The Nuremberg Trials

When the Allied leaders met in the year 1942 to strategise against the Nazi defeats that were slowly changing the map of Europe, they had more than military matters on their minds. They were already shaping their minds to think in terms of the Nazi leaders being put on trial once they were defeated to face justice for their barbaric acts. When asked for advice, Winston Churchill was in favour of shooting those criminals. Josef Stalin preferred public trials for his propaganda purposes. The Americans had their own thinking and they disagreed with both the British and Russian minds. Once the war was over in 1945, the Americans decided to involve both the British and the Russians while holding a tribunal at Nuremberg in Germany. The Russians wanted the trials to be conducted in Berlin but the place had suffered massive damage and that was the main reason why Nuremberg was decided upon as the city to hold an unparalleled trial against war crimes which was not seen any time before in the history of modern wars. The Palace of Justice at Nuremberg was intact though it required renovation to hold and host the trial. The Grand Hotel was also not damaged and it could hold reporters and other observers. The death of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the suicide of Adolf Hitler (I feel that Hitler burnt bodies of others and escaped to Argentina by the escape routes from his Berlin bunker) were not a deterrent to holding the war crimes’ trials. Many felt that such a trial would accomplish nothing as the damage had already been done while others felt it was necessary to lay a foundation for a judicial process that would bring to book the perpetrators of what would be termed as crimes against humanity. Hitler could not be tried as a Nazi leader but there other followers of his, most notably Hermann Goering who were alive and could be brought to justice. President Harry Truman took it upon himself to carry out the intentions of Franklin Roosevelt about bringing the war criminals to trial. The Nuremberg trials involved thirteen cases that exposed more than a hundred defendants. The most famous of the trials was the primary one that involved determining the guilt or innocence of major Nazi leaders as they were charged with war crimes. Other important trials involved sixteen German judges and Reich Ministry officials. Some trials were of the German doctors and the Einsatzgruppen (Task Forces or Deployment Groups). Most people remember only the Hermann Goering trial in front of an international tribunal. For prosecuting the Nazis, the lawyers decided that their cases would be strong if they were built upon the documents and records that the Nazis themselves had written. When the Nuremberg trials began, the Allied prosecutors had roughly three thousand tons of documents that could be submitted as proof of what the Nazis had done, During the trials, 199 defendants were tried, 161 were convicted and 37 were sentenced to death. These trials offered a legal indictment of the evil deeds committed by the regime of the Nazis. Most of the defendants pleaded that they were innocent of any crime as they were following orders administered by higher authorities. In the perspective of the rest of the world, the humiliation of their execution that Nazi ideology was evil that had to be punished. In my opinion, these trials were a big farce as wars and war crimes still continue and the perpetrators are never brought to book. Let us reverse the coin for a moment, the evil committed by Israel and the Jews since the end of the Second World War have conveniently been brushed aside and no one has been held responsible or accountable. These trials should have set a precedent as the foundation for a legal process by which the legal community of the entire world could bring to justice and accuse those who have violated the standards of human conduct that is universally acceptable. Domination through Barbarism These trials were an attempt to trigger the conscience of the people to judge and to condemn the monstrous attempt at domination and barbarism of all times. The Nazi Party believed that their creation of the Third Reich would last for about one thousand years. Hitler predicted that as the Chancellor of Germany and the leader of the Nazi Party. At the party rallies at Nuremberg between 1927 and 1938, Hitler was always reminding Germany of its great destiny. He felt that the loss of the First World War was because of the betrayal of the Jews. Before attacking Poland, the German Nazi regime was clear in its mind to make life miserable for the Jews and the Slavs. These communities were the targets. The next group of targets were the mentally ill, the handicapped, homosexuals and anyone who did not fit the Nazi ideal of a German. The first objective was to occupy lands of Europe, bit by bit and then start their atrocities. The script did not play as the Germans expected just like the scenario at the end of the First World War. By mid 1945, the fortune of the Nazi war minds