The Trial

The trial began on November 20, 1945, and concluded on October 1, 1946. Thirty-three witnesses
testified for the prosecution. Eighty witnesses testified for the defense, including nineteen of the
defendants. An additional 140 witnesses provided evidence for the defense through written
interrogatories. The prosecution introduced written evidence of its own, including original military,
diplomatic, and government files of the Nazi regime that fell into the hands of the Allies after the collapse
of the Third Reich.
Jackson commenced the trial with an opening statement that is considered one of the most eloquent in
the annals of jurisprudence. "The wrongs which we seek to condemn and punish," Jackson said, "have
been so calculated, so malignant, and so devastating that civilization cannot tolerate their being ignored
because it cannot survive their being repeated . That four great nations, flushed with victory and stung
with injury, stay the hand of vengeance and voluntarily submit their captive enemies to judgment of the
law is one of the most significant tributes that power has ever paid to reason."
The prosecution case was divided into two main phases. The first phase focused on establishing the
criminality of various components of the Nazi regime, while the second sought to establish the guilt of
individual defendants. The first prosecutorial phase was divided into parts.
The prosecution presented the case that the Austrian invasion constituted an aggressive war, then
proceeded over the course of two weeks to show the same for invasions of Czechoslovakia, Poland,
Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg, Greece, Yugoslavia, and the Soviet Union.
Prosecution proof on the counts of conspiring to wage and then waging an aggressive war consisted
mainly of documentary evidence.
A second part of the prosecution case concerned the Nazi's use of slave labor and concentration camps.
Evidence introduced during this part of the prosecution case brought home the true horror of the Nazi
regime. For example, on December 13, 1945, U. S. prosecutor Thomas Todd introduced USA Exhibit
#253: tanned human tattooed skin from concentration camp victims, preserved for Isle Koch, the wife of
the Commandant of Buchenwald, who liked to have the flesh fashioned into lampshades and other
household objects for her home. Then Todd introduced USA Exhibit #254: the fist-shaped shrunken head
of an executed Pole, used by Koch as a paperweight.
On December 18, the prosecution began introducing evidence to establish the criminality of the Nazi party
leadership, the Reich Cabinet, the SS, the Gestapo, the SD, the SA, and the German High Command.
Some of the evidence brought cries and gasps from spectators. A British prosecutor, seeking to establish
the criminality of the SS, read an affidavit from Dr. Sigmund Rascher, a professor of medicine who
performed experiments on inmates at Dashau concentration camp.
The affidavit described an experiment conducted to determine what method to use to save German fliers
pulled out of freezing North Sea waters. Rascher ordered inmates stripped naked and then thrown into
tanks of freezing water. Chunks of ice were added, as workers repeatedly thrust thermometers into the
rectums of unconscious inmates to see if they were sufficiently chilled. Then the inmates were pulled out
of the tanks to see which of four methods of warming might work best. Most inmates were dropped into
either tanks of hot water, warm water, or tepid water. One quarter of the inmates were placed next to the
bodies of naked female inmates. (Rapid warming with hot water was determined to be most effective.)
Rascher stated in his affidavit that most of the inmates used in the experiment went into convulsions and
died.
In January, a series of concentration camp victims testified about their experiences. Marie Claude VallantCouturier, a 33-year-old French woman, provided particularly powerful testimony about what she saw at
Auschwitz in 1942.

