The British government was still opposed, unable to see the benefit of such a trial and preferring summary execution of Nazi leaders. [228] The most controversial charge was crimes against peace. Does anyone know where I can read about the nuremberg trials from the guards perspective? He was the first of 10 hanged on October 16, 1946. Until the end of the negotiations, it was not clear that any trial would be held at all, due to acrimonious disputes over fundamental matters; the American delegation threatened to walk out. On 1 October 1946, 12 death sentences were passed down by the judges of the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg on some of the most high-ranking and influential members of Nazi Germany. The Nuremberg Trials - United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Hans Frank, known as the Slayer of Poles, was small, outwardly arrogant, and had a cruel face, Prestianni revealed. [102] Jackson's focus was on the aggressive war charge, which he described as the root of the crimes against humanity and of war crimes. He was able to get to get the Hitler peoples autographs. It was difficult and tiring duty. The duty roster for guards was revised daily in an attempt to prevent the development of unauthorized relationships with prisoners. [197] The trials heard 1,300 witnesses, entered more than 30,000 documents into evidence, and generated 132,855 pages of transcripts, with the judgements themselves totaling 3,828 pages. 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. Minister of Foreign Affairs (until 1938), then Reich Protector for Bohemia and Moravia. [45] At Jackson's recommendation, the United States appointed judges Francis Biddle and John Parker. He was strictly military during the three months I observed him. 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. Speer was a favorite of the guards. On October 1, 1946, the verdicts on 22 of the original 24 defendants were handed down for the Nrnberg trials. The Nuremberg trials were a series of 13 trials carried out in Nuremberg, Germany, between 1945 and 1949 to try those accused of Nazi war crimes. All of those with whom I came in contact spoke flawless English, he remembered. Three were sentenced to life imprisonment: Rudolf Hess, Walther Funk, and Erich Raeder. Neurath, after serving eight years of his 15-year sentence, was spirited away in clandestine fashion, without fanfare, and mysteriously set free in the dead of night on November 6, 1954, because of an alleged eye ailment. Twelve of the defendants were sentenced to death (Gring, Ribbentrop, Keitel, Kaltenbrunner, Rosenberg, Frank, Frick, Streicher, Sauckel, Jodl, Seyss-Inquart, and Bormann). we went to Germany with and my younger brother was born there, dad remained un the Army until 1960, when he retired after 32 years service. He died 21 months later on August 15, 1956. [181] All three acquittals (Papen, Schacht, and Fritzsche) were based on a deadlock between the judges; these acquittals surprised observers. 56 high-ranking SS and other police officers, including 24 leaders of the Einsatzgruppen (mobile killing units) and key officials in Heinrich Himmler's . Raeder was sentenced to life imprisonment but was released for poor health on September 26, 1955. Obeying Orders | Facing History and Ourselves In this capacity, he was ultimately responsible for the use of slave laborers from the occupied territories in armaments production. Those incarcerated at the Palace of Justice in Nuremberg were allowed very limited and sporadic visitation rights with lawyers and family members. [108][109], On 12 December, Shawcross gave the opening speech for the British. The speech was favorably received by the prosecution, the tribunal, the audience, historians, and even the defendants. [189], One set of trials focused on the actions of German professionals: the Doctors' trial focused on human experimentation and euthanasia murders, the Judges' trial on the role of the judiciary in Nazi crimes, and the Ministries trial on the culpability of bureaucrats of German government ministries, especially the Foreign Office. He reportedly carried a whip during liaisons with numerous women. The most frequently offered scenario, after intensive investigations, has been that the capsule was retrieved from Grings luggage in a storage room and was given to him by an American, Lieutenant Jack Tex Wheelis. Adam Weishaupt, Abraham: The World's First Psychopath. For the subsequent trials held by the United States, see, "International Military Tribunal" redirects here. Nrnberg trials | Facts, Definition, & Prominent Defendants Considered by some as the most intelligent and talented prisoner, he was the quintessential gentleman. [133], Inspired by the films shown by the American prosecution, the Soviet Union commissioned three films for the trial: The German Fascist Destruction of the Cultural Treasures of the Peoples of the USSR, Atrocities Committed by the German Fascist Invaders in the USSR, and The German Fascist Destruction of Soviet Cities, using footage from Soviet filmmakers as well as shots from German newsreels. I could never beat him in checkers. My dad was a guard at the trials he had a Picture of himself standing behind the prisoners he died at 86 in 2015 the picture is gone and he never wanted to talk about he was a sgt and received a purple heart. The Nuremberg Trials: Table of Contents | Indictments | Defendants & Verdicts Click Left/Right to Scroll American guards maintain constant surveillance over Nazi war criminals in the Nuremberg prison. They were not to be shown disrespect. 