preview

Political Causes Of The Nuremberg Trials

Decent Essays

The Nuremberg trials, occurring from November 1945 to October 1946, were crucial in appointing responsibility for the war crimes and crimes against humanity conducted by Germany while under the rule of Hitler and the Nazi Party. Two dozen of the most notable political and military leaders were tried during the Nuremberg trials with a considerable amount resulting in execution. Despite continual efforts to shift blame to higher ranking officers and claims of general unawareness, most Nazi war criminals, specifically Wilhelm Frick, Herman Goering, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, and Otto Ohlendorf, who claimed to have been unaware of the persecution and mass murder of the Jews were found guilty of being involved with the Holocaust with evidence …show more content…

When questioned about his opinions on the charges against Karl Frank, one of the many war criminals found guilty and sentenced to death, Frick’s response was that “he had his good side.” He also noted that “Hitler was undoubtedly a genius,” and justified most of his viewpoints criticizing that he did not have “enough self-control.” In the interview, Frick would claim that he “lost Hitler’s confidence in 1934” and “was not really in the inner circle of Hitler’s advisers” yet retained his position of minister of interior, that he considered an important role, through 1945 (Goldensohn 55). Frick would oversee the internment of “tens of thousands of opponents to the Nazi regime” into concentration camps during his time as the minister of interior (Walker 57). His signature would also be found to legitimize the murders of the Roehm purge (Taylor 337). Frick was most definitely aware of the conspiring to eliminate political opponents and the existence of the concentration camps as he oversaw the legitimization of documents detailing their orders. Also an early member of the Nazi Party joining in 1925, Otto Ohlendorf was undeniably guilty of assisting in the murder of millions of Jews. Ohlendorf was evasive on the topic of the Jews with his only responses about them being that “they were members of other parties” and that they “held more favorable positions than they should have, according to their percentage of the population.”

Get Access