The Holocaust: The Nuremberg Trials

The Nuremberg Trials were held in Nuremberg, Germany from the 20th of November 1945 to the 1st of October 1946, 24 of the Nazi leaders were tried for their crimes against humanity, however only 22 trials were officially carried out due to Robert Ley committing suicide and Gustav Krupp von Bohlen deemed unfit for trial before their hearing. It was considered to be controversial as all Nazi officials at one time claimed that they were simply following orders from a higher power and that they weren’t to blame for their crimes because they were acting in self defence. Hermann Göring also committed suicide the day before his scheduled execution. Also a few of Hitler’s accomplices committed suicide before they had a chance to be trialled. These adjustments to the expected outcome of the Nuremberg Trials caused controversy amongst everyone who knew of the Nazi’s treatment of others, especially Jews. There was also some bias towards the Nazi party from the people conducting the trial as they were mostly from Allied descent and had personal reasons to persecute Nazis simply because they were Nazis without fairly considering their crimes against humanity.

At the time of the Nuremberg trials, “crimes against humanity” were new international crimes. The laws criminalized such acts as murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, and other inhumane acts committed against any

Throughout, 1945 to 1946, the International Military Tribunal, or IMT, for short, tried 22 major war criminals on the charges of crimes against peace and conspiracy. They defined these crimes that the defendants committed as “murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation or persecutions on political, racial, or religious grounds.” They all got their respective sentences in prison starting from 10 to 20 years in prison to execution.

Most people know of Hitler being the leader of the nazis and “leading” the war on Jews, but in documents it states that he justedx signed off on it because it was brought up by one of his second in command and one of his most trusted people, but before he could be put on trial Hitler ended his life in his bunker so that he couldn't be captured. So the Nuremberg trials consisted of Rudolf Hess, Joachim Freiherr, Dr. Wilhelm Frick, Heinrich Himmler and many more these names are just some of the biggest because they were all his most trusted comrades. All together they were charged with the genocide of Jews, gypsies, gays, and many more. They were also charged with crimes against peace by invading other countries and taking total control of them, they were also charged with crimes against humanity because of the gruesome and awful ways they treated people and how they killed people and they were also charged with conspiracy to commit such crimes all of these charges are major charges mainly resulting in the death penalty due to the nature of the crimes the only one that wasn't worth the death penalty was the conspiracy to commit because they had planned on what they were doing and hadn't even started it yet. Making this one of the many ways that helped them figure there death toll for the Jews. All of these men were killed because of their crimes and for the role they had in the mass

The Holocaust was one of the most tragic events in history which ended innocent Jew lives it was led by one man and his followers named Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. It was an tragic event that murdered millions and of the Jewish people and left thousands of them with physical and mental scars. The Nazis who came to power in Germany in January 1933 felt that Germans were " racially superior " and that the Jews deemed " inferior " were an alien threat to their German community. In the 20th century was the start of WWI political and economic dislocation. Nazi persecution of Jews led to the Holocaust they suffered in many ways they were discriminated against and forced to go into hiding they were sent into the "Ghetto" and treated unfairly in very

According to Justice Lawrence, author, the purpose of the Nuremberg Trials, later known as the Doctor’s Trial, was to “not only the punishment of those who were guilty but the establishment of the supremacy of international law over national law and proof of the actual facts” (Lawrence, p. 153) of the atrocious mass genocide known now as the Holocaust. This means that point of these trials were not only to punish the murderous doctors but also to show the world that international law is the highest form of power. A separate form of trials initially took place in Germany, however, it was a “farce” according to Lawrence. “The majority got off and such sentences as were inflicted were derisory and were soon remitted” (Lawrence, p. Yo27153). Due to the growing tension between the German court of law and other countries the Doctor’s Trial was then moved to Nuremberg, and the evidence was eventually over-turned to the United States who would eventually indict 23 doctors on a number of crimes

