the interrogation of witnesses but on the original documents which were the basis of Nazi policies helped to keep the trial moving at a swift pace.

................................................................................................

"When the British main prosecutor, Sir Hartley Shawcross, delivered his opening remarks, he read from an affidavit given by a German construction worker who had witnessed the doomed fate of Jews in a Ukrainian town. An SS unit assigned to the town had shot 5,000 Jews in a single afternoon, burying the corpses in a pit.

"Jackson was convinced that the documents from the Nazis would build the foundation for the case, but others felt that documents were not enough and that the case needed to elicit a visceral reaction in order to fully present the crimes of the Nazis. On November 29, a black and white film from George Stevens, a Hollywood director who had served as a lieutenant colonel during the war and had been placed in charge of a film unit, was presented. General Eisenhower had assigned Stevens to the task of filming what the Allied soldiers witnessed as they advanced upon the camps in the spring of 1944. The film, Nazi Concentration Camps, showed the stacks of bodies piled up at the camps at Buchenwald, Bergen-Belsen, and Dachau; it also showed the survivors, barely alive after all they had endured.

"After that film ended, a second film was shown, one which portrayed SS soldiers in the act of killing civilians in different ways. The courtroom lights returned once the films had been viewed, but the effect was so powerful that Judge Lawrence left the courtroom and did not return for the rest of the day. The impact on the Nazi defendants was mixed; von Ribbentrop, Hans Frank, and Walther Funk seemed shocked by the images on the film, but Hjalmar Schacht turned his back to the screen. Hermann Goering seemed irritated by the presentation of the film, writing “they showed that awful film, and it just spoiled everything.”"

................................................................................................

"“That four great nations, flushed with victory and stung with injury, stay the hand of vengeance and voluntarily submit their captive enemies to the judgment of law is one of the most significant tributes that power has ever paid to reason.”

"—Robert H. Jackson"

................................................................................................

"The prosecution had divided its case into two phases. The first phase set forth the criminality of the different aspects of the Nazi rule while the second phase focused upon the guilt of the individuals who had been indicted. The prosecution began its first phase by asserting that the invasion of Austria was an act of aggressive warfare.

"Establishing a definition of the Nazi invasions as aggressive warfare, and proving that aggressive warfare was an international crime, had been a challenge for the legal representatives. Over the course of the summer of 1945, they had negotiated fiercely over the finer points of the position that Robert Jackson emphatically held. Weeks of discussion and debates on the concepts of individual responsibility, state sovereignty, the definitions of aggression, retroactivity, and the causes of war had led to the development of the first International Criminal Court, which would define crimes and become the foundation of modern international law.

"That foundation of legal articulation was in place during the first weeks of the trial, as the evidence presented was designed to prove that the invasions of those nations whose borders had been invaded by Germany—namely Czechoslovakia, Poland, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg, Greece, Yugoslavia, and the Soviet Union—had been acts of aggressive warfare. Using documents, the prosecution’s case delivered evidence that the Nazis had conspired and then waged an aggressive war."

Why was France not mentioned? Or Hungary?

................................................................................................

"Sir Hartley Shawcross delivered the opening statement, followed by Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe who accused the Nazis of breaking a number of the treaties they had signed. The purpose of his argument was to show that the fundamentals of international law were applicable to the position of the court on aggressive war as outlined in Counts One and Two.

"The prosecution then highlighted the use of slave labor and the operation of the concentration camps. On December 13, Thomas Todd presented human skin, bearing tattoos, that had been tanned for use as lampshades and household objects used by Ilse Koch, the wife of Buchenwald’s commandant. Another exhibit presented by the prosecution was a shrunken head from a Polish prisoner who had been executed. Commandant Koch had used the skull as a paperweight.

"On December 17, the prosecution presented evidence against the leadership of the Nazi Party, the Reich Cabinet, and the Storm Troopers. Colonel Robert Storey, who delivered the presentation, explained that the Nazi Party was “the central core of the Common Plan or Conspiracy” and that they “embraced the commission of Crimes against the Peace, War Crimes, and Crimes against Humanity.”