had considerably altered. The Russians were advancing towards Berlin and the Eastern Front was lost. The Nazi party or what was left of it was now reconciled to the fact that they had lost and they wanted to get rid of all evidence of their activities during the last six-year period. At Auschwitz, more than a million prisoners at that camp had already been killed as almost six thousand Jews were put to death, each day. Heinrich Himmler ordered the destruction of the gas chambers at Auschwitz. They blew them and were leaving ruins behind. Those prisoners who were weak to move out of the camp were killed by the SS (Schutz Staffel – Protection Squadron). Some officers at the camp fled and deserted while those who remained; they were busy burning documents which attested to the activities that were taking place at the camp at Auschwitz. However, not all evidence could be destroyed. It was all there in the photographs that were recovered by the Soviet troops when they reached that place. Apart from the photographs, the mass graves also told their stories. There were many survivors who gave their gruelling accounts. It was ironical that Nuremberg, where the Nazi party rallies started was once again the scene where the voices of the victims of war would be heard. Trial Preparations Franklin Delano Roosevelt had this to say about war crimes and atrocities – “All who shared in the guilt shall share in the punishment.” All concerned between the United States of America, United Kingdom and Soviet Union were of a unified thought that retribution was necessary at the Nuremberg Trials; yet, there was no single consensus of opinion on how to deliver justice to the Nazis for the commitment of their crimes. The Allies had been seeking a way to accuse the Nazis for their crimes against their victims of their racial purity policy and ethnic cleansing. The British and the Soviets had suffered directly from the attacks of the Nazis and were more retaliatory in their intentions at these trials; more so than those in the United States of America. There was a point when Josef Stalin had proposed trying a hundred thousand German staff officers. Churchill was of an opinion to execute high ranking Nazis and he did not think a trial was necessary. The officers from the United States believed that a criminal trial would be able to document charges and avoid later accusations that the defendants were condemned without proper evidence. Punishment after the trials was not going to be an easy affair as the thirst for vengeance had to be filtered. Winston Churchill wanted the Nazi leaders to be hunted down and shot. The Treasury Secretary of the United States, Henry Morgenthau, proposed that the economy of Germany should get reverted to agricultural instead of industrial base and that the leaders should be shot by a firing squad. President Harry Truman, who succeeded F.D. Roosevelt after his sudden death, supported the idea of holding a trial at Nuremberg, Germany. He identified Robert Jackson, an Associate Justice Lawyer on the Supreme Court Panel as the Chief of Counsel for the trials and initiated the process for the same. The leaders of the Allied Countries, including France, signed the London Charter of the International Military Tribunal in August 1945, creating a Court that would try the Nazi cases. Jackson set himself to creating a framework which would allow the prosecution to proceed. This was to be done keeping in mind that the Allies would not violate the Third Geneva Convention of ill-treating the Prisoners of War. There were four charges brought against the Nazi defendants – Count 1 – Conspiracy to wage aggressive war which would address crimes that had been committed before the start of the war. Count 2 – Waging an aggressive war against peace, violating international treaties. Count 3 – War crimes that were concerned with the mistreatment and killing of prisoners of war, use of slave labour, bombing of civilian population (that is rampant now in the modern world with not a single cry against it), retaliatory killings and violations of the Hague and Geneva Conventions along with the use of outlawed weapons. Count 4 – Crimes against humanity that covered justice for the Jews and other ethnic minorities and against the physically and mentally handicapped civilians in occupied countries. Jackson led a team of forty-six prosecutors who agreed that the defendants could select their own attorneys. They would be provided with legal help, should they need it and the cost would be absorbed by the London Agreement. The defendants would also be able to appeal their verdict to the Allied Control Council. The Soviets felt that the trials should be held in Berlin as they were already taking charge of the city after their invasion, The United States and Britain thought that Nuremberg would be the fitting place to hold the trials. It had a symbolic importance as the location of the annual Nazi Party rally and it was through Nuremberg Laws that Hitler had deprived German Jews of their civil