The Nuremberg Trials is the general name for two sets of trials of Nazis involved in World War II and the Holocaust. The trials were held in the German city of Nuremberg (Nürnberg) from November 20, 1945 to October 1, 1946 at the Nuremberg Palace of Justice (the only court in Germany large enough to host the event that had not been destroyed by Allied bombing). The first and most famous of these trials was the Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal or IMT, which tried 24 of the most important captured (or still believed to be alive) leaders of Nazi Germany. The second set of trials were of lesser war criminals under Control Council Law No. 10, including the famous Doctors Trial. The majority of this page deals with the IMT.
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2 The validity of the court 3 The main trial 4 Influence on the development of international criminal law 5 See Also 6 External Links |
At the meetings in Tehran (1943), Yalta (1945) and Potsdam (1945), the three major wartime powers USA, USSR and Britain agreed on the format to punish those responsible for war-crimes during World War II. France managed to gain a place on the tribunal too. Some 200 German war crimes defendants were tried at Nuremberg, and 1,600 others were tried under the traditional channels of military justice.
The Soviet Union had wanted the trials to take place in Berlin, however Nuremberg was chosen as the site for the trials for several reasons:
Creation of the Court
It was also agreed that Berlin would become the permanent seat of the IMT and that the first trial (several were planned) would take place in Nuremberg. Because of the Cold War there were no subsequent trials.
Each of the four countries provided one judge and an alternate; and the prosecutors. The judges were:
The defendants were not allowed to complain about the selection of judges. Some people argue that, because of this, the Tribunal was not impartial and could not be regarded as a court in the true sense. The trial, allegedly, had all the trappings of a kangaroo court. A.L. Goodheart, Professor at Oxford, refuted this view, writing:
The International Military Tribunal was opened on October 18, 1945, in the Supreme Court Building in Berlin. The first session was presided over by the Soviet judge, Nikitchenko. The prosecution entered indictments against 24 major war criminals and six "criminal organizations" - the leadership of the Nazi party, the SS and SD, the Gestapo, the SA and the High Command of the army. The indictments were for:
The twenty-four accused were:
The Nuremberg trials had a great influence on the development of international criminal law. The International Law Commission, acting on the request of the United Nations General Assembly, produced in 1950 the report Principles of International Law Recognized in the Charter of the Nürnberg Tribunal and in the Judgment of the Tribunal (Yearbook of the International Law Commission, 1950, vol. III). The influence of the tribunal can also be seen in the proposals for a permanent international criminal court, and the drafting of international criminal codes, later prepared by the International Law Commission.
The Nuremberg trials initiated a movement for the prompt establishment of a permanent international criminal court, eventually leading over fifty years later to the adoption of the Statute of the International Criminal Court.The validity of the court
The main Soviet judge, Nikitchenko, had taken part in Stalin's show trials of 1936-38, something which in later years may have damaged the credibility of the Nuremberg trials. The trials were conducted under their own rules of evidence; the indictments were created ex postfacto and were not based on any nation's law; the tu quoque defense was removed; and the entire spirit of the assembly was "victor's justice". All this did little to help the credibility of trials. But the spirit of the time was well reflected at Nuremberg - a long, brutal and extraordinarily costly war had been fought and the surviving leaders of the losing side could not expect to simply walk away from the disaster they had created.
The main trial
Defendants in the dock:
Front row: Göring, Hess, von Ribbentrop, and Keitel;
second row: Dönitz, Raeder, Schirach, Sauckel.
The definition of what constitutes a war crime is described by the Nuremberg Principles, a document which came out of this trial.
The medical experiments conducted by German doctors led to the creation of the Nüremberg code to control future trials involving human subjects, and the so-called Doctors' Trial.
Influence on the development of international criminal law