You know, kick 'em in. [84][85] The American prosecution drew on reports of the Office of Strategic Services and information provided by the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research and the American Jewish Committee. [55], The work of drafting the indictment was divided up by the national delegations. You know? [221] The IMT defendants required Soviet permission for release; Speer was not successful in obtaining early release, and Hess remained in prison until his death in 1987. Twelve of the defendants were sentenced to death (Gring, Ribbentrop, Keitel, Kaltenbrunner, Rosenberg, Frank, Frick, Streicher, Sauckel, Jodl, Seyss-Inquart, and Bormann). [83] The American and British prosecutors focused on documentary evidence and affidavits rather than testimony from survivors, as the latter was considered less reliable and more liable to accusations of bias, but at the expense of reducing public interest in the proceedings. [129] The Soviet prosecution also attempted to fabricate German responsibility for the Katyn massacre, which had in fact been committed by the Soviet Union. [136][137] The Soviet prosecution case was generally well received and presented compelling evidence about the suffering of the Soviet people and the Soviet contribution to victory. [156], On 31 August, closing arguments were presented. 22 mins. Benjamin Ferencz: No. [95][96] As Jackson made clear, the purpose of the trial was not just to convict the defendants but also to assemble irrefutable evidence of Nazi crimes, establish individual responsibility and the crime of aggression in international law, offer a history lesson to the defeated Germans, delegitimize the traditional German elite,[97] and allow the Allies to distance themselves from appeasement. [40] Each state appointed a prosecution team and two judges, one being an alternate. There's the rabbi coming along there. In the Hostages case, several generals were tried for executing thousands of hostages and prisoners of war, looting, using forced labor, and deporting civilians in the Balkans. [106][107] The Americans summoned Einsatzgruppen commander Otto Ohlendorf, who testified about the murder of 80,000 people by those under his command, and SS general Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski, who admitted that German anti-partisan warfare was little more than a cover for the mass murder of Jews. Grbe painfully recounts how he saw a grave of over a thousand bodies, some of whom were still moving.. As U.S. forces liberated concentration camps, his job was to rush in and gather evidence. Lesley Stahl: Did you meet a lot of people who perpetrated war crimes who would otherwise in your opinion have been just a normal, upstanding citizen? Exhibit 179, from Kiev in 1941: "The city's Jews were ordered to present themselves about 34,000 reported, including women and children. Flags from left to right: International Military Tribunal for the Far East, Charter of the International Military Tribunal, List of defendants at the International Military Tribunal, SS Main Economic and Administrative Office, mass expulsion of millions of Germans from central and eastern Europe, confrontation with the concentration camps, Journal of International Criminal Justice, "Notre combat pour la paix: la France et le procs de Nuremberg (1945-1946)", "Le procs de Nuremberg: retour sur soixante-dix ans de recherche", "German Participation in the Nuremberg Trials and Its Implications for Today", "Imperfect Justice at Nuremberg and Tokyo", Trial of the Major War Criminals before the International Military Tribunal, International Military Tribunal (Nuremberg Trials), International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, Special Panels of the Dili District Court, International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals, List of major perpetrators of the Holocaust, Nazis and Nazi Collaborators (Punishment) Law, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nuremberg_trials&oldid=1152692054, International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg, Courts and tribunals disestablished in 1946, Short description is different from Wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 1 May 2023, at 18:42. Just put 'em in the ditch. Documents in the Taube Archive have been converted into digital files using optical character recognition technology that turns printed materials, including handwritten, typed or scanned paper files, into an electronic format that can be easily searched. Ben Ferencz in court: The charges we have brought accuse the defendants of having committed crimes against humanity. [81] Senior American officials believed that convicting organizations was a good way of showing that not just the top German leaders were responsible for crimes, without condemning the entire German people. Twelve Nazi leaders were sentenced to death by hanging. He was carrying out his government's instructions. For the scholars, what makes the Nuremberg archives particularly captivating is the variety of human narratives that emerges from the variety of documents and transcripts stories that are now easier to find thanks to Stanfords preservation efforts. Series of military trials at the end of World War II, This article is about the series of international trials. Lesley Stahl: Now, you've been at this for 50 years, if not more. [208][209] Many Germans lumped criminal trials with denazification, internment, and confrontation with the concentration camps, as illegitimate victor's justice and the imposition of collective guilt. Fullmich and his team present the faulty PCR test and the order for doctors to label any comorbidity death as a Covid death as fraud. Ferencz learned quickly. Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Channette Alexander), (Image credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Courtesy Randy Cole), Stanford Center for Human Rights and International Justice, is an expanded repository of digital records, A better, faster tool for saving water on farms. He's an intelligent, patriotic human being. Streichers paper was a symbol for how Nazi propaganda methodically dehumanized Jews and used mass media to ready non-Jewish Germans to carry out the Holocaust. [228][24] The charge of crimes against humanity, the charge of conspiracy, and imposing criminal penalties on individuals for breaches of international law were also novel but attracted little criticism. Lesley Stahl: Did anybody ever say that you're naive? [234][235] Further developments in international criminal law in the aftermath of the trials included the Genocide Convention (1948) and the Fourth Geneva Convention (1949). You know? I am naive? Two of the 24 defendants died during the trials, including Hermann Goring, commander of Nazi Germanys air force, who committed suicide. [1] Most of the defendants were also charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity. Benjamin Ferencz: Yes. And these were daily reports from the Eastern Front-- which unit entered which town, how many people they killed. [143] Although a few defense lawyers inverted the arguments of the prosecution to assert that the Germans' authoritarian mindset and obedience to the state exonerated them from any personal guilt, most rejected such arguments. Benjamin Ferencz: And I'm still in there fighting. This week, the U.S. Twelve defendants received a death sentence, seven were sentenced to prison terms of varying lengths, and three were acquitted. Between November 20, 1945, and October 1, 1946, the International Military Tribunal (IMT) tried 21 of the most important surviving leaders of Nazi Germany in the political, military, and economic spheres, as well as six German organizations. The trial of 22 Nazi leaders began on Nov. 20, 1945, and the Tribunal pronounced its judgment on Oct. 1, 1946. Transfer of the Nuremberg Trial Archives to the Peace Palace, March 14, 1950. [204] In the United Kingdom, although a variety of responses were reported, it was difficult to sustain interest in a long trial. Our aim is to create a resource that enables users to draw on that experience and knowledge in ways that can assist governments, institutions and experts in improving how we achieve accountability for mass atrocity crimes, said Cohen. [100], On 21 November, Jackson gave the opening speech for the prosecution. [66][67] The prosecutors wanted to try representative leaders of German politics, economy, and military; and the Americans had a list of 70 names at the London Conference. 25. Lesley Stahl: What turns a man into a savage beast like that? The recordings, many of them in German without translation, offer an insight into the mood, mindset and history of people like Frank and Streicher, who spoke at length about his personal history growing up in a small village in Bavaria as the youngest of nine children. [219][220] The German public took the early releases as confirmation of what they saw as the illegitimacy of the trials. [22][23] War crimes already existed in international law as criminal violations of the laws and customs of war. [98] Jackson maintained that while the United States did "not seek to convict the whole German people of crime", neither did the trial "serve to absolve the whole German people except 21 men in the dock". Without calling a single witness, he entered into evidence the defendants' own reports of what they'd done. The only part of the French charges that were accepted by the judges was the deportation of Jews from France and other parts of Western Europe. Many of the worst offenders were not prosecuted, for logistical or financial reasons. They could-- like, they're waiting for a bus. [195][196], These trials emphasized the crimes committed during the Holocaust. [172] All 22 defendants were charged with crimes against peace, and 12 were convicted. [99] Nevertheless, defense lawyers (although not most of the defendants) often argued that the prosecution was trying to promote German collective guilt and forcefully countered this as a strawman argument. Defendants in the dock at the Nuremberg trials. Following the end of World War II, trials aimed at holding Nazi war criminals accountable were held in Nuremberg, Germany. Stanford scholars expand digital database with historic records from You're sitting here as a female. [94] All defendants pleaded not guilty. All eight judges participated in the deliberations, but the alternates could not cast a vote. [62] Vyshinsky demanded extensive corrections to the crimes-against-peace charges, especially regarding the role of the GermanSoviet pact in starting World War II. Benjamin Ferencz: They were 3,000 SS officers trained for the purpose, and directed to kill without pity or remorse, every single Jewish man, woman, and child they could lay their hands on. Look at the emancipation of woman in my lifetime. [121], On 8 February, the Soviet prosecution opened its case with a speech by Rudenko that covered all four prosecution charges, highlighting both aggressive war and the devastation of Eastern Europe[122] and listing many crimes committed by the German occupiers against the Soviet people. This was Case #1 of the Subsequent Nuremberg Proceedings . [227] The main legal criticisms of the trial focused on questions of retroactivity, selectivity, and jurisdiction. I know I'm right. [86] Overall, the prosecution called 37 witnesses compared to the defense's 83, not including 19 defendants who testified on their own behalf. [205] Where the prosecution was disappointed by some of the verdicts, the defense could take satisfaction. [64] The division of labor, and the haste with which the indictment was prepared, resulted in duplication, imprecise language, and lack of attribution of specific charges to individual defendants. [150] The judges barred most evidence on Allied misdeeds from being heard in court. [6] The Soviet Union wanted to hold a show trial similar to the 1930s Moscow trials, in order to demonstrate the Nazi leaders' guilt and build a case for war reparations to rebuild the Soviet economy, which had been devastated by the war. The United States and the United Kingdom refused to endorse this proposal, citing the failure of war crimes prosecutions after World War I. [48] The French judges were Henri Donnedieu de Vabres, a professor of criminal law, and alternate Robert Falco, who had represented France at the London Conference. The Nuremberg Trials, 75 Years Later - The Unwritten Record [77] Gring, the most famous surviving Nazi, headlined the trial. #. Ferencz came home, married his childhood sweetheart and vowed never to set foot in Germany again. If they tell me they want