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. I need your: He was not tall at all and didnt really stand out in any way from the others, Prestianni said. Prestianni said of von Neurath, He looked like the movie version of a Prussian general with his mop of white hair and erect bearing. Nikitchenko, the Soviet member, took place on October 18, 1945, in Berlin. These were 60 year old Emma Zimmer, nee Mezel, and 36 year old . Mark Felton Productions. [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. Photographs of the Nuremberg Trial - Jewish Virtual Library The only part of the French charges that were accepted by the judges was the deportation of Jews from France and other parts of Western Europe. [160] On 2 September, the court recessed; and the judges retreated into seclusion to decide the verdict and sentences, which had been under discussion since June. In an attempt to further depersonalize them, prisoners were designated by numbers rather than by their familial surnames. Guides: German Legal Research Guide: Nuremberg Trials Materials [132] The inclusion of Katyn in the charges undermined the credibility of Soviet evidence in general. By far the most attention--not surprisingly, given the figures involved--has focused on the first Nuremberg trial of twenty-one major war criminals. [12] The United States insisted on a fair trial as a means of reforming Germany. Today I found out that most of the soldiers who guarded the high ranking Nazi prisoners during the Nuremberg trials were in fact former members of Baltic SS . I had no idea of the magnitude of what they had done. Im always looking for pictures of the guards and hoping one day I will see him as a young soldier. While on duty, guards carried no weapons, only wooden truncheons. Twelve of the defendants were sentenced to death, three to life imprisonment, four to imprisonment ranging from 10 to 20 years, and three were acquitted. He always was respectful, always the consummate gentleman. Speer was convicted and served 20 years in prison. The BOTCHED Executions Of The Nuremberg Trials - YouTube [150] The judges barred most evidence on Allied misdeeds from being heard in court. [5] Soviet jurist Aron Trainin developed the concept of crimes against peace (waging aggressive war) which would later be central to the proceedings at Nuremberg. The Rome Statute establishing a permanent International Criminal Court (ICC), which had been proposed in 1953, was finally agreed to in 1998. [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. I have a brass pot, called an aspersorium, obtained by my father. I would like any information that would lead me to a more detailed understanding of what my father did while part of this undertaking. [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. 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. Proposals for how to punish the defeated Nazi leaders ranged from a show trial (the Soviet Union) to summary executions (the United Kingdom). The defendants, who included Nazi Party officials . 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. [82], Over the summer, all of the national delegations struggled to gather evidence for the upcoming trial. In most respects, fraternization between guards and prisoners was closely monitored by those who set the policies for the prisoners confinement. [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. [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. [44] As the numerically strongest delegation, it would take on the bulk of the prosecutorial effort. Other than that, Hess had no social interaction with the other prisoners. [155] In the context of the brewing Cold War, the trial became a means of condemning not only Germany but also the Soviet Union. 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. 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. tags: abraham , abrahamism , child-sacrifice , christianity , god , isaac , nazi . Between 1939 and 1945, Nazi Germany waged war across Europe, invading Czechoslovakia, Poland, the Low Countries, France, Denmark, Norway, Yugoslavia, Greece, and the Soviet Union, among others. My father Gordon Fitzgerald also spent several months as a guard there. Schacht had been imprisoned in July 1944, under suspicion of being part of an assassination conspiracy against Hitler. Hess, former deputy fhrer of the Nazi party and Hitlers private secretary during the early years of the National Socialist movement, was sentenced to life imprisonment and served every day of it to the age of 92 when he died in 1987 under mysterious circumstances in Berlins Spandau Prison. [194] Luftwaffe general Erhard Milch was tried for using slave labor and deporting civilians. He maintained an air of superiority toward Dnitz, considering him still a subordinate officer. All sessions of the tribunal