[81] Senior American officials believed that convicting organizations was a good way of showing that not just the top German leaders were responsible for crimes, without condemning the entire German people. So the court then allowed him to choose any lawyer he wanted and Stahmer was his pick. Soviet prosecutors in Nrnberg, Germany brought out Friedrich Paulus and Erich Buschenhagen by surprise as witnesses in the war crimes trials. [139] Some defendants denied their involvement in, or knowledge of, certain crimes,[140] even resorting to implausible lies. By special arrangement with a guard or prison official, he gave his handwritten notes to be mimeographed and returned to him. The priest was most likely the Nrnberg prisons Lutheran chaplain, Henry F. Gerecke. [32] The trial was held under modified common law. Kaltenbrunner had perpetrated extreme barbarism in the extermination of Jews through the planning and execution of the Final Solution. [52] Initially, it was planned that Iona Nikitchenko, who had presided over the Moscow trials, would serve as the chief prosecutor, but he was appointed as a judge and replaced by Roman Rudenko, a show trial prosecutor[53] chosen for his skill as an orator. What were the verdicts of Nrnberg trials? It would be so greatly appreciated. He had been instrumental in establishing a totalitarian state. Posted September 22, 2014. I have a brass pot, called an aspersorium, obtained by my father. [4], In early 1942, representatives of eight governments-in-exile in the United Kingdom issued a declaration on Punishment for War Crimes, which demanded an international court to try the Axis crimes committed in occupied countries. Omissions? [172] All 22 defendants were charged with crimes against peace, and 12 were convicted. [100], On 21 November, Jackson gave the opening speech for the prosecution. The tribunal was given the authority to find any individual guilty of the commission of war crimes (counts 13 listed above) and to declare any group or organization to be criminal in character. Designated as protector of Bohemia and Moravia in August 1943, he played a major role in developing the concentration- and labor-camp network for the slaughter of millions. list of guards at nuremberg trialsdelpark homes sutton list of guards at nuremberg trials. During numerous argumentative discussions, Neurath referred to the Polish population and others that were slaughtered by German troops as untermenschen, the German expression for inferior beings. Former field marshal Keitel, another prisoner who was eventually executed, gradually alienated himself from the other prisoners. Twelve sets of trials, involving over a hundred defendants and several different courts, took place in Nuremberg from 1945 to 1949. Popular radio commentator; head of the news division of the Nazi Propaganda Ministry. That was until he took his own life by biting down on a cyanide capsule a few hours before he was scheduled to be hanged., Prestianni remembered vividly the night of the executions and Grings suicide. [43] The United States prosecution believed that Nazism was the product of a German deviation from Western history (the Sonderweg thesis) and sought to correct this deviation with a trial that would serve both retributive and educational purposes. Courtroom 600 in the Nuremberg Palace of Justice was the site of the famous Nuremberg trials, a series of military tribunals that took place between November 20, 1945 and October 1, 1946. Number 3 was Konstantin von Neurath, a former high-ranking politician. Friedrich Jeckeln was found guilty and was executed in Riga, Latvia. Some of these camps, such as Treblinka, were death camps, intended to kill every prisoner that passed through their gates. Several were militaristically aloof and looked down upon those they considered to be the mere political element. [3] War losses in the Soviet Union alone included 27 million dead, mostly civilians, which was .mw-parser-output .frac{white-space:nowrap}.mw-parser-output .frac .num,.mw-parser-output .frac .den{font-size:80%;line-height:0;vertical-align:super}.mw-parser-output .frac .den{vertical-align:sub}.mw-parser-output .sr-only{border:0;clip:rect(0,0,0,0);height:1px;margin:-1px;overflow:hidden;padding:0;position:absolute;width:1px}17th of the prewar population. He held the rank of seargent when he was discharged in 1945. The Avalon Project: Documents in Law, History, and Diplomacy. Guards gradually learned through everyday observation, however, that the prisoners collective makeup truly spanned a psychologically intricate cross-section of those who had served Hitler. [151], In order to appease concerns about fair process, the defendants were allowed a free hand with their witnesses and a great deal of irrelevant testimony was heard. [210] As the Cold War began, the rapidly changing political environment began to affect the effectiveness of the trials. Raeder was sentenced to life imprisonment but was released for poor health on September 26, 1955. [20][21] The offenses that would be prosecuted were crimes against peace, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. [171] Only eight defendants were convicted on that charge; all of whom were also found guilty of crimes against peace. I wish I would have ask more questions about his experience there. [59] The conspiracy charge was used to charge the top Nazi leaders, as well as bureaucrats who had never killed anyone or perhaps even directly ordered killing. Courtroom MPs wore stylish white MP-emblazoned helmet liners and similarly labeled