Nuremberg Trials

In the **Nuremberg Trials**, the Allies indicted and prosecuted leaders of Nazi Germany after World War II ended. The trials lasted from November 1945 to October 1946 and took place in Nuremberg, Germany.

In total, 199 defendants were tried at Nuremberg; 161 were found guilty, and 37 were sentenced to death. Each trial had a combination of judges from the United States, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and France.

First, the Allies charged 24 top Nazi leaders for their crimes. The judges found most of them guilty of war crimes, starting wars of aggression, crimes against humanity, and conspiracy. Evidence about the Holocaust played a major role in the trial. The judges called the Holocaust one of the worst crimes in history.

After the first trial, the Allies held 12 additional trials. These included separate trials for Nazi physicians, members of the _Einsatzgruppen_, and German judges.

The Nuremberg Trials weren’t just about punishment. They were also about showing the world what happened during the war and making sure people understood how serious these crimes were.

These trials were important because they created new rules to prevent such crimes in the future. They also showed that even powerful leaders would face justice if they broke international laws.

## The main trial

The International Military Tribunal was opened on October 18, 1945, in the Supreme Court Building in Berlin.

### Nazi leaders

Judge Nikitchenko from the Soviet Union presided over the first session. The prosecution brought criminal charges against 24 Nazi leaders. The indictments were for:

1. Working with other people to commit a crime against peace (legally called "taking part in a conspiracy")
1. War crimes
1. Crimes against humanity
1. Planning, initiating and waging wars of aggression and other crimes against peace

The 24 accused were:

"**I**" indicted      "**G**" indicted and found guilty      "**O**" Not Charged

||colspan=4|**Count**||**Sentence**|**Notes**||||||
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
|<div style="clear: left">Martin Bormann</div>||I|||O||G||G||Death||Successor to Hess as Nazi Party Secretary. Sentenced to death while not being at the courtroom. His body was found in 1972.|||||||
|<div style="clear: left">Karl Dönitz</div>||I||G||G|||O||10 years||Leader of the _Kriegsmarine_ (the Navy) from 1943. Started the U-boat campaign. Became President of Germany after Hitler's death. In evidence presented at the trial of Karl Dönitz on his orders to the U-boat fleet to breach the London Rules, Admiral Chester Nimitz stated that unrestricted submarine warfare was carried on in the Pacific Ocean by the United States from the first day that nation entered the war. Dönitz was found guilty of breaching the 1936 Second London Naval Treaty, but his sentence was not assessed on the ground of his breaches of the international law of submarine warfare.|||||||
|<div style="clear: left">Hans Frank</div>||I|||O||G||G||Death||Reich Law Leader 1933–1945 and Governor-General of the General Government in occupied Poland 1939–1945. Expressed sorrow.|||||||
|<div style="clear: left">Wilhelm Frick</div>||I||G||G||G||Death||Hitler's Minister of the Interior (1933–1943) and Reich Protector of Bohemia-Moravia (1943–1945). One of the writers of the Nuremberg Laws.|||||||
|<div style="clear: left">Hans Fritzsche</div>||I||I||I|||O|| Acquitted ||Popular radio commentator and head of the news division of the Nazi Propaganda Ministry. Tried in place of Joseph Goebbels.|||||||
|<div style="clear: left">Walther Funk</div>||I||G||G||G||Life Imprisonment||Hitler's Minister of Economics. Succeeded Schacht as head of the Reichsbank. Released from prison due to ill health on May 16, 1957.|||||||
|<div style="clear: left">Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring</div>||G||G||G||G||Death||Commander of the Luftwaffe (1935–1945), Chief of the 4-Year Plan (1936–1945), leader of several departments of the SS, and Prime Minister of Prussia. Committed suicide the night before his execution.|||||||
|<div style="clear: left">Rudolf Hess</div>|G|G|I|I|Life Imprisonment|Hitler's deputy, flew to Scotland in 1941 to try to make peace with Great Britain. After trial he was sent to Spandau Prison and died there in 1987.|
|<div style="clear: left">Generaloberst Alfred Jodl</div>||G||G||G||G||Death||Wehrmacht. Keitel's deputy and Chief of the OKW's Operations Division (1938–1945). Later exonerated by a German court in 1953.|||||||
|<div style="clear: left">Ernst Kaltenbrunner</div>||I|||O||G||G||Death||Highest surviving SS leader. Chief of RSHA 1943–45, the central Nazi intelligence office. Commanded many of the _Einsatzgruppen_ and several concentration camps.|||||||
|<div style="clear: left">Wilhelm Keitel</div>||G||G||G||G||Death||Head of Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW) 1938–1945.|||||||
|<div style="clear: left">Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach</div>|I|I|I||----|Major Nazi industrialist. CEO of Krupp AG 1912–45. Medically unfit for trial. The prosecutors attempted to substitute his son Alfried (who ran Krupp for his father during most of the war) in the indictment, but the judges ruled it was too close to trial. Alfried was tried in a separate Nuremberg trial for his use of slave labor, thus escaping the worst notoriety and possibly death.|
|<div style="clear: left">Robert Ley</div>||I||I||I||I||----||Head of DAF, The German Labour Front. Killed himself on October 25, 1945, before the trial began.|||||||
|<div style="clear: left">Konstantin Freiherr von Neurath</div>||G||G||G||G||15 years||Minister of Foreign Affairs 1932–1938, succeeded by von Ribbentrop. Protector of Bohemia and Moravia 1939–43. Resigned in 1943 after a dispute with Hitler. Released from prison because of ill health on November 6, 1954.|||||||
|<div style="clear: left">Franz von Papen</div>||I||I|||O|||O||Acquitted || Chancellor of Germany in 1932 and Vice-Chancellor under Hitler in 1933–1934. Ambassador to Austria 1934–38 and ambassador to Turkey 1939–1944. Although acquitted at Nuremberg, von Papen was classed as a war criminal in 1947 by a German de-Nazification court, and sentenced to eight years' hard labour. He was acquitted following appeal after serving two years.|||||||
|<div style="clear: left">Erich Raeder</div>|G|G|G|O|Life Imprisonment|Commander-in-Chief of the _Kriegsmarine_ from 1928 until his retirement in 1943, succeeded by Dönitz. Released because of ill health on September 26, 1955.|
|<div style="clear: left">Joachim von Ribbentrop</div>||G||G||G||G||Death||Ambassador-Plenipotentiary 1935–1936. Ambassador to the United Kingdom 1936–1938. Minister of Foreign Affairs 1938–1945.|||||||
|<div style="clear: left">Alfred Rosenberg</div>||G||G||G||G||Death||Racial theory ideologist. Later, Minister of the Eastern Occupied Territories 1941–1945.|||||||
|<div style="clear: left">Fritz Sauckel</div>||I||I||G||G||Death||_Gauleiter_ of Thuringia 1927–1945. Plenipotentiary of the Nazi slave labor program 1942–1945.|||||||
|<div style="clear: left">Dr. Hjalmar Schacht</div>||I||I|||O|||O|| Acquitted ||Prominent banker and economist. President of the _Reichsbank_ 1923–1930 and 1933–1938 and Economics Minister 1934–1937. Admitted breaking the Treaty of Versailles.|||||||
|<div style="clear: left">Baldur von Schirach (standing)</div>||I|||O|||O||G||20 years||Head of the _Hitlerjugend_ (Hitler Youth) from 1933 to 1940, _Gauleiter_ of Vienna 1940–1943. Expressed sorrow.|||||||
|<div style="clear: left">Arthur Seyß-Inquart</div>||I||G||G||G||Death||Helped the _Anschluß_ (joining Germany and Austria). Was briefly the Austrian Chancellor 1938. Deputy to Frank in Poland 1939–1940. Later, Reich Commissioner of the occupied Netherlands 1940–1945. Expressed sorrow.|||||||
|<div style="clear: left">Albert Speer</div>|||I|||I||G||G||20 Years||Hitler's favourite architect, personal friend, and Minister of Armaments from 1942. As Minister of Armaments, he used slave labour from the occupied territories in weapons production. Expressed sorrow.|||||||
|<div style="clear: left">Julius Streicher</div>||I|||O|||O||G||Death||_Gauleiter_ of Franconia 1922–1945. Incited hatred and murder against the Jews through his weekly newspaper, _Der Stürmer_.|||||||