"On December 18, further evidence was introduced against seven German organizations, including the leadership of the Nazi Party, the Schutzstaffel SS or Protective Squadron; the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) or Security Service; the Sturmabteilung (SA) or Storm Troopers; the German High Command, the Reich Cabinet, and the Gestapo.

................................................................................................

"Then, beginning in January, concentration camp survivors testified about the horrors they had endured. A Frenchwoman, Marie-Claude Vaillant-Couturier, who had been imprisoned at Auschwitz, recalled a night when she had been awakened by the cries of children who were thrown alive into the furnaces when the Nazis didn’t have enough gas to kill them. She recalled the sound of the orchestra made up of girl prisoners wearing white blouses and dark blue skirts, playing cheerful tunes as the trains arrived. The newly arrived prisoners were told that they were in a labor camp.

"She explained the process by which Jews were taken into the camps. When the transport arrived, the selection began; the old women, mothers and children, the sick, and the weak were told to get on-board trucks. Out of a transport of as many as 1,500, it would be rare for more than 250 to reach the camp because the rest were immediately sent to the gas chambers. Young men, young girls, and young women were kept. The ones who were kept were tattooed and had their heads shaved.

................................................................................................

"By the spring of 1944, there was a block for twins; here, Dr. Mengele would carry out his infamous experiments. By then, other changes had been made to the process of arrival as well. The train stopped a distance from the gas chamber before the soldiers pulled the men and women out. Those who were taken directly to the gas chambers were not tattooed or counted. They went straight to their death. The red brick building was labeled “Baths.” There, Marie-Claude recalled, the prisoners were told to undress and given a towel. They were directed to enter a room that looked like a shower room; the gas capsules were then thrown into the shower room through a hole in the ceiling. After five to seven minutes, an SS observer who was watching the proceedings through a spy hole gave the signal to open the doors. Prisoners wearing gas masks went in and removed the bodies. The prisoners must have suffered because they were clinging together and the bodies were hard to separate.

"On February 18, 1946, the Soviet prosecutors presented a film called Documentary Evidence of the German Fascist Invaders. The Soviets had captured the footage from the Germans and added Russian narration. In one scene, a boy was shot because he had not given his pet dove to an SS officer. In another, German soldiers are shown smiling as they shoot naked women lying down in a ditch.

"On March 6, the prosecution rested. They had proven, without a doubt, that the Nazis had committed crimes against humanity."

................................................................................................

The chapter title, 'A Brain without a Conscience', is incorrect, since nothing of nazi behaviour can possibly lead anyone to suspect that their leaders had anything but low cunning of comparatively less evolved animals - say, pigs. Few at top amongst them could be accused of brains.

"“Once we came to power, we were determined to hold on to it under all circumstances.”

"—Hermann Goering"

That illustrates it very well.

Reading the autobiography of Speer leads one to suspect that there were a few who reading belong with the majority of nazis, and really didn't know of things that were undeniable when brought to light, especially at Nuremberg.

He was amongst the few who immediately argued with his fellow accused to accept responsibility, even if they had not personally conducted any of the said crimes or signed orders or given them, for sake of Germany, as he himself did.

But exceptions are a matter apart.

................................................................................................

"Hermann Goering’s surrender to the Americans had been arranged for May 6, 1945. At one time, he had been head of the Luftwaffe and second-in-command to Hitler, but he had fallen out of favor with the Führer and had been stripped of titles before Hitler’s suicide in late April.

"After his surrender, the fastidious Goering, who had been known to change his uniform five times a day, was allowed to bathe and change his uniform before enjoying lunch with his wife. ... "

Fastidious is wrong interpretation there, since he had several designations and had elaborate, colourful uniforms designed for each; Its a safe bet thst his changing whatever number of times wasn't for purpose of cleanliness but for a dress parade of a diva.