The International Military Tribunal was established in Nuremberg in August 1945, later followed by other tribunals. The Tribunal was set up by the Allied great powers: The United States, the Soviet Union, United Kingdom and France. Until October 1946 22 accused were prosecuted for crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. The extermination of the European Jews was not an independent count at the trial, but was included in crimes against humanity. Many of the murderers, tormentors and henchmen have since 1945 been convicted for the murder of Jews based on the guidelines from the Nuremberg Tribunal. Several of these have been

The allied forces formed the Nuremberg Tribunal, these forces included the United States, Soviet Union, United Kingdom, and France. These nations had announced that they would began grueling the Nazi’s in the winter of 1945. The United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union were the first to officially announced on december 17, 1942 that they wanted to litigate those who were responsible for the mass murders of the Jewish people. On October 1943 the Moscow Declaration was signed and this said that the criminal would be sent to their country and the country would take care of charging them accordingly to their laws. The Nuremberg trials officially began in Nuremberg, Germany on November 20, 1945 . Germany had surrendered just six months prior to the trials. Each one of the nations supplied a judge and a prosecution team in the trial (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum). The Nazi’s could be charged with one or many of the four accounts: Conspiracy, Crimes Against Peace, War Crimes,

J.E.B. Spredemann once said, "Choices made, whether bad or good, follow you forever and affect everyone in their path one way or another." This is especially true for the war criminals that were involved in the Holocaust. The Nuremberg Trials were a series of trials that consisted mostly of criminals that led Nazi Germany during World War II with a goal to punish them for the crimes they had committed.

Most significantly, the German defendants at Nuremberg were being tried for several categories of offense that had no precedent under international law creating "ex post facto" charge, meaning that the defendants were indicted for something that was not a crime until after they had committed it. At the time that the German officials on trial committed the various atrocities for which they were charged, no international law specifically banned their actions. The prosecution was therefore able to construct their charges to maximize the rate of conviction. Most national legal codes, including the law of the United States, require that a crime must have been illegal at the time the act was committed in order to charges to be pressed. The major focuses of the prosecution were crimes against the peace, crimes against humanity, war crimes, organizations, and conspiracy.

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

Nuremberg was located inside the American zone, and was chosen because of the many political rallies of the Nazi regime held there.5 The trials began on November 20, 195. Indictments against Nazi party leaders were divided into two categories. The first was for those who had “committed mass atrocities and war crimes so monstrous that the guilt of those responsible would be self evident.”6 The second charged defendants with conspiring to wage violent war. The trial lasted two hundred and sixteen days and was an endless stream of revelations to the Allies and German civilians of the terrifying and unspeakable crimes done by the Nazis. During testimony citizens of Germany learned the full story of what had gone on during Hitler's rule, including the extermination of the Jewish, the Roma, and other minorities, mass deportation and nauseating medical experiments. The Americans were the most determined to identify Germany. Every citizen over the age of eighteen was required to fill out a questionnaire about their affiliations with Nazism. Twelve million people completed a questionnaire. Their courts in Dachau sentenced four hundred and twenty people to death.7 Denazification was criticized by many for only catching minor criminals, and allowing major Nazi members to escape. The people of Germany could pretend they were innocent no

On 8th August, 1945, shortly after the end of World War II in May of 1945, the Allied governments entered into a joint agreement establishing the International Military Tribunal for the purpose of trying those responsible for the war atrocities. Whereas some 5,000 Nazi’s were charged with war crimes, the Nuremberg trials were designed specifically to prosecute high ranking Nazi officials with whom the authority for the commission of heinous atrocities rested.

The Nuremberg Trials were a critical point in the history of international law because it established the fact that humanity has the need of an international shield to shelter and protect. This event was responsible for contributing in the ongoing process of developing rules that are binding between states and nations also known as international laws. The judgment of the trials may be one of the most important events in the history of international law due to the fact that it assisted in establishing laws against war crimes. One of the biggest questions raised was whether causing a war was an international crime that would be punishable or not. Many believed there was no

To start out, the Nuremberg Trials were a series of trials that had been held throughout