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Greetings to regular and new readers! In this article, “The Nuremberg Trials: Briefly About the Essential” – about the international trial of the former leaders of Nazi Germany.
Nuremberg Trials: facts and video
The International Military Tribunal, created exclusively for the trial of the leaders of the German Reich, began work on 20. 11.1945 The main accused were twenty-four, but only twenty-two were convicted.
By that time, the Reich Chancellor, Fuhrer and Supreme Commander-in-Chief of Germany Adolf Hitler, the head of the NSDAP propaganda department Joseph Goebbels, Reichsfuehrer SS Heinrich Himmler and the head of the labor front Robert Leigh had already taken their own lives.
Defendants: first row, from left to right: Hermann Goering, Rudolf Hess, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Wilhelm Keitel. Second row, from left to right: Karl Doenitz, Erich Raeder, Baldur von Schirach, Fritz Sauckel
Hermann Goering
The second man in the Third Reich, the SA Gruppenfuehrer Hermann Goering, was present at the trial as one of the main accused. He was sentenced to death by hanging.
Later, along with other convicts, he submitted a petition to the Control Commission for clemency. After refusing a pardon, Goering took poison a few days later. According to some reports, his wife handed him over to him during the last date.
Alfried Krupp
The prominent German industrialist Alfried Krupp was seriously ill at the time of the meeting. Subsequently, on July 31, 1948, he was found guilty at a tribunal known as the “Krupp Case”.
He was accused of plundering industrial enterprises in several countries and using slave forced labor of prisoners of war and residents of the occupied territories. He was sentenced to 12 years with confiscation of property.
He spent less than three years in prison and was released in February 1951. Later, the clause on confiscation of property was also annulled. Krupp again became the head of the Friedrich Krupp corporation. He died in 1967.
Martin bormann
The head of the Reich Chancellery, Martin Bormann, was tried in his absence. He was also sentenced to death. It was later established that on May 2, 1945, Bormann left the bunker and shot himself (or was shot) in a Berlin street. In 1972, during the construction of a new building near the bridge near the station, the remains of Bormann were discovered.
The nuances of the process
The trial condemned various Nazi organizations. They were all accused of crimes against humanity and a coup. Recognized as criminals: SS, SD, Gestapo and the leadership of the Nazi party.
The latter, however, turned out to be a rather unpleasant incident for the prosecutors themselves. Before the outbreak of the war, they signed various treaties with the government of the Third Reich. Especially the Soviet Union got it. After all, they were originally allies with Nazi Germany.
The other accusations were pretty compelling. A brutal occupation, persecution of Jews and many other peoples, death camps and mass executions. It was impossible to close your eyes to all this.
However, some of the sentences were difficult to comprehend. For example, the banker Janmar Schacht, the head of radio operators Feiche, the politician Franz von Papen, the Wehrmacht command, the General Staff and the government were acquitted.
Six defendants, incl. The “third Nazi” Rudolf Hess, Grand Admiral Erich Raeder and Reich Minister of Armaments and Ammunition Albert Speer, were sentenced to various terms of imprisonment, from 10 years to life.
The sentences were carried out that concerned Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, Wehrmacht Chief W. Keitel, Polish Governor-General Hans Frank, statesman Alfred Rosenberg, and others. Many, including Goering, who preferred suicide to a noose, were shocked by the humiliating method of execution.
All subsequent military courts relied on the judicial precedent set by the Nuremberg trials. Now orders of persons of higher rank have ceased to remove responsibility. Many lawyers criticized the process. They believed that people who broke the law should not be brought to justice – after the fact.
All agree that politics played a large part in the process. Its downside is that the Entente countries judged exclusively the criminal acts of the Nazis, and not crimes against humanity in general.
Distortion of facts
The winning countries did not celebrate any unpleasant moments for themselves. The agreement between the USSR and the Third Reich on the division of Europe, concluded on 23.08, was ignored. 1939 The result of this agreement was a world war and the destruction of the sovereignty of the Baltic countries.
The whistleblowers in Nuremberg distorted history and facts. They ignored the bombing of populated areas by the Germans, because Britain and the United States did the same and in greater numbers.
The presence of representatives of the Soviet Union somewhat tarnished the reputation of the Nuremberg court. After all, the Soviets committed exactly the same war crimes as Nazi Germany. But on Stalin’s orders, the Soviet accusers even tried to shift the blame for the Katyn massacre, which was committed with the permission of the NKVD of the USSR, onto the Germans.
The lawyers managed to prove the falsity of these sentences, and the Soviet accusers quietly retreated. Great Britain, the United States and France did not diplomatically consider the crimes of the Soviet Union. They did not want this to somehow affect their reputation.
As a result, now this process in Russia is treated like Holy Scripture. Nuremberg seems to reassure the point of view of the winning side regarding the Second World War. But the time has come for numerous questions and some serious doubts about this.
Execution of sentences
Inside the prison, guards watched the prisoners around the clock. There was one guard for every arrested person. The sentences were carried out on the night of October 16, 1946 in the gymnasium of the prison.
The main section of the lockdown of prisoners at the Nuremberg Prison. Each defendant is monitored by an individual guard, who is constantly stationed at his door.
In the morning, the ashes of eleven Nazis were burned in the crematorium. The Entente countries did not want anything to survive from the corpses. As a result, the remains of the defendants were burned, and the ashes were scattered from the plane. He had to reach the Atlantic Ocean and disappear there forever.
The USA, USSR, England unanimously decided to judge the Nazi leadership at the Berlin Conference. The conference was held from 17 to 07.
It has never happened before in world history that the winning countries were judged by the losing countries. Many lawyers and diplomats hoped for a fair trial, but it was more of a farce.
During the Nuremberg trials, prosecutors had in their arsenal:
- 4000 certificates;
- 1809 handwritten confirmations;
- 33 eyewitnesses.
In modern money, this court cost $ 1. All information about Nuremberg, published in the same year, took 024 books.
Video
In this collection of videos additional information “The Nuremberg Trials: Briefly about the main thing”
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