On October 1, 1946, the International Military Tribunal handed down its verdicts in the trials of 22 Nazi leaders - eleven were given the death penalty, three were acquitted, three were given life imprisonment and four were given imprisonment ranging from 10 to 20 years. Seven others, over time, were reduced by lengthy prison sentences to hollow, shuffling shadows of their former selves. [48] The French judges were Henri Donnedieu de Vabres, a professor of criminal law, and alternate Robert Falco, who had represented France at the London Conference. [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. Prestianni guarded Streicher many times. What were the verdicts of Nrnberg trials? [1] The defendants included some of the most famous Nazis, including Hermann Gring, Rudolf Hess, Joachim von Ribbentrop, and Wilhelm Keitel. [27] Especially the United States wanted to avoid countenancing any rule that would give an international court jurisdiction over a government's treatment of its own citizens. Some passively resigned themselves to their futures while others fought it off and never fully accepted their fates. We were given strict orders to have no contact whatsoever with these women, no conversation, no nothing and to stay well away from them, noted Prestianni. 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. Some, over time, even grew to despise him. The first session, under the presidency of Gen. I.T. Noticeable dislike existed between the prisoners and most of their Soviet guards. Wells, was military policeman and a Provost Sergeant in charge of a special confinement unit whose responsibilities included providing security for the war crimes trials in Nrnberg. In one report i read, it mentioned that "K" Company of the 26th Inf., 1st Div. Q. [143] Although a few defense lawyers inverted the arguments of the prosecution to assert that the Germans' authoritarian mindset and obedience to the state exonerated them from any personal guilt, most rejected such arguments. The Russians always were a problem and only cooperated with the other countries about 10 percent of the time. The SA, the Reich Cabinet, and the General Staff and High Command were not ruled to be criminal organizations. However, one thread of similarity was woven among them. Ribbentrop, Prestianni related, was a man without humor. [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. His face had an animal look to it, Prestianni stated. Guards, for the most part, were not allowed to talk to each other or to prisoners while on security duty. The 24 accused were, with respect to each charge, either indicted but not convicted (I), indicted and found guilty (G), or not charged (), as listed below by defendant, charge, and eventual outcome: Gustav was selected for indictment in error, instead of his son Alfried, who ran Krupp during most of the war. [22][23] War crimes already existed in international law as criminal violations of the laws and customs of war. He was the first of 10 hanged on October 16, 1946. 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. During our conversations, he often asked questions about the United States, a subject in which he appeared to be quite interested, Prestianni added. He would have been 92 the following month. It was difficult and tiring duty. He, like the others, was always bumming cigarettes or cans of Prince Albert tobacco for his pipe. During the dead of winter, cell temperatures constantly hovered near freezing, partially due to severe coal shortages throughout most of Germany, and some prisoners were relegated to wearing stockings as gloves and wrapping their feet in underwear or any other available cloth to keep warm. [83] The American and British prosecutors focused on documentary evidence and affidavits rather than testimony from survivors, as the latter was considered less reliable and more liable to accusations of bias, but at the expense of reducing public interest in the proceedings. In this capacity, he was ultimately responsible for the use of slave laborers from the occupied territories in armaments production. My father was a guard in the courtroom (Palace of Justice) at the Nuremberg trials in 1946. These women prisoners constantly did anything they could to get a guard in trouble or disciplined.. [24][25] Although a novel construct, "crimes against humanity" covered acts that were already prohibited by the laws of most countries. End of the trial: Guardian report on the executions, 16 October 1946 Hermann Gring last night died by his own hand. How long did it take you to learn what you are doing? he often asked. [49][48] The French government tried to appoint staff who were not tainted by collaboration with the Vichy regime; some appointments were of those who had been in the French resistance. The first, held by an international tribunal (American, British, French, and Russian), was the "War. Frick was rather taciturn, not