" ... The Goerings were even given lodgings for the night in a castle. Goering was given a welcome that evening that included drinking and singing with American officers. However, General Eisenhower, upon learning of the convivial evenings, put a stop to them at once. Then Goering, who had enjoyed being a press darling and had given interviews to the Allied media, learned from the reporters that he was going to be tried for war crimes.

"Wearing a gray uniform with yellow boots, Goering took his seat in the witness chair on March 13, 1946. Goering delivered his answers without notes. Asked by his defense attorney Otto Stahmer whether the Nazi Party had achieved its power legally, Goering replied, displaying no remorse for what the Nazis had done, that they had been determined to remain in power come what may. When asked about the concentration camps, he said they were necessary for the preservation of order and to remove danger. The concentration of power in the person of Adolf Hitler was no different, he said, than the leadership structure observed by the Catholic Church and the Soviet government. As she watched and listened to his testimony, a reporter for the New Yorker wrote that Goering was “a brain without a conscience.”"

She failed in making distinction between human with a brain and an animal with low cunning.

"On March 18, Robert Jackson began to cross-examine Goering, who defended himself with long-winded responses supporting his earlier remarks. He had opposed the invasion of the Soviet Union, he said. But on the third day of his testimony, after he had managed to deflect many of Jackson’s strategic questions, Jackson was able to press Goering. When asked if he had signed the orders that deprived German Jews of the right to own their businesses, forced them to give up their gold and jewels to the German government, and barred them from making claims for compensation for property damage done by the government, Goering had no means of escaping from his past deeds. Jackson asked him whether he had said, in response to the Kristallnacht when 815 Jewish shops were destroyed and 20,000 Jews were arrested, that “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 Germany.” Hermann Goering admitted that the quote was his."

And they dare complain about France asking Germany for reparations??? And speak of them as vindictive???!!!!

................................................................................................

"Other Nazi defendants took the stand over the next four months to make their case. Von Ribbentrop, when cross-examined, said that he had not known the scale of the concentration camps, to which the prosecutor responded with a map which showed that a number of the camps had been located near several of von Ribbentrop’s residences.

"Others defended their actions by saying that they had been following orders. The IMT did not allow the defense of obeying superior orders, but the defendants employed the response with the hope that it could provide a lighter sentence.

................................................................................................

"On April 15, Rudolf Hess, who had been the commandant of Auschwitz, was called to the stand as a witness for the defense of Ernst Kaltenbrunner, the Gestapo and SD Chief. Hess gave an account of the mass executions that took place at the camp with the use of Zyklon B gas. Sometimes, he told the court, 10,000 inmates would be killed in one day. He testified that in the summer of 1941, he was summoned by Heinrich Himmler to Berlin. There he was told that Adolf Hitler had given his order for the “Final Solution” of the Jewish question. The SS was to carry out that order; otherwise, Himmler said, the Jews would later destroy the German people. Because of its easy access by rail and because it was isolated, Auschwitz was chosen for the implementation of the plan. Himmler impressed upon Hess the need for complete secrecy regarding this plan; Hess was to tell no one. Hess admitted that he had told his wife, but asserted that he had divulged the implementation of the extermination of the Jews to no one else.

"Other defendants confessed their deeds. When asked whether he had participated in the annihilation of the Jews, Hans Frank, the Nazi Governor of Poland, admitted that he had. “My conscience does not allow me simply to throw the responsibility simply on minor people,” he said. “A thousand years will pass and still Germany’s guilt will not have been erased.” Minister of Armaments Albert Speer likewise said that “it is my unquestionable duty to assume my share of responsibility for the disaster of the German people.”

................................................................................................

"Summations for the defense were interrupted on July 6 so that the trial in absentia could proceed for Martin Bormann, the private secretary of Adolf Hitler. The Allies had been unable to locate Bormann, and rumors abounded that he was in Argentina or Spain or somewhere else. Bormann’s lawyer, however, said that he was dead.

"The summations for the defense continued for two more weeks, concluding on July 25 with the closing arguments for Rudolf Hess."

................................................................................................

