Subsequent Nuremberg trials

The subsequent Nuremberg trials were a series of 12 military tribunals for war crimes against members of the leadership of Nazi Germany between December 1946 and April 1949. They followed the first and best-known Nuremberg trial before the International Military Tribunal which concluded in October 1946. In contrast, the subsequent trials were conducted before U.S. military courts rather than an international court. They are also collectively known as the Nuremberg Military Tribunals.

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.

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.

Trials

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

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; fewer than 200 were executed, and another 279 defendants were sent to life in prison. By the 1950s almost all of them had been released.

Many of the longer prison sentences were reduced substantially by an amnesty under the decree of high commissioner John J. McCloy in 1951, after intense political pressure. Ten outstanding death sentences from the ''Einsatzgruppen'' Trial were converted to prison terms. Many others who had received prison sentences were released outright.

Criticism

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

See also

* Auschwitz Trial held in Kraków, Poland in 1947 against 40 SS-staff of the Auschwitz concentration camp death factory
* Frankfurt Auschwitz Trials, 1963–1965
* Majdanek Trials, held against Majdanek extermination camp officials. Longest Nazi war crimes trial in history, spanning over 30 years
* Chełmno Trials of the Chełmno extermination camp personnel, held in Poland and in Germany. The cases were decided almost twenty years apart
* Sobibor Trial held in Hagen, Germany in 1965, concerning the Sobibor extermination camp
* Belzec Trial before the 1st Munich District Court in the mid-1960s, eight SS-men of the Belzec extermination camp
* Belsen Trial in Lüneburg, 1945
* Command responsibility doctrine of hierarchical accountability
* Dachau Trials held within the walls of the former Dachau concentration camp, 1945–1948
* Mauthausen-Gusen camp trials, 1946–1947
* Ravensbrück Trial
* Research Materials: Max Planck Society Archive

References

Further reading

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External links

The NMT proceedings
at the Mazal Library.

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1946 in Germany
1947 in Germany
1948 in Germany
1949 in Germany
History of Nuremberg