Nuremberg Trials Begin

An international tribunal in Nuremberg began to hear the cases of 22 Nazi leaders in government, the army, and the economy. Before the war ended, the powers had declared their resolve to punish the perpetrators of war crimes. The appellation “international tribunal” was meant to stress the universality of the judgments to be rendered, and their importance for the entire world. It was the first trial in history meant to administer punishment by means of proper jurisprudence, including adequate defense for the accused, and not by executions or the summary verdicts of lightning trials. The court which was composed of judges from the United States, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and France. They took a clear stand on the issue of responsibility for crimes carried out on orders from above. The court declared that the following of superior orders was not a cause for the perpetration of a crime. The adjudication of war crimes, and crimes against humanity, was linked to the persecution and murder of the Jews, in order to define these actions as manifestations of the most consistent and systematic inhumanity ever practiced. In the rulings, delivered on September 30 and October 1, 1946, 12 defendants were sentenced to death: Hermann Goering, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Wilhelm Keitel, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Alfred Rosenberg, Hans Frank, Wilhelm Frick, Julius Streicher, Fritz Sauckel, Alfred Jodl, Arthur Seyss-Inquart, and Martin Bormann (who was tried in absentia).