given to talking. Mark Felton Productions. [68] Most of the defendants had surrendered to the United States or United Kingdom. They just never admitted to it. These were 60 year old Emma Zimmer, nee Mezel, and 36 year old . [84][85] The American prosecution drew on reports of the Office of Strategic Services and information provided by the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research and the American Jewish Committee. The names were -- Wippern, Hahnefeld and myself carried out the checking. [74], Although the list of defendants was finalized on 29 August,[75] as late as October, Jackson demanded changes and expansion of the defendants list, but this was rejected. [110] Unlike Jackson, he attempted to minimize the novelty of the aggression charges. Meals were brought to the prisoners on a precise schedule each day on wheeled, double-tiered push carts by German prisoners from other sections of the prison who were being held for civil crimes. [125], More so than other delegations, Soviet prosecutors showed the gruesome details of German mistreatment of prisoners of war and forced laborers, as well as the systematic murder of Jews in eastern Europe. [61], The problem of translating the indictment and evidence into the three official languages of the tribunal, as well as German, was severe due to the scale of the task and difficulty in recruiting interpreters, especially in the Soviet Union. He greeted me in the morning and that was about it. Updated on January 22, 2020. One of the new USA light tanks (M24) on guard outside the courthouse at Nuremberg. [115], From 17 January to 7 February 1946, France presented its charges and supporting evidence. My father, Jack J. Pre-war president of the. [67] Former Nazis were allowed to serve as counsel[45] and by mid-November all defendants had lawyers. [21] At the conference, it was debated whether wars of aggression were prohibited in existing international customary law; regardless, before the charter was adopted there was no law providing for criminal responsibility for aggression. The IMT focused on the crime of aggressionplotting and waging aggressive war, which the verdict declared "the supreme international crime" because "it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole". [146][148] Six defendants were charged with the German invasion of Norway, and their lawyers argued that this invasion was undertaken to prevent a British invasion; a cover-up prevented the defense from capitalizing on this argument. Nuremberg was chosen as the location for the trials because of its symbolic value. After trial, incarcerated at. Let me have that again, please. Despite being accused of the same crimes, Sauckel was sentenced to death, while Speer was given a prison sentence because the judges considered that he could reform. Corrections? He guarded the prisoners in their cells and also stood guard in the court room. In the Hostages case, several generals were tried for executing thousands of hostages and prisoners of war, looting, using forced labor, and deporting civilians in the Balkans. After one of those accused, Robert Ley, former director of the nations Labor Front, hanged himself from a drain pipe with a torn towel, prisoners were kept under constant visual surveillance by guards, and while sleeping were forced to do so with their faces and hands exposed above their blankets at all times. Soldiers in tank stand guard in front of the Palace of Justice in Nuremberg where the International Military Tribunal . He was largely overlooked in prison, Prestianni said of von Papen. However, fraternization did occur on a regular basis and, for the most part, went unpunished by the prison administration. In return, he often was rewarded with cigarettes, pipe tobacco, or other small items he coveted. Four were sentenced to terms of imprisonment ranging from 10 to 20 years: Karl Dnitz, Baldur von Schirach, Albert Speer, and Konstantin von Neurath. If he is American it will be easier to find some kind of information about him. [46] The British chief prosecutor was Hartley Shawcross, assisted by David Maxwell Fyfe, who had been the attorney general in Churchill's government. Because of his moral corruption, the other prisoners shunned him. He said that he had the pleasure of meeting the judge known as the Hanging Judge. After his release from prison in Nuremberg, a Stuttgart court sentenced him to eight years in a work camp. Front row, from left to right: Hermann Gring, Rudolf Hess, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Wilhelm Keitel, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Alfred Rosenberg, Hans Frank, Wilhelm Frick, Julius Streicher, Walther Funk, Hjalmar Schacht. [219][220] The German public took the early releases as confirmation of what they saw as the illegitimacy of the trials. 