---

"**I**" indicted      "**G**" indicted and found guilty      "**O**" Not Charged

### Criminal organizations

The Allies also tried seven Nazi organizations at Nuremberg:
1. The _Gestapo_ (the Nazi secret police)
1. The _Schutzstaffel_, or SS (a Nazi paramilitary organization)
1. _Reichsregierung_, (the Reich government or Cabinet)
1. The Leadership Corps of the Nazi Party
1. The _Sicherheitsdienst_, or SD (the intelligence agency for the SS and the Nazi Party)
1. The _Sturmabteilung_, also called the SA, Storm Troopers, or Brownshirts (the Nazi Party's militia)
1. _Oberkommando_ and _Generalstab der Wehrmacht_ (the High Command and General Staff of the Armed Forces)The judges ruled that the Leadership Corps, the Gestapo, the SS, and the SD were criminal organizations.

## Sentences

The death sentences were carried out on 16 October 1946 by hanging using the inefficient American "standard" drop method instead of the long drop. The executioner was John C. Woods. The French judges suggested the use of a firing squad for the convicted military officials, as is standard for military courts-martial. However, Biddle and the Soviet judges did not agree. They said that the military officers acted so badly that they did not deserve to be treated as soldiers.

The prisoners sentenced to imprisonment were transferred to Spandau Prison in 1947.

## Legacy

Nuremberg principles is a document created as a result of the trial. It defines what a war crime is.

The medical experiments conducted by German doctors and prosecuted in the so-called Doctors' Trial led to the creation of the Nuremberg Code to control future trials involving human subjects.

## Related pages

- Benjamin B. Ferencz
- Nuremburg Follow-up Trials