Vallant-Couturier described how a Nazi orchestra played happy tunes as soldiers separated those
destined for slave labor from those that would be gassed. She told of a night she was "awakened by
horrible cries. The next day we learned that the Nazis had run out of gas and the children had been
hurled into the furnaces alive."
On February 18, 1946, Soviet prosecutors introduced a film entitled Documentary Evidence of the
German Fascist Invaders. The film, which consisted mostly of captured German footage, showed Nazi
atrocities accompanied by Russian narration. In one scene a boy is shown--shot because he refused to
give his pet dove to an SS man. In another scene, naked women are forced into a ditch, then made to lie
down as German soldiers--smiling for the camera--shoot them.
It was stated by observers at the trial that there were generally three types of reactions to the trial
amongst the defendants - the unrepentant, the repentant and the confused.
The unrepentant (Hermann Goering is probably the best example) were the ones who refused to
admit that they'd done any wrong, and who challenged the validity of the trial, claiming that it was
"victors' justice", or saying, famously, that they were only obeying orders.
The repentant were the few who actually realized the enormity of their crimes and attempted to
atone (in as much as that was possible) by renouncing Hitler and all his ideas (a bit late for that,
you might think, but it certainly impressed the judges - Albert Speer, the armaments minister was
the most prominent repentant).
The confused were the ones who were in denial about everything, desperately scrabbling around
for any ray of hope, but generally incapable of defending themselves beyond claiming that they
were not important enough to have influenced state policy, that they hadn't known about the
holocaust, and that it had all been Himmler's fault anyway. Foreign minister Joachim von
Ribbentrop is the classic example of this type of defendant.
Siegfried Ramler was an interpreter at the Nuremberg war crimes trials. Here is his impression of
Hermann Goering:
If one can speak of a dominant personality in the dock, Hermann Goering definitely fits that description as
the leading defendant. Prison diet and discipline seem to have improved his health, since he was forced
to wean himself from a drug dependency. He lost weight and he was mentally alert, as demonstrated by
his ability to spar effectively with Chief Prosecutor Robert Jackson during his cross examination.
From the very beginning of the trial he took it on himself to direct the strategy of his codefendants by
sending notes from the dock to various defense lawyers with suggestions of issues to be raised,
questions to be asked, and witnesses to be called. This manipulative behavior became an irritant to the
court and he was ordered to limit his communications to his own defense counsel and to issues pertaining
to his own defense. During a period of time during the trial one of my duties was to check his notes to
counsel before they were passed on and to ascertain that they were related to his own defense. Goering
wanted the German leaders in the dock to present a united front, an aim in which he could not succeed.
The disparity among the defendants in their backgrounds and in their roles in relation to Hitler was too
great.
For example, such individuals as the banker Hjalmar Schacht or the diplomat Constantin Von Neurath
would not even deign to speak to such defendants as Gauleiter Julius Streicher or SS Chief Ernst
Kaltenbrunner. Goering's personal vanity was evident throughout the trial. When testimony was presented
about his penchant for luxury or his looting of art works from occupied countries, he became visibly angry
- more so than when the larger issues of his involvement with aggressive war and war crimes were the
subject during his examination on the stand. He escaped hanging by swallowing a concealed cyanide pill
in his cell shortly before the scheduled execution.
It is likely that the pill was passed to him by an American officer of the guard detail whom he had
befriended. I recall him sitting in the first seat in the front row of the dock, often with a supercilious smile,
perhaps knowing that he would cheat the hangman."

Hans Frank who had converted to Roman Catholicism after his arrest, made the following declaration at
Nuremberg:
"A thousand years will pass and the guilt of Germany will not be erased."
The prosecution rested on March 6. After the thirty-three witnesses and hundreds of exhibits that had
been produced, no one could deny that crimes against humanity had been committed in Europe.

The Verdicts

Name

Position

Martin Bormann
Deputy Fhrer
(in absentia)

Found
Guilty of
Counts

Sentenced

Action Taken

III and IV

Death

Was missing at time of trial. Later it

was discovered Bormann had died
in 1945.

Karl Dnitz

Supreme Commander of
the Navy (1943) and
II and III
German Chancellor

10 Years in
Prison

Served time. Died in 1980.

Hans Frank

Governor-General of
Occupied Poland

III and IV

Death

Hanged on October 16, 1946.

Wilhelm Frick

Foreign Minister of the

Interior

II, III, and

IV

Death

Hanged on October 16, 1946.