"“Without propaganda . . . it would not have been possible for German Fascism to realise its aggressive intentions, to lay the groundwork and then to put to practice the war crimes and the crimes against humanity.”

"—Iona Nikitchenko"

That's far from clear, or true.

British in India wreaked much havoc without need of propaganda, as did Cousin Willy against his first cousin Alexandra because she'd spurned his proposal, having fallen in love with Nicholas.

................................................................................................

"Robert Jackson delivered his closing argument to a packed courthouse on July 26, 1946. Hermann Goering, still vain even in such grim circumstances, was proud of the number of times that Jackson made reference to him. On August 31, Goering, the first of the defendants who had been indicted, told the court that the Nuremberg trial had nothing to do with justice; it was, he asserted, an exercise of power by those who had won the war. Rudolf Hess ended his remarks by saying that it had been his pleasure to work “under the greatest son” Germany had produced in a thousand years.

................................................................................................

"Other defendants were more contrite. Albert Speer noted that even more destructive weapons than those used by the Nazis were being produced, furthering the reasons to eliminate war forever. “This trial must contribute to the prevention of wars in the future,” he stated. “May God protect Germany and the culture of the West.”

"The court reconvened for sentencing on September 30, 1946. Siren wails announced the arrival of the judges in black, bulletproof cars. Inside the courtroom, the judges read the legal reasons that had steered their decisions, then delivered their verdicts on the Nazi organizations. Four organizations were pronounced criminal. The General Staff and Government High Command were not deemed criminal, but they were labeled as a ruthless military caste.

................................................................................................

"The next day, the defendants entered the court to hear their individual verdicts. Sir Geoffrey Lawrence ordered the defendants to remain seated as he announced the verdicts. Goering’s verdict was first in a 1,500-word conviction, followed by the judgments for the other defendants. Goering, Lawrence said, was second only to Adolf Hitler in the drive for aggressive war. It was Goering who gave the direction to solve the Jewish question. He was guilty on all four counts. Eighteen of the defendants were convicted on one or more counts. Schacht, von Papen and Fritzsche were acquitted, but as they gathered in the press room, a German policeman served warrants for their arrest on charges of violating German law.

"Twelve of the defendants were sentenced to death, including Hermann Goering. Goering was expressionless as he learned that he was to die by hanging; before leaving the courtroom, he saluted. Martin Bormann was given the death sentence, but since he was tried in absentia, the sentence could not be carried out. Ten other defendants, von Ribbentrop, Keitel, Rosenberg, Frank, Frick, Jodl, Kaltenbrunner, Streicher, Sauckel, and Seyss-Inquart were also sentenced to hang. Hess, Funk, and Raeder were sentenced to life in prison. Hess did not hear his sentence because he refused earphones. Walther Funk, meanwhile, sobbed upon hearing his verdict. Speer and von Schirach were sentenced to serve 20 years in prison. Von Neurath was given a sentence of 15 years. Doenitz was sentenced to ten years.

................................................................................................

"At 3:40 pm on October 1, 1946, the Tribunal adjourned, its work concluded.

"Over the subsequent two weeks, the sentenced Nazis met with their families and their lawyers, seeking an appeal. The Allied Control Council met for three hours to discuss the appeals; they were all rejected on October 13.

"On October 15, the day before the executions were scheduled to take place, Goering sat at a desk in his cell, writing a letter. He would not have objected had he been sentenced to die by firing squad, he claimed, but he felt that his position as an officer of the German Reich deserved a more dignified fate than hanging. “For the sake of Germany,” he wrote, “I cannot permit this.” The guards who watched him did not know that he had a smuggled cyanide pill concealed inside a jar of skin medication. At 10:44, his guard outside the door saw Goering raise his arm to his face and begin to choke. The doctor was summoned, only to arrive just as Goering was dying.

................................................................................................

"The rest of the hangings began at 1:11 am on October 16, with von Ribbentrop the first to walk to the gallows. His last words were, “I wish peace to the world.” By 2:45, the executions were completed: 10 men hanged in 103 minutes. Master Sergeant John C. Woods, who carried out the death sentences, told a reporter from Time magazine that he was proud of his accomplishment. “The way I look at this hanging job, somebody has to do it.”