rights. Secondly, Nuremberg was not affected badly by bombing as Berlin was. The city’s Palace of Justice and accompanying prison were modified and used. Nuremberg was also part of the American Sector of Germany after the country was broken into four sections where each was under the control of one of the four Allied nations, Restoration work was soon begun on the Palace of Justice. It contained eventually twenty courtrooms and a prison that was capable of holding twelve hundred prisoners. The Allies also built galleries for visitors and press members. This trial would be the first of its kind and there would be challenges posed by an international tribunal on the world stage. English, German, French and Russian would have to be used every day during the proceedings and translation would bog down the trials. IBM (International Business Machines) had developed recently a translation system that would allow every participant in the trial to her real-time translations through headsets. The microphones were built with yellow lights that would remind people who were speaking to go slowly for the benefit of the translators. Red Lights indicated that they had to stop and that they were going too fast. They had to then repeat their statements. This would help the trial to move faster than the conventional consecutive translation system. Robert Jackson who initiated the proceedings had mentioned that the trial proposed to punish acts that have been regarded as criminal since the time of Cain and Abel. The Defendants Robert Jackson, who was given the role of being in-charge of the Nuremberg trials, wrote, “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.” Six days after the Charter of the International Military Tribunal was signed outlining the procedure for the Nuremberg Trials, a cargo plane with most of the Nazi war trial defenders landed in Nuremberg. The prisoners were then loaded into ambulances by the Allied military personnel and taken to cell blocks in the Palace of Justice. They stayed there for the next fourteen months. Conversation between prisoners and guards was to remain brief. The prisoners were to be guarded at all time. There were no locks and no keys were used. The doors were bolted from the outside. They had to sleep with their hands outside the blankets. The prisoners had to sleep with one bulb on. The cells were not dark at night. The prisoners were allowed to attend church service. As judges, Robert Jackson represented the United States of America. Hartley Shawcross represented Great Britain, Francois de Menthon represented France and he was later replaced by Auguste Champetier de Ribes; Roman Rudenko represented the Soviet Union. These judges had more than six hundred assistants working for them in building the case and collecting evidence against the Nazis. On 6th October, 1945, the International Military Tribunal’s four chief prosecutors handed down indictments against twenty-four high ranking Nazi officials. They did not include Joseph Goebbels who became Chancellor of Germany after Hitler’s alleged suicide. Goebbels and his wife also committed suicide after poisoning their six children. Heinrich Himmler also committed suicide earlier in May by taking a cyanide pill. Here in Nuremberg, one of the prisoners, Robert Ley committed suicide while in custody. The Nuremberg trials, that were considered unique in the annals of jurisprudence, would last till 1st October, 1946. The Trial Once the indictments were delivered, the stage was set for the trials to commence. The defendants were made to get up at six in the morning on the morning of 20th November 1945. They were served oatmeal for breakfast along with coffee and were made to shave and to dress for the trial. They had to wear their uniforms without the insignia if they were military personnel or suits and ties if they were civilians. They were made to sit in the courtroom in an order that their names appeared on the indictments. At around 0930, about two hundred and fifty journalists entered the courtroom, representing twenty-three countries. These journalists included some heavyweight names in the field of journalism such as Walter Cronkite for the United Press, Howard Smith for CBS Radio and Rebecca West for the New Yorker. At 1000 hours, The International Military Tribunal Court convened. The first day of the trial was spent mostly on the reading of the indictments. Before lunch the next day, all the defendants entered their `not guilty’ pleas. Hermann Goering wanted to deliver a speech but he was cut short and not allowed. Robert Jackson, despite their denial, built up a strong case against them by using their documents and mostly written papers as evidence. Hartley Shawcross of Britain delivered his open remarks, reading from an affidavit that was given by a German construction worker who was witness to the fate of most Jews in a Ukrainian town. This affidavit revealed that an SS unit which was assigned to the town had shot over five thousand Jews in a single afternoon and the corpses were buried in a