were held in Nrnberg, Germany, under the presidency of Lord Justice Geoffrey Lawrence. Had I known just who these prisoners were at the time and what they had been accused and convicted of having done, I probably would not have had such a close relationship with them. Franz von Papen helped pave the way for Hitlers ascension to power in 1933. He thought a mature, Lutheran, German-speaking chaplain who had worked in prisons . Updated on January 22, 2020. [111][112] The British case covered invasions, from that of Poland to that of the Soviet Union, which Shawcross covered in the second part of his speech;[113] these charges took three days to present, with Maxwell Fyfe detailing 15 treaties broken by Germany. [99] According to historian Kim Christian Priemel, the conspiracy charge "invited apologetic interpretations: narratives of absolute, totalitarian dictatorship, run by society's lunatic fringe, of which the Germans had been the first victims rather than agents, collaborators, and fellow travellers". US guards in front of the cells holding Nazi war criminals Seven defendants (Hess, Funk, Raeder, Dnitz, Schirach, Speer, and Neurath) were sent to Spandau Prison to serve their sentences. 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. First, it rejected the contention that only a state, and not individuals, could be found guilty of war crimes; the tribunal held that crimes of international law are committed by men and that only by punishing individuals who commit such crimes can the provisions of international law be enforced. 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. Subsequent Nuremberg Trials (December 1946 - April 1949) The Nuernberg trial records include transcripts of proceedings . [32] The trial was held under modified common law. Streicher had published Der Sturmer, a widely read newspaper filled with pornography, ethnic hate, and anti-Jewish cartoons to enflame the German population. At least Im out here and you are in there, said the former guard. [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. [207][208] In a 1946 poll, 78 percent of Germans assessed the trial as fair, but four years later that had fallen to 38 percent, with 30 percent considering it unfair. 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. Strict attention was always paid to the prisoners. While they walked, the prisoners were separated by a prescribed number of yards. We jokingly told him the girls coveted the gifts American soldiers could offer and they had all forgotten his (Schirachs) Nazi National Socialism propaganda indoctrination. Hitler's friend, favorite architect, and Minister of Armaments from 1942 until the end of the war. Koch ordered skin emblazoned with tattoos to be stripped from the cadavers of prisoners and made into lampshades. Had been imprisoned since then. [9] The prosecutors attempted to substitute his son in the indictment, but the judges rejected this due to proximity to trial. Many were resistance fighters or political opponents. The United States delegation outlined the overall Nazi conspiracy and criminality of Nazi organizations. Number 3 was Konstantin von Neurath, a former high-ranking politician. The Avalon Project: Documents in Law, History, and Diplomacy. Twelve further trials were conducted by the United States against lower-level perpetrators, which focused more on the Holocaust. Trial issues are criminal activities or subjects at issue in a trial that are addressed by a document. The SA, the Reich Cabinet, and the General Staff and High Command were not ruled to be criminal organizations. Many of the prisoners never accepted the fact that they were no longer on top of the world. Other absent and dead men including Himmler, Reinhard Heydrich, Adolf Eichmann, and Bormann were also blamed. [167] The judges were aware that both the Allies and the Axis had planned or committed acts of aggression, writing the verdict carefully to avoid discrediting either the Allied governments or the tribunal. [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. [132][169] Through a compromise among the judges, the charge of conspiracy was narrowed to a conspiracy to wage aggressive war. [234][235] Further developments in international criminal law in the aftermath of the trials included the Genocide Convention (1948) and the Fourth Geneva Convention (1949). During the Nuremberg Trial, American guards maintain constant surveillance over the major Nazi war criminals in the prisonattached to the Palace of Justice. [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. Nazi war criminals sentenced at Nuremberg - HISTORY The first attempt to punish the perpetrators was conducted by the International Military Tribunal (IMT) in the German city of Nuremberg, beginning on November . These were the intellectuals; the ramrod-stiff military officers; the cunning politicians; the worlds most vicious, depraved, notorious mass murderers; an architect; a filthy-minded and sex-obsessed anti-Semitic newspaper publisher; a gentle writer of poetry; the bombastic bullies; an unrepentant, ghost-like figure; the subservient military lackeys; and even their self-appointed leader, a bloated, drug-addicted former war hero. Joined: Oct 14, 2007 Messages: 2,804 . Alexandru Nicolin on LinkedIn: Waffen-SS Soldiers Guarded the Nuremberg To maintain the steady flow of Speer pencil sketches, guards always provided him with an adequate supply of paper and sharpened pencils. 