They based the case primarily on thousands of German documents seized by the Allies. Most of the witnesses they called to testify had been members of the Nazi Party , SS , or German state or military.
The prosecution also presented films as evidence. One film produced by the United States showed the liberation of the concentration camps. Another film produced by the Soviets showed evidence of Nazi atrocities and the liberation of Majdanek and Auschwitz concentration camps. The Holocaust was not the main focus of the trial, but considerable evidence was presented about the "Final Solution," the Nazi plan to exterminate the Jewish people.
This information included the mass murder operations at Auschwitz , the destruction of the Warsaw ghetto , and the estimate of six million Jewish victims. The defendants did not deny the authenticity of the documentary evidence. Most acknowledged that the crimes charged did occur. However, they denied that they bore any personal responsibility for them. Under the IMT's charter, the defendants could not claim innocence on the grounds that they had simply followed orders.
The trial hearings ended on September 1, On October 1, , the judges delivered their verdict. They convicted 19 of the defendants and acquitted three. On October 16, , ten of the condemned were hanged, cremated in Dachau, and their ashes dropped in the Isar River. Martin Bormann, who was convicted in absentia , was much later proved to have died in Berlin during the final days of the war.
The IMT also declared the following Nazi party organizations to be criminal organizations:. The court concluded that the criminality of SS membership did not apply to persons whose membership ceased before the start of World War II or to persons who were drafted into the SS and did not participate in its crimes. The Nuremberg Charter's definition of crimes against humanity specified that they included acts committed "before or during the war.
Although the judges acknowledged that Nazi Germany committed terrible crimes before the war, including the persecution of Jews, they did not judge the defendants for their role in prewar crimes.
An important legacy of the Nuremberg Charter and the IMT is that they established crimes against humanity as crimes under international law. The IMT judgment addressed the evidence proving war crimes and crimes against humanity together and did not differentiate between the two. Consequently, the judgment provided no precedent for distinguishing crimes against humanity from war crimes.
During the five years that followed the end of the war, hundreds of thousands of Nazi perpetrators and their collaborators were tried by other courts in Germany and in the countries that were allied to or occupied by Nazi Germany. Between December and April , Taylor oversaw the prosecution of Germans in 12 separate trials in Nuremberg for the crimes set out in the Nuremberg Charter.
These trials before American military tribunals are often referred to collectively as the Subsequent Nuremberg Proceedings. Government officials, military leaders, members of the SS and Police, as well as German doctors and industrialists were tried for their roles in crimes proved before the IMT, including the persecution and mass murder of Jews and the murder of people with physical and mental disabilities in the Euthanasia Program.
The overwhelming majority of the defendants in these trials were lower-level officials, officers, and soldiers as well as civilians. They included concentration camp commandants, guards, and Kapos, and German citizens who murdered Allied flyers shot down over Germany. Trials in other Countries: Thousands of other war criminals were tried by courts in those countries where they had committed their crimes. For example, the Polish Supreme National Tribunal tried and convicted 49 leading Nazi officials for crimes committed during the German occupation of Poland.
Within a few years of the war's end, interest in bringing Nazi criminals to justice waned. By the late s, nearly all of those who had been convicted but not executed were released. Of the convicted IMT defendants who were not hanged, only one spent the rest of his life in prison: Rudolf Hess, who had been a longstanding personal aide to Adolf Hitler and deputy party leader of the Nazi Party until Many perpetrators of Nazi crimes were never brought to trial or punished.
The former high station of these defendants, the notoriety of their acts, and the adaptability of their conduct to provoke retaliation make it hard to distinguish between the demand for a just and measured retribution, and the unthinking cry for vengeance which arises from the anguish of war.
It is our task, so far as humanly possible, to, draw the line between the two. The first trial shall be held at Nuremberg, and any subsequent trials shall be held at such places as the Tribunal may decide. One or more of the Chief Prosecutors may take part in the prosecution at each Trial.
The function of any Chief Prosecutor may be discharged by him personally, or by any person or persons authorized by him. The function of Council for a Defendant may be discharged at the Defendant's request by any Counsel professionally qualified to conduct cases before the Courts of his own country, or by any other person who may be specially authorized thereto by the Tribunal. Thereafter such rebutting evidence as may be held by the Tribunal to be admissible shall be called by either the Prosecution or the Defence.
All official documents shall be produced, and all court proceedings conducted, in English, French and Russian, and in the language of the Defendant. So much of the record and of the proceedings may also be translated into the language of any country in which the Tribunal is sitting, as the Tribunal considers desirable in the interests of justice and public opinion. The judgment of the Tribunal as to the guilt or the innocence of any Defendant shall give the reasons on which it is based, and shall be final and not subject to review.
The Tribunal shall have the right to impose upon a Defendant, on conviction, death or such other punishment as shall be determined by it to be just. In addition to any punishment imposed by it, the Tribunal shall have the right to deprive the convicted person of any stolen property and order its delivery to the Control Council for Germany. In case of guilt, sentences shall be carried out in accordance with the orders of the Control Council for Germany, which may at any time reduce or otherwise alter the sentences, but may not increase the severity thereof.
If the Control Council for Germany, after any Defendant has been convicted and sentenced, discovers fresh evidence which, in its opinion, would found a fresh charge against him, the Council shall report accordingly to the Committee established under Article 14 hereof for such action as they may consider proper, having regard to the interests of justice. The expenses of the Tribunal and of the Trials shall be charged by the Signatories against the funds allotted for maintenance of the Control Council for Germany.
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Search Refworld. Clear Search. Over visitors attended the daily proceedings, with correspondents representing 23 different countries. The trial gave the world its first close look at the horror of the Holocaust. Of the 24 indicted Nazi leaders, 22 were tried: one, Robert Ley, had committed suicide while in custody; another, Gustav Krupp stood down due to illness. Martin Bormann was thought to be dead, but since his body had not been recovered, he was tried in absentia.
Three of the 22 defendants were acquitted; nineteen were found guilty. Four Nazi organizations were declared criminal, and although the General Staff and High Command of the Nazi government was not declared criminal, they were condemned by the Tribunal as "a ruthless military caste.
Legacy The trial at Nuremberg represented an enormous achievement in international law. It was the first time a nation's leaders were prosecuted by the international community for crimes committed by the state. The rules created during the trial formed the basis for future international conventions and principles for war. Discover the fascinating story of Elizebeth Smith Friedman, the groundbreaking cryptanalyst who helped bring down gangsters and break up a Nazi spy ring in South America.
Her work helped lay the foundation for modern codebreaking today. I n the summer of , hundreds of wildfires raged across the Northern Rockies. By the time it was all over, more than three million acres had burned and at least 78 firefighters were dead.
It was the largest fire in American history. Although the League of Nations and other international meetings had used simultaneous interpretation prior to the trials at Nuremberg, its successful use there in gave the method new importance.
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