Nuremberg Military Tribunals

The Nuremberg Military Tribunals were a series of twelve military tribunals for war crimes against members of the leadership of Nazi Germany, lasting from December 1946 to April 1949. They differed from the first and best-known Nuremberg trial, the International Military Tribunal, in that they were conducted before U.S. military courts rather than an international court.

This article is about the U.S. Nuremburg trials. For the earlier international trials, see Nuremberg trials.
Auschwitz survivor Philipp Auerbach testifies for the prosecution in the Ministries trial

These trials dealt with German industrialists accused of using slave labor and plundering occupied countries, and high-ranking army officers accused of atrocities against prisoners of war. The subsequent trials were held in the same location, at the Palace of Justice in Nuremberg.[1]

Background

Although it had been initially planned to hold more than just one international trial at the IMT, the growing differences between the victors of the second world war (the United States, United Kingdom, France, and Soviet Union) made this impossible. However, the Control Council Law No. 10, which the Allied Control Council had issued on 20 December 1945, empowered any of the occupying authorities to try suspected war criminals in their respective occupation zones. Based on this law, the U.S. authorities proceeded after the end of the initial Nuremberg Trial against the major war criminals to hold another twelve trials in Nuremberg. The judges in all these trials were American, and so were the prosecutors; the Chief of Counsel for the Prosecution was Brigadier General Telford Taylor. In the other occupation zones similar trials took place.[2]

Trials

The twelve U.S. trials before the Nuremberg Military Tribunals (NMT) took place from 9 December 1946 to 13 April 1949.[2] The trials were as follows:

# Designations Dates Defendants
1Doctors' Trial9 December 1946 – 20 August 194723 Nazi physicians of the Action T4
2Milch Trial2 January – 14 April 1947Field Marshal Erhard Milch of the Luftwaffe
3Judges' Trial5 March – 4 December 194716 Nazi German "racial purity" jurists
4Pohl Trial8 April – 3 November 1947Oswald Pohl and 17 SS officers
5Flick Trial19 April – 22 December 1947Friedrich Flick and 5 directors of his companies
6IG Farben Trial27 August 1947 – 30 July 194824 directors of IG Farben, maker of Zyklon B
7Hostages Trial8 July 1947 – 19 February 194812 German generals of the Balkan Campaign
8RuSHA Trial20 October 1947 – 10 March 194814 racial cleansing and resettlement officials
9Einsatzgruppen Trial29 September 1947 – 10 April 194824 officers of Einsatzgruppen
10Krupp Trial8 December 1947 – 31 July 194812 directors of the Krupp Group
11Ministries Trial6 January 1948 – 13 April 194921 officials of Reich ministries
12High Command Trial30 December 1947 – 28 October 194814 High Command generals

Result

The Nuremberg process initiated 3,887 cases of which about 3,400 were dropped. 489 cases went to trial, involving 1,672 defendants. 1,416 of them were found guilty; less than 200 were executed, and another 279 defendants were sent to life in prison. By the 1950s almost all of them had been released.[3]

Many of the longer prison sentences were reduced substantially by decree of high commissioner John J. McCloy in 1951, and 10 outstanding death sentences from the Einsatzgruppen Trial were converted to prison terms. The same year, an amnesty released many of those who had received prison sentences.

Criticism

Some of the NMTs have been criticised for their conclusion that "moral bombing" of civilians, including its nuclear variety, was legal, and for their judgement that, in certain situations, executing civilians in reprisal was permissible.[4]

Conduct of the prosecution

In a 2005 interview for the Washington Post, Benjamin B. Ferencz, Chief Prosecutor for the United States Army at the Einsatzgruppen Trial, revealed some of his activities during his period in Germany. "Someone who was not there could never really grasp how unreal the situation was," he said. The Americans delivered at least a dozen low-ranking German SS suspects to displaced persons camps for the purpose of having them executed by the DPs ("displaced persons"), without prior trial or sentencing. Under military law at that time, it was legal to hand over suspects to their victims for further questioning.[5]

See also

References
  1. "Nuremberg Trials". HISTORY. A&E Television Networks. Retrieved November 25, 2019.
  2. Kevin Jon Heller (2011). The Trials. Introduction: the indictments, biographical information, and the verdicts. The Nuremberg Military Tribunals and the Origins of International Criminal Law. Oxford University Press. pp. 85–. ISBN 9780199554317. Retrieved 10 January 2015.
  3. Nelson, Anne (April 2009). Red Orchestra: The Story of the Berlin Underground and the Circle of Friends Who Resisted Hitler. Random House. pp. 305–6. ISBN 9781588367990. subsequent nuremberg trials 200 nazi.
  4. Heller, Kevin Jon (2011). The Nuremberg Military Tribunals and the Origins of International Criminal Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 3.
  5. Brzezinski, Matthew (24 July 2005). "Giving Hitler Hell". The Washington Post. Retrieved 6 October 2012.

Further reading
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