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Nuremberg trials

by Lionel Wijesiri

It was 1944 - the final stages of World War II. Victory for the Allies had become inevitable. Advocate groups (who had received detailed information regarding Nazi plans of mass extermination, or the Final Solution) and governments in exile became concerned that the Nazis would unleash a final wave of atrocities.

To help prevent the escalation of violence, the United Nations War Crimes Commission was established, an organisation which began to compile a list of probable war criminals. However, the Allies did not consolidate these threats (of the possible prosecution of war crimes) against the Nazis yet due to a fear of reprisals on prisoners of war.

Nazi leadership

There was an urgent need for an effective method of dealing with the Nazi leadership. The plan for the "Trial of European War Criminals" was drafted by US Secretary of War. By the time it was completed President Roosevelt died, and in 1945 the new President Harry S. Truman gave strong approval for a judicial process.

After a series of negotiations with the Soviet Union, Britain, and France, details of the trial were worked out. The trials were set to commence on November 20, 1945, in the city of Nuremberg.

The legal basis for the trial was established by the 'London Charter', issued on August 8, 1945, which restricted the trial to "trial and punishment of the major war criminals of the European Axis countries". Thus, accusations of Allied war crimes could not be tried. Some 200 German war crime defendants were tried at Nuremberg, and 1,600 others were tried under the traditional channels of military justice.

The proceedings started on Nov. 20, 1945. The scene was the southern German city of Nuremberg, the site of some of the Nazi party's largest rallies and after the war little more than a pile of rubble. One building though, survived the Allied bombing raids largely intact: The Nuremberg Palace of Justice. It was here, that the Allies staged one of the most ambitious war crime trials ever. Here, the leaders of Adolf Hitler's Nazi government were to be brought to justice.

Many of the top Nazis, of course were already dead. Adolf Hitler himself had committed suicide on April 30, 1945 and his propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbles, followed his lead the next day, taking his wife and their six children with him. Holocaust architect Reinhard Heydrich had been assassinated by Czechoslovak agents in 1942.

But the roll-call of defendants was impressive. Head of the German Air Force and close Hitler confident Hermann Goering, Rabid anit-jew baiter Julius Streicher, Head of German Navy and German Chancellor in the days following Hitler's suicide-Kari Donitz were charged.

Each of the four Great Powers provided one judge and an alternate; they provided the prosecutors, too.

The prosecution entered indictments against 24 major war criminals and six criminal organisations - the leadership of the Nazi party, the SS and SD, the Gestapo, the SA and the High Command of the German Army (OKW). The indictments were for:

1. Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of crime against peace,

2. Planning, initiating and waging wars of aggression and other crime against peace,

3. War crimes; and

4. Crimes against humanity.

Twelve defendants were sentenced to death, seven received long prison terms and three were acquitted. Among the persons on whom the death penalty was imposed on were Hermann Goering - Commander of Luftwaffe, and several departments of the SS: Wilhelm Frick - Hitler's Minister of the Interior.

Authored the Nuremberg Race Laws: Ernst Kaltenbrunner - Chief of RSHA, the Central Nazi Intelligence: Fritz Sauckel - Authority of the Nazi Slave Labour Program : And Wilhelm Keitel - head of OKW - Armed Forces High Command in Germany.

Martin Bormann - Successor to Hess as Nazi Party Secretary was sentenced to death in absentia. (Bones suspected to be of his body were found in Germany, 1972 )

At 10.45 p.m. on October 15, 1946, Hermann Goering cheated the hangman with a cyanide capsule. Two hours later, the executions began. The Nuremberg cases were also the first time that government leaders were held personally responsible for their actions during war. They mostly claimed that they had not known, or were not responsible for what happened.

The trial was an international sensation, but Germans also took a keen interest in the proceedings. Local newspapers were full of the horrific details of the Holocaust and other Nazi atrocities.

Ruling

The death sentences were carried out by hanging. The French judges suggested the use of a firing squad for the military condemned, as is standard for military courts-martial, but this was opposed by Bibble and the Soviet judges. These argued that the military officers had violated their military ethos and were not worthy of the firing squad, which was considered to be more dignified. The incarcerated prisoners were held at Spandau Prison.

This was the trial of the century. In the worlds of Norman Birkett, who served as a British alternate judge: It was "the greatest trial in history."

Trails of Nazis continued to take place both in Germany and many other countries. Simon Wiesenthal, a Nazi-hunter, located Adolf Eichmann in Argentina. Eichmann, who had helped plan and carry out the deportations of millions of Jews, was brought to trial in Israel. The testimony of hundreds of witnesses, many of them survivors, was followed all over the world. Eichmann was found guilty and executed in 1962.

The validity of the court has been questioned by many groups and individuals for a variety of reasons and motives: The defendants were not allowed to appeal or effect the selection of judges. Some people argue that, because the judges were appointed by the victors, the Tribunal was not impartial and could not be regarded as a court in the true sense.

They argue that the International Military Tribunal was just a victor's justice. The list of those accused was somewhat arbitrary. There are also basic misgivings. The accused had been charged with violations of international law, but such law was binding on nations, not individuals.

Individuals, it was argued, could be brought to justice only under the laws of their own country, not on the basis of a new order established after a war. It may have been imperfect justice, but there was no alternative.

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