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. [152] The defendants' witnesses sometimes managed to exculpate them, but other witnessesincluding Rudolf Hss, the former commandant of Auschwitz, and Hans Bernd Gisevius, a member of the German resistanceeffectively incriminated the defendants. [117] The French prosecutors, more than their British or American counterparts, emphasized the guilt of the German people;[118] they barely mentioned the charge of aggressive war and instead focused on forced labor, economic plunder, massacres, and Germanization. [95][96] As Jackson made clear, the purpose of the trial was not just to convict the defendants but also to assemble irrefutable evidence of Nazi crimes, establish individual responsibility and the crime of aggression in international law, offer a history lesson to the defeated Germans, delegitimize the traditional German elite,[97] and allow the Allies to distance themselves from appeasement. The names were -- Wippern, Hahnefeld and myself carried out the checking. In July 2020, Dey was found guilty and given a two . Yale Law School Lillian Goldman Law Library. This is a good documentary on the Nuremberg Trials that occurred after the end of the war. The . One passing recollection I have of Schirach, said Prestianni, was teasing him about how much the prison guards were enjoying his former girls and how pretty we considered them. 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. [211] The educational purpose of the Nuremberg Military Tribunals was a failure, in part because of the resistance to war crimes trials in German society, but also because of the United States Army's refusal to publish the trial record in German for fear it would undermine the fight against communism. These citations refer to documents at "The International Military Tribunal for Germany". The International Military Tribunal (IMT) delivered its judgment against the Nazi leaders on September 30 and October 1, 1946. He was largely overlooked in prison, Prestianni said of von Papen. The trials were not fair, though not in the way you are suggesting. [37] Nineteen states ratified the charter and were admitted as observers. Between 1939 and 1945, Nazi Germany invaded many countries across Europe, inflicting 27 million deaths in the Soviet Union alone. Two of the six were acquitted, two given prison terms and two sentenced to death. I do remember that Schacht, like most of the others, steadfastly maintained his innocence, never admitting to guilt in any form. By creating an Aryan nation, the world would look up to and envy Germany for its racial purity.. Usually these are prosecution chargeslike crimes against humanityor a defense response. Streicher, for reasons never made known, was photographed clothed and then naked and again in death. She was released after four years and eventually committed suicide in a Bavarian prison. [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 played checkers and chess with four of the prisoners and argued politics with others. When he failed to respond to the periodic shouted challenges from the sergeant-of-the-guard, Prestianni was taken to a hospital in Nuremberg where he remained for two weeks before returning to duty. [217][218] The last prisoner was released in 1958. All eight judges participated in the deliberations, but the alternates could not cast a vote. The Nuremberg Trials | American Experience | PBS She was given the nickname "Bloody Brigette" by the camp . [127] Evidence was presented on the murder of children, attempts to cover up atrocities,[128] systematic plunder of occupied territories, and confiscation or destruction of cultural heritage. [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. He was made an MP after the war William A Shoemaker from North Carolina. Andrus, a strict disciplinarian, were constantly reminded that the prisoners should be treated with civility and objectivity at all times. Following the Second World War, many concentration camps such as Bergen-Belsen and Auschwitz were liberated. One can only imagine the effect the pounding had on the condemned prisoners, now with only one more day to live. Their trial was held before an International Military Tribunal (IMT) in Nuremberg, Germany. To move from one corridor to another, guards carried different colored passes. After his release from prison in Nuremberg, a Stuttgart court sentenced him to eight years in a work camp. [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. The crew (left to right) Private (1st Class) Carl E McCray (Salem, Va.) and Sergeant E Wilson (Texas.)'. At this time, 24 former Nazi leaders were charged with the perpetration of war crimes, and various groups (such as the Gestapo, the Nazi secret police) were charged with being criminal in character. [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. Many of the worst offenders were not prosecuted, for logistical or financial reasons.
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