pit. Jackson was fully convinced that the documents from the Nazis would build a good foundation for his case but there few who felt that the documents would not be enough. A film was shown on the Nazi Concentration Camps and it included stacks of bodies piled up in camps at Bergen-Belsen, Buchenwald and Dachau. Goering dismissed it as circumstantial evidence. Judge Lawrence left the courtroom after viewing the film and did not return for the whole day. The Prosecution Robert Jackson delivered a speech, saying, ”Four great nations who were stung with injury stayed the hand of vengeance and voluntarily submitted their captive enemies to the judgment of law and this would be one of the most significant tributes that power would ever pay to reason.” The prosecution decided to divide its case into two phases. The first phase involved the criminality of the different aspects of the Nazi regime while the second phase covered the guilt of the individuals who had been indicted.. The first phase began with the assertion that the Austrian invasion was an act of aggressive warfare. The use of slave labour and operation of the concentration camps was brought into play. Examples were brought into the court about how Commandant Koch had used the skull of an executed Polish prisoner as a paperweight. These cases were presented as crimes against humanity. A French woman, Marie-Claude Vaillant-Couturier, who had been detained at Auschwitz told the court about how she recalled events of a night when she was awakened by the cries of children who were thrown alive into furnaces when the Nazis did not have enough gas to kill them. The film was titled, `Documentary Evidence of the German Fascist Invaders’. This was presented by the Soviets. They had captured the footage from the Germans and narrated in Russian. One of the clips showed German soldiers shown as smiling as they shot naked women, lying down in a ditch. It was now becoming clear that the Germans had indeed committed crimes against humanity. It was also clear that they all had brains but without a conscience. One of the Nazi party officers said that “Once we came to power, we were determined to hold on to it under all circumstances.” During the trial, when Hermann Goering was asked to defend the necessity of concentration camps, he replied that those were essential for the preservation of order and in order to remove danger. When the sentence was pronounced, twelve of the defendants were charged to death, including Hermann Goering. It was going to be death by hanging. Two were sentenced to life in prison. On 1st October, 1946, the Tribunal adjourned as its work was concluded. Over the next fortnight, the sentenced Nazis were allowed to spend time with their families and their lawyers in case of an appeal. The Allied Control Council looked at the appeals and rejected all. They were all hanged on 16th October, 1946 and their bodies were cremated and their ashes were scattered in River Isar near Munich. The Verdict and Legacy German Radio covered the reading of the verdict. The evidence and sentencing removed all hopes that the defendants might have held that they would be regarded as martyrs in their homeland. They were branded by the trial as criminals and not heroes. Subsequent to this major trial, a dozen more trials would be held at Nuremberg from December 1946 to April 1949. These trials took place before United States’ military tribunals and there was no representation by an international unit. They were held at the same location of the Palace of Justice. The trials were held of other Nazis such as SS Officers who had abused inmates in the concentration camps, industrialists who used slave labour and military officers who had committed atrocities against prisoners of war. Seventy-seven people were sentenced to prison terms of different lengths. A dozen of them were executed. The legacy of these trials was reserved but the whole world did not believe that they provided fair justice. Many said that the crimes committed by the Allies were hidden from the prosecution. Some called these trials a high-grade ‘lynching party.” Meanwhile, Justice Robert Jackson wrote a letter to President Truman mentioning that the French were violating the Geneva Convention by their treatment of the prisoners of war and that the Soviets were forcing themselves assertively over the Baltic States without any justification. It has to be noted that the Geneva Convention prohibits methods and weapons capable of causing suffering and unnecessary losses such as the poison gas. The Nuremberg trials demanded a reckoning for the Nazi Reich making violence a novelty in war times. They became a precedent to the formation of the International Criminal Court at Hague in the Netherlands. Source Citations: 1. `Blind Eye to Murder’, Tom Bower, 1995. 2. `Tyranny on Trial’, Whitney Harris, 2006 3. `The Nuremberg Military Tribunals’, Kevin Jon Heller, 2011 4. `Interrogations of the Nazi Elite’, Richard Overy, 2001 5. `The Nuremberg Trials’, Quincy Wright, 1946 *******