Head of the Radio

Hans Fritzsche Division of the
Propaganda Ministry

In 1947 sentenced to 9 years in

work camp; released after 3 years.
Died in 1953.

II, III, and

IV

Life in Prison Early release in 1957. Died in 1960.

Hermann Gring Reich Marshal

All Four

Death

Rudolf Hess

Deputy to the Fhrer

I and II

Life in Prison Died in prison on August 17, 1987.

Alfred Jodl

Chief of the Operations

All Four
Staff of the Armed Forces

Death

Hanged on October 16, 1946. In

1953, a German appeals court
posthumously found Jodl not guilty
of breaking international law.

Ernst
Kaltenbrunner

Chief of the Security

Police, SD, and RSHA

III and IV

Death

Hanged on October 16, 1946.

Wilhelm Keitel

Chief of the High

Command of the Armed
Forces

All Four

Death

Requested to be shot as a soldier.

Request denied. Hanged on
October 16, 1946.

Konstantin von
Neurath

Minister of Foreign Affairs

and Reich Protector of
All Four
Bohemia and Moravia

15 Years in
Prison

Early release in 1954. Died in 1956.

Walther Funk

Franz von
Papen

President of the
Reichsbank (1939)

Not Guilty Acquitted

Chancellor (1932)

Not Guilty Acquitted

Committed suicide on October 15,

1946 (three hours before he was to
be executed).

In 1949, a German court sentenced

Papen to 8 years in work camp;
time was considered already
served. Died in 1969.

Erich Raeder

Supreme Commander of II, III, and

the Navy (1928-1943)
IV

Life in Prison Early release in 1955. Died in 1960.

Joachim von
Ribbentrop

Reich Foreign Minister

All Four

Death

Hanged on October 16, 1946.

Alfred
Rosenberg

Party Philosopher and

Reich Minister for the
Eastern Occupied Area

All Four

Death

Hanged on October 16, 1946.

Fritz Sauckel

Plenipotentiary for Labor

II and IV
Allocation

Death

Hanged on October 16, 1946.

Minister of Economics
Hjalmar Schacht and President of the
Not Guilty Acquitted
Reichsbank (1933-1939)

De-nazification court sentenced

Schacht to 8 years in a work camp;
released in 1948. Died in 1970.

Baldur von
Schirach

Fhrer of the Hitler Youth IV

20 Years in
Prison

Served his time. Died in 1974.

Arthur SeyssInquart

Minister of the Interior

and Reich Gouvernor of
Austria

II, III, and

IV

Death

Hanged on October 16, 1946.

Albert Speer

Minister of Armaments
and War Production

III and IV

20 Years in
Prison

Served his time. Died in 1981.

IV

Death

Hanged on October 16, 1946.

Julius Streicher Founder of Der Strmer

Legacy of the Trials

The Nrnberg trials made three important contributions to international law. First, they established a
precedent that all persons, regardless of their station or occupation in life, can be held individually
accountable for their behavior during times of war. Defendants cannot insulate themselves from personal
responsibility by blaming the country, government, or military branch for which they committed the
particular war crime.
Second, the Nrnberg trials established that individuals cannot shield themselves from liability for war
crimes by asserting that they were simply following orders issued by a superior in the chain of command.
Subordinates in the military or government are now bound by their obligations under international law,
obligations that transcend their duty to obey an order issued by a superior. Orders to initiate aggressive
(as opposed to defensive) warfare, to violate recognized rules and customs of warfare, or to persecute
civilians and prisoners are considered illegal under the Nrnberg principles.
Third, the Nrnberg trials clearly established three discrete substantive war crimes that are punishable
under international law: crimes against peace, crimes against humanity, and crimes in violation of
transnational obligations embodied in treaties and other agreements. Before the Nrnberg trials, these
crimes were not well defined, and persons who committed such crimes had never been punished by a
multinational tribunal. For these reasons the Nrnberg convictions have sometimes been criticized as ex
post facto justice.