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. To maintain the steady flow of Speer pencil sketches, guards always provided him with an adequate supply of paper and sharpened pencils. On occasion, guards assigned to courtroom duty asked for reassignment as they became emotionally and physically sickened by the film evidence of war crimes that was presented. [171] Only eight defendants were convicted on that charge; all of whom were also found guilty of crimes against peace. Twelve further trials were conducted by the United States against lower-level perpetrators, which focused more on the Holocaust. Streicher, for reasons never made known, was photographed clothed and then naked and again in death. 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. So the court then allowed him to choose any lawyer he wanted and Stahmer was his pick. Beginning on November 20, 1945, all sessions of the tribunal were held in Nrnberg under the presidency of Lord Justice Geoffrey Lawrence (later Baron Trevethin and Oaksey), the British member. The tribunal responded that such acts had been regarded as criminal prior to World War II. I look forward to hearing from him. A further 12. He often went for hours without speaking to anyone. In 2019, Bruno Day, who served as a SS camp guard at the Stutthof Concentration Camp, was brought to trial accused of contributing to the murder of 5230 people at the camp. He promoted an intentionalist view of the Nazi state and its overall conspiracy to commit all of the crimes mentioned in the indictment. Of course he was amongst other guards to his left and right. They [the prisoners] were to always be considered innocent until proven guilty. I need your: In July 1945 the 98 th set up operations in a hospital in Munich, and several months later Col. Burton C. Andrus, prison commandant at the Nuremberg Palace of Justice, requested Gerecke's service. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. Prestianni played checkers and chess with four of the prisoners and argued politics with others. To move from one corridor to another, guards carried different colored passes. tags: abraham , abrahamism , child-sacrifice , christianity , god , isaac , nazi . Some were gassed. My mothers cousin was a WAC serving in England during WW2. [88], The charter allowed the admissibility of any evidence deemed to have probative value, including depositions. Those men who liberated the camps of the Holocau. Alfried was tried in a separate Nuremberg trial (the Krupp Trial) for the use of slave labor, thereby escaping worse charges and possible execution; found guilty in 1948, pardoned and all property returned 1951. Joined: Oct 14, 2007 Messages: 2,804 Yale Law School Lillian Goldman Law Library. Number 5 was Albert Speer, Hitlers personal architect and confidant. Other prisoners were outspoken in their condemnation of Hess as a traitor to the Fatherland when he flew to England in May 1941, ostensibly to arrange a peace between Hitlers Germany and Great Britain. He was made an MP after the war William A Shoemaker from North Carolina. Whether the prisoners availed themselves of this privilege was by individual choice. All eight judges participated in the deliberations, but the alternates could not cast a vote. [79] Initially, the Americans had planned to try fourteen organizations and their leaders, but this was narrowed to six: the Reich Cabinet, the Leadership Corps of the Nazi Party, the Gestapo, the SA, the SS and the SD, and the General Staff and High Command of the Wehrmacht. I never treated him differently than I did the others I guarded.. He was proud of his physique, saying he was strong like Germany.. Join historians and history buffs alike with our Unlimited Digital Access pass to every military history article ever published (over 3,000 articles) in Sovereigns military history magazines. Hitler's Minister of Economics; succeeded Schacht as head of the, Hitler's Deputy Fhrer until he flew to Scotland in 1941 in an attempt to broker peace with the United Kingdom. Andrus, a strict disciplinarian, were constantly reminded that the prisoners should be treated with civility and objectivity at all times. He was quiet by nature and spent much of his time writing his memoirs. 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. During his service in Korea, Prestianni was wounded twice and decorated for valor numerous times. [134] The second film included footage of the liberation of Majdanek and the liberation of Auschwitz and was considered even more disturbing than the American concentration camp film. The first of the trials was the Major War Crimes Trial, in . His name was Raymond J Arsenault. He did mention seeing the prisoners in their cells. On the night he was to be hanged, Streicher gave Prestianni a signed, handwritten note after supper. [85] The prosecution examined 110,000 captured German documents[40] and entered 4,600 into evidence,[87] along with 30 kilometres (19mi) of film and 25,000 photographs. Many of