war instead of peace, I don't say they're naive, I say they're stupid. [56][57] After this division of formulating the charges, the British and American delegations decided to work jointly in drafting the charges of conspiracy to wage aggressive war. [110] Unlike Jackson, he attempted to minimize the novelty of the aggression charges. (Image credit: National Archives of the Netherlands / ANP, CC0). [20][21] The offenses that would be prosecuted were crimes against peace, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. [135] The Soviet Union also called two Holocaust survivors as witnesses, Samuel Rajzmana Treblinka survivorand poet Abraham Sutzkever, who eloquently described the murder of tens of thousands of Jews from Vilna, although their testimony did not directly incriminate any of the defendants. The defendants' lawyers jointly appealed to the court, claiming it did not have jurisdiction against the accused; but this motion was rejected. Ben Ferencz entered into evidence the defendants' own reports of what they'd done. President Harry Truman asked Robert Jackson, an associate justice of the Supreme Court, to serve as the chief American prosecutor . [130] The defense presented evidence of Soviet responsibility,[131] and Katyn was not mentioned in the verdict. But they were real. [38], In early 1946, there were a thousand employees from the four countries' delegations in Nuremberg, of which about two-thirds were from the United States. add_to_queue. The IMT focused on the crime of aggressionplotting and waging aggressive war, which the verdict declared "the supreme international crime" because "it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole". These were people who could quote Goethe, who loved Wagner, who were polite--. [33], The negotiators decided that the tribunal's permanent seat would be in Berlin, while the trial would be held at the Palace of Justice in Nuremberg. [235] In the 1990s, a revival of international criminal law included the establishment of ad hoc international criminal tribunals for Yugoslavia (ICTY) and Rwanda (ICTR), which were widely seen as part of the legacy of the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials. Institutional rivalries hampered the search. The International Military Tribunal, more commonly known at the Nuremberg trials, began this week 75 years ago in Nuremberg, Germany.The trials were a series of military tribunals held to convict major Nazi German leaders on charges of crimes against peace, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and conspiracy to commit each of these crimes. Yes. Taylor told Ferencz adding another trial was impossible. By SIMCHA PASKO 01/10/2021 The defendants, who included Nazi Party officials . [151], In order to appease concerns about fair process, the defendants were allowed a free hand with their witnesses and a great deal of irrelevant testimony was heard. [10][11], Of all the Allies, the Soviet Union lobbied most intensely for trying the defeated German leaders for aggression in addition to war crimes. These men would never have been murderers had it not been for the war. A bust of Ferencz was just installed outside that Nuremberg courtroom where he argued almost three-quarters of a century ago. [67] Also prosecuted were leaders of the German economy, such as Gustav Krupp (of the conglomerate Krupp AG), former Reichsbank president Hjalmar Schacht, and economic planners Albert Speer and Walther Funk, along with Speer's subordinate and head of the forced labor program, Fritz Sauckel. [188] The Office of Chief Counsel for War Crimes identified 2,500 major war criminals, of whom 177 were tried. London Anti-Vaxxer Says Healthcare Workers Face Nuremberg-Style Trials General Telford Taylor, in charge of the Nuremberg trials, asked him to direct a team of researchers in Berlin, one of whom found a cache of top-secret documents in the ruins of the German foreign ministry. . [138], From March to July 1946, the defense presented its counterarguments. Shoot 'em there. [139] Some defendants denied their involvement in, or knowledge of, certain crimes,[140] even resorting to implausible lies. This additional collection, to be known as the Taube Archive of the International Military Tribunal of Nuremberg, will allow the public to easily browse and discover the contents of over 5,000 trial records including 250,000 pages of digitized paper documents showing in meticulous detail the efforts of the IMT, a group of representatives from four Allied countries the U.S., the U.K., the Soviet Union and France who were tasked with prosecuting former officials of the Third Reich and holding them accountable for the horrific acts inflicted during World War II and the Holocaust. The Nuremberg trials were a series of 13 trials carried out in Nuremberg, Germany, between 1945 and 1949 to try those accused of Nazi war crimes. [5] Soviet jurist Aron Trainin developed the concept of crimes against peace (waging aggressive war) which would later be central to the proceedings at Nuremberg. June 27, 2021 / 6:54 PM I'm sitting here listening to you. And you know what keeps me going? [28] The charter limited the jurisdiction of the court to Germany's actions because the Allies did not want to answer to an international court for their own actions;[29] only Germans could be tried. Proposals for how to punish the defeated Nazi leaders ranged from a show trial (the Soviet Union) to summary executions (the United Kingdom). By submitting the above I agree to the privacy policy and terms of use of JTA.org. At the Nuremberg Trials, the doctors and nurses stood trial, and they hung. [88], The charter allowed the admissibility of any evidence deemed to have probative value, including depositions. Germany, May 1945: a surrender, a country in chaos and the top Nazi leaders attempting to slip away. [132] The inclusion of Katyn in the charges undermined the credibility of Soviet evidence in general. War makes murderers out of otherwise decent people. Benjamin Ferencz: Of course. [186] These trials were held under Law No. [142] In contrast, most defendants avoided incriminating each other. 2021 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. He wanted to be a pilot, but the Army Air Corps wouldn't take him. The New Nuremberg Trials 2021: Update from Dr. Reiner Fuellmich - Minds