"The bodies of the executed Nazis, as well as that of Goering, were cremated and their ashes were scattered in the river Isar near Munich."

................................................................................................

"“Their responsibility is . . . great and may not be shifted to that fictional being, ‘the State,’ which cannot be produced for trial, cannot testify, and cannot be sentenced.”

"—Robert H. Jackson"

Why not?

Why not have the state of Germany sentenced to a designated land for all migrants, from Africa and more? That might sound derogatory of the said migrants intended as punishment, but call it correction.

Even better, why not award it as a colony to Israel?

................................................................................................

"The work of the International Military Tribunal was done.

"German radio covered the reading of the verdicts. The evidence and sentencing removed any hopes the defendants might have held that they would be regarded as martyrs in their home country. The Nazis may have perceived their actions as a patriotic defense of Germany, but the thuggish brutality of their deeds proved that they were criminals, not heroes. The nativism and cruelty which inspired the Nazi movement would be abolished when the Nuremberg verdicts were announced and the sentences carried out.

"Following the Trial of Major War Criminals, 12 more trials would be held at Nuremberg from December 1946 to April 1949. Known as the Subsequent Nuremberg Proceedings, these trials took place before U.S. military tribunals and not an international tribunal such as the one that determined the guilt of the war criminals. Still, they were held in the same location, the Palace of Justice. The four Allied Powers, once so closely linked in their pursuit of victory during the war, exhibited significant differences which would have made it impossible for them to conduct a joint trial.

................................................................................................

"The Doctors’ Trial took place from December 9, 1946, to August 20, 1947. Twenty-three defendants who had conducted experiments on prisoners of war were accused of crimes against humanity. The Judges’ Trial, held from March 5 to December 4, 1947, tried 16 judges and lawyers who were charged with advancing Nazi policies to promote racial purity.

"Other Nazis who faced justice included SS officers who had abused the inmates in the concentration camps, industrialists who were accused of using slave labor, and military officers who had reportedly committed atrocities against prisoners of war. Although 77 people were sentenced to prison terms of different lengths, the authorities later reduced some of the sentences. Twelve of the defendants were executed, and eight were sentenced to life in prison."

"By trying the Nazi leaders who had promoted the practices of the Third Reich by such barbaric means, the Nuremberg trials were the foundation for the United Nations Genocide Convention, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the Geneva Convention on the Laws and Customs of War.

"The IMT process also established a template for trying the Japanese war criminals, which took place from 1946 to 1948. Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann was likewise captured and put on trial in 1961. The war crimes committed in the country that had formerly been Yugoslavia would see Dusko Tadic, a Bosnian Serb, sentenced in 1997 to 20 years in prison for crimes committed against prisoners in three camps in Bosnia. The trial that resulted from the genocide in Rwanda in 1994 demonstrated that the perpetrators of such crimes would face justice.

................................................................................................

"It had taken the horrible circumstances of the Third Reich’s assault upon the defenseless and innocent to force the world to reckon with its own capacity for violence. Violence in war was not a novelty, but the Nuremberg trials demanded a reckoning. It was the first time that the world itself held a tribunal to bring charges against the leaders of a country which had violated the Geneva Conventions.

"The perception that an international mechanism was needed for the prosecution of future war crimes led to the creation of a permanent International Criminal Court at the Hague in the Netherlands. The violence which humans are capable of committing in war may never be eradicated, but thanks to the Nuremberg trials, those who commit such violations may face the world’s justice in court."

Why wasn't Pakistan put in the dock for atrocities perpetrated against East Bengal?

................................................................................................

Table of Contents

................................................................................................

Introduction

Hiding the Evidence

Preparations for the Trial

The Defendants

The Trial Begins

The Prosecution

A Brain without a Conscience

Sentencing and Executions

The Legacy of Nuremberg

Bibliography

................................................................................................

REVIEW

................................................................................................

Introduction