the worst offenders were not prosecuted, for logistical or financial reasons. I have searched photos of the trials to see if I could find my dad. [136][137] The Soviet prosecution case was generally well received and presented compelling evidence about the suffering of the Soviet people and the Soviet contribution to victory. [146] The Nuremberg Laws were compared to discriminatory laws in the United States. [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. [132] The inclusion of Katyn in the charges undermined the credibility of Soviet evidence in general. On 17 September, the various delegations met to discuss the indictment. The requested reassignments were generally granted.. Verdicts were handed down on October 1, 1946. [241][242], Coordinates: .mw-parser-output .geo-default,.mw-parser-output .geo-dms,.mw-parser-output .geo-dec{display:inline}.mw-parser-output .geo-nondefault,.mw-parser-output .geo-multi-punct{display:none}.mw-parser-output .longitude,.mw-parser-output .latitude{white-space:nowrap}492716N 110254E / 49.45444N 11.04833E / 49.45444; 11.04833. [71][72] The military leaders were Hermann Gring, Wilhelm Keitel, Alfred Jodl, Erich Raeder, and Karl Dnitz. [179], The exact sentences to be given each defendant were debated at length by the judges. [47] Although the chief British judge, Sir Geoffrey Lawrence (Lord Justice of Appeal), was the nominal president of the tribunal, in practice Biddle exercised more authority. [101] He described the fact that the defeated Nazis received a trial as "one of the most significant tributes that Power has ever paid to Reason". , That used to shut him up but usually only for a few minutes, and then he would start up again with the jokes. Ribbentrop was held in low esteem by others close to Hitler due to his perceived ineptness in many areas. He reportedly carried a whip during liaisons with numerous women. She kept a scrapbook which had photos of her group and many signatures of court officials and army officers commending them for their service. Generally, I would describe the food, as I recall, quite good, Prestianni remembers. I inherited all of it. He never repented for anything he ever did. The Subsequent Nuremberg Trials tried major war criminals, but of lower ranks than those tried in the first trial. View full size Courtesy, U.S. Army The Military Tribunal proceedings in Nuremberg, Germany, Herman Goering sits between two guards, the left one being Andrew Wendland of Bay City. He just celebrated his 93 birthday, and is smart and caring as he has always been. He was another of Prestiannis favorite checker-playing opponents. Without fanfare or advance warning, on July 18, 1947, the remaining prisoners at Nuremberg were told to assemble their meager belongings. [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. Prestianni said of von Neurath, He looked like the movie version of a Prussian general with his mop of white hair and erect bearing. Gring enjoyed baiting his guards. 1 They were convened under the authority of Control Council Law No.. [98] Jackson maintained that while the United States did "not seek to convict the whole German people of crime", neither did the trial "serve to absolve the whole German people except 21 men in the dock". [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. When I once asked him why he had done what he was convicted of doing, he replied that he only did what the Fatherland [Germany] instructed him to do. God have mercy on my soul. 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. The United States delegation outlined the overall Nazi conspiracy and criminality of Nazi organizations. The crew (left to right) Private (1st Class) Carl E McCray (Salem, Va.) and Sergeant E Wilson (Texas.)'. William L Shierer "the Rise and Fall of the third Reich", part IV, Nuremberg-chapter, the United States committed the same breach, Last and Near-Last Words of the Famous, Infamous and Those In-Between, "The International Military Tribunal for Germany", The Avalon Project: Documents in Law, History, and Diplomacy, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_defendants_at_the_International_Military_Tribunal&oldid=1114903079, Successor to Hess as Nazi Party Secretary. Some smiled while others snarled at each other or harshly criticized other individuals. [2] They were indicted for: [124] Paulus incriminated his former associates, pointing to Keitel, Jodl, and Gring as the defendants most responsible for the war. There were limits to how much gore that could be tolerated by some of the courtroom guards, he recalled. Batya. [235] In the 1990s, a revival of international criminal law included the establishment of ad hoc international criminal tribunals for Yugoslavia (ICTY) and Rwanda (ICTR), which were widely seen as part of the legacy of the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials.
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