brassards. By early 1946, Western prosecutors were uneasy about the Katyn charge, although they never publicly rejected it for fear of casting the entire proceedings into question. My father Ed Rossi was also a guard at the Nuremberg trials. Before and during the war crimes trial, they were to be considered still innocent, Andrus drummed into the military personnel under his command. ;"God protect Germany. [30] Article 7 prevented the defendants from claiming immunity for their actions under the act of state doctrine,[31] and the plea of acting under superior orders was left for the judges to decide. [38], In early 1946, there were a thousand employees from the four countries' delegations in Nuremberg, of which about two-thirds were from the United States. [66][67] The prosecutors wanted to try representative leaders of German politics, economy, and military; and the Americans had a list of 70 names at the London Conference. Perhaps the most feared group of accused criminals in the annals of history was a potpourri of personalities who had been associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Nuremberg, Germany, November 1945. Between 20 November 1945 and 1 October 1946, the International Military Tribunal (IMT) tried 24 of the most important political and military leaders of Nazi Germany. Somewhat regularly, cellblock guards also pulled duty patrolling the parapet-style walls 50 feet above the cellblock and the courtyard, where observation of strolling prisoners below could be maintained. Ten condemned Nazi ringleaders died on the gallows in the Nuernberg jail early today but Herman Goering, Adolf . Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. He died about five years ago and I wished I would have asked questions. The Nrnberg trials began on November 20, 1945. Minister of Foreign Affairs 193238, succeeded by Ribbentrop. It was an appointment that, when coupled with his Baltic origin, brought him into sharp conflict with most of those in Hitlers entourage. [208][209] Many Germans lumped criminal trials with denazification, internment, and confrontation with the concentration camps, as illegitimate victor's justice and the imposition of collective guilt. Each prisoners cell was equipped with a simple, bench-like bed against one wall adjacent to the cell door, a primitive commode, a wooden table to hold the few allowed pictures and other personal items, and a chair too rickety to support the weight of a standing man. Strict attention was always paid to the prisoners. [144] Most defendants argued their own insignificance within the Nazi system, but Gring took the opposite approach, presenting himself as Hitler's loyalist and expecting that while he would be executed, the German people would eventually appreciate his loyalty. Let me have that again, please. He was proud of his physique, saying he was strong like Germany.. [161][162], The International Military Tribunal agreed with the prosecution that aggression was the gravest charge against the accused, stating in its judgement that because war in general is evil, "To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole. [146] The Nuremberg Laws were compared to discriminatory laws in the United States. The Rome Statute establishing a permanent International Criminal Court (ICC), which had been proposed in 1953, was finally agreed to in 1998. [174] The judges interpreted crimes against humanity narrowly; they determined that crimes against German Jews before 1939 were not under the court's jurisdiction because the prosecution had not proven a connection to aggressive war. One can only imagine the effect the pounding had on the condemned prisoners, now with only one more day to live. Guards were randomly assigned to prisoners, and the assignments were generally not known by the guards until the duty roster was posted or announced each morning during roll call. He was released in 1966. He considered himself the senior member of the prison military fraternity., Former president of the Reichsbank Hjalmar Schacht was one of three war crimes defendants who were found innocent of all charges against them. [181] All three acquittals (Papen, Schacht, and Fritzsche) were based on a deadlock between the judges; these acquittals surprised observers. His initial assignment was as a guard at the Nuremberg prison. The two men were deep in the Palace of Justice in Nuremberg, Germany, venue for the Nuremberg War Crimes trials of Germany's Nazi leaders. Nuremberg Trials On November 20, 1945, six months after the surrender of Nazi Germany to allied forces, twenty-one military, political, media, and business leaders of the Third Reich filed into the dock of the Palace of Justice in the devastated and occupied German city of Nuremberg. Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. There was no physical contact, and all conversation via microphone was closely monitored by a guard standing behind each prisoner. Number 2 was given to Karl Dnitz, former grand admiral of the German Navy. [182] Nikichenko released a dissent approved by Moscow that rejected all the acquittals, called for a death sentence for Hess, and convicted all the organizations. [135] The Soviet Union also called two Holocaust survivors as witnesses, Samuel Rajzmana Treblinka survivorand poet Abraham Sutzkever, who eloquently described the murder of tens of thousands of Jews from Vilna, although their testimony did not directly incriminate any of the defendants. Three of the defendants were acquitted. The first session, under the presidency of Gen. I.T. Number 5 was Albert Speer, Hitlers personal architect and confidant. Four were convicted and sentenced to terms of imprisonment ranging from 10 to 20 years. During the months of imprisonment, the brisk gait of some of the prisoners gradually evolved into defeatist, head-bowed shuffling as acceptance of their fate gradually wore them down and eroded their will. . I only patrolled there once. My Dad Arthur Tacopino was a guard at The Nuremberg Trials. Master Sgt. Conversation between guards was extremely limited or nonexistent. The first of the trials was the Major War Crimes Trial, in . Unbelievable but true - an entire unit of former Waffen-SS Grenadiers were retrained and deployed by the Americans to help guard the Nuremberg Trials in 1946-49. Procurement is quick and merely requires an . They saw the horrible films the NAZIs took and heard the case the prosecution presented with all the evidence and saw the brutal photos, It was very hard on these young women, but they did their job they were asked to do. His remembrance of duty at Nuremberg remains vivid. On October 1, 1946, the verdicts on 22 of the original 24 defendants were handed down for the Nrnberg trials. Seven others, over time, were reduced by lengthy prison sentences to hollow, shuffling shadows of their former selves. Some smiled while others snarled at each other or harshly criticized other individuals. [105] The American prosecutors were not any more effective when presenting documentary evidence on the conspiracy to commit crimes against humanity, and ended up reaching a "saturation point of horror" by their indiscriminate selection and disorganized presentation of evidence without tying it to specific defendants. Recently one of our readers in the US contacted us with a photo of a pair of sunglasses that were in a box in his grandfather's garage. Prompt medical attention was readily available to all prisoners. Twelve of the defendants were sentenced to death by hanging. Did guards favor some prisoners over others? [73] Also on trial were propagandists Julius Streicher and Hans Fritzsche; Rudolf Hess, Hitler's deputy who had flown to Britain in 1941; Hans Frank, governor-general of the General Governorate of Poland; Hitler Youth leader Baldur von Schirach; Arthur Seyss-Inquart, Reich Commissioner for the Netherlands; and Ernst Kaltenbrunner, the leader of Himmler's Reich Main Security Office. Postal Service. In the prison cellblock, each single-occupant cell had two parallel heating pipes beneath a single, heavily scratched, plastic-covered window, the top half of which could be tilted open for limited ventilation. Three were sentenced to life imprisonment: Rudolf Hess, Walther Funk, and Erich Raeder. [119] Unlike the British and American prosecution strategy, which focused on using German documents to make their case, the French prosecutors took the perspective of the victims, submitting postwar police reports and calling eleven witnesses. Streicher, sentenced to death, was perhaps the most despised prisoner of all due to his complete obsession with sex. [54] The Soviet judges and prosecutors were not permitted to make any major decisions without consulting a commission in Moscow led by Soviet politician Andrei Vyshinsky; the resulting delays hampered the Soviet effort to set the agenda. While on duty, guards carried no weapons, only wooden truncheons. He was totally indifferent to the world around him and to world affairs. If an organization was found to be criminal, the prosecution could bring individuals to trial for having been members, and the criminal nature of the group or organization could no longer be questioned. [203], In all, 249 journalists were accredited to cover the IMT[40] and 61,854 visitor tickets were issued. A. [165] The official interpretation of the IMT held that all of the charges had a solid basis in customary international law,[166] which was elaborated in the verdict. Eighteen-inch rectangular holes were cut from the heavy, oaken cell doors, slightly below eye level. Today, he carries on his World War II and Korean War heritage in various veterans organizations. When Hess exercised or sat on a bench in the courtyard it was always alone, a single, disheveled old man staring at the courtyard bricks. There was also a picture of him guarding Hitler. He was a rather low key person at Nuremberg who caused the guards no problems at all, said Prestianni. In July 2020, Dey was found guilty and given a two . Jackson. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. [169][170] The judges did not agree that the conspiracy extended to anyone who participated in the affairs of the Nazi government, only taking being present at the high-level meetings discussing war plans in 1937 and 1939 as evidence of belonging to the conspiracy. [186] These trials were held under Law No. [67] Former Nazis were allowed to serve as counsel[45] and by mid-November all defendants had lawyers. [175][176], Four organizations were ruled to be criminal: the Leadership Corps of the Nazi Party, the SS, the Gestapo, and the SD, although some lower ranks and subgroups were excluded. [103], Much of the American case focused on the development of the Nazi conspiracy before the outbreak of war. The Nazi war criminal, Arthur Seyss-Inquart, after execution at Nuremberg. Prestianni also favorably related to Ernst Kaltenbrunner, the notorious chief of Germanys security police and a behind-the-scenes prime mover at the January 1942 Wannsee Conference where the proposed extermination of Jewry in central Europe was discussed by top Nazis.