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... s as: "Violations of the laws or customs of war, including murder, ill-treatment or deportation to slave labor or for any other purpose of civilian population of or in occupied territory, murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war or persons on the seas, killing of hostages, plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns, or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity. " Count four of the indictment alleges Crimes Against Humanity which are defined by the same source as follows: "Namely murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation and other inhumane acts committed against any civilian population, before or during war, or persecutions on political, racial, or religious grounds in execution of or in connection with any crime within the jurisdiction of the Tribunal, whether or not in violation of the domestic law of the country where perpetrated" The Chief Prosecutor noted in his opening statement that the circumstances of the trial were such that both prosecution and judgement must be by victor nations over vanquished foes, as a result of the fact that the worldwide scope of their aggressions left but few true neutrals. As a result of this fact, there was some speculation about how fair this trial could really be. To their advantage, however, the prosecution needed only to rely on the evidence created by the defendants themselves, and there was plenty of it.
As the Germans were notoriously meticulous record-keepers, there was no shortage of proof in that regard. Additionally, they were vain enough to have arranged to be frequently photographed in action, and filmed as well. There was, in fact, so much evidence, that the court was belabored to hear it all, and several times noted that a certain point had already been made satisfactorily in order to avoid getting lost in the sea of paperwork. Among the evidence provided to the Tribunal were correspondence to and from the Fuehrer, as well as records kept by the concentration camps of Jews killed and experimented with. Due to the fact that all of this evidence was seized from and created by the Germans, its authenticity was never really in question. The photos and videos were especially powerful inasmuch as they provided irrefutable proof of who was involved in certain activities.
Each of the defendants pled not guilty. Most felt it necessary to embellish their plea of not guilty in some way, usually by saying something like before my country and God, I swear I am not guilty, and one defendant attempted to read a statement on his own behalf at the time he was scheduled to plead. This, of course, was not permitted by the judge, as the time when pleas are entered is not appropriate for such testimony. The Prosecutions case had, for all intents and purposes, divided the defendants into five groups. The first consisted of Goering, Ribbentrop, Kaltenbrunner, Keitel, John, Rosenberg, Frank, Samuel, and Speer. Associated with varied and numerous atrocities, their names had come up repeatedly, and they seemed damned.
The second group consisted of Hess and Stretcher, who were both close to Hitler, and were fanatic Nazis. Neither had any significant executive power, however, and they had faded from the picture before most of the atrocities took place. The third group included Frick, Funk, Hess-Inquiry, Schirach, and Fritzsche. They were linked to some of the crimes, but their level of culpability was clearly less than that of those in group one. Group four was a separate category which Rather and Doenitz occupied; they were charged with conducting the naval campaign contrary to the laws of war. Group five was the Nationalists: Schacht, Papen, and Neurath.
These men were accused of having lent themselves to Hitlers preparations for the waging of aggressive war, and could be considered accessories to that count of the indictment. There was little doubt in the minds of the defense or the prosecution that the essence of the Nazi Regimes culpability had been proven. In light of the fact that their guilt was proven with a mountain of evidence- most in the form of documents that they had themselves created, there was little hope of arguing against it. With this understanding, the approach used by each of the defendants to prove their innocence or at least mitigate their guilt was to dissociate himself from the group in any way possible, to show that he had not participated in the formulation of the common plan, and that he had not been involved in violations of the international law or crimes against humanity.
The most critical part of their respective trials, then, would be the impression they each made on the stand. Aside from Hess, the only defendant who did not testify was Wilhelm Frick. As their defensive strategies were chiefly to minimize their personal involvement in the whole affair, each defendant that testified attempted to dissociate himself from the rest. There was considerable infighting among the remaining defendants, as they attempted to exert influence over each other in order to censor testimony.
Surprisingly, most of these men agreed on one thing: they did not believe that Adolph Hitler had any character flaws. The most interesting of these witnesses, in my opinion, was Hans Frank. He was ostensibly different from the rest because he was the first to denounce and reject Hitler. He stated in his testimony that his conscience would not allow him to throw the responsibility on the shoulders of the Jews, and that although he never personally installed, or promoted the installation of extermination camps for Jews, he takes responsibility, since Hitler laid that responsibility on his people.
That statement attempts to imply that the man had a conscience. In actuality, he had been involved in all the phases of Jewish extermination. His own journal bore witness against him, and he was forced to assert that his words were much worse than his actual deeds. Franks testimony was labeled a cheap and dramatic confession by Justice Biddle, et al. , and caused dissension in the ranks among the other defendants, who found his testimony every bit as objectionable as did the Tribunal. In the view of most historians, Nuremberg's legacy is mixed. Generally, there is a favorable view of the attempt made by the Allies to bring some form of international judicial action against the horrors of the Nazi regime.
The Nuremberg Tribunal represents the most thorough record of Hitlers rise to power, and the planning and launching of World War II. As such it was no small achievement. Some argue that it was an imperfect justice, however, because the accused were chosen arbitrarily, and charged with violations of international law. Such law was binding on nations, not individuals, and it was argued that individuals could be brought to justice only under the laws of their own country. These defendants were tried under a new order established at the conclusion of the Second World War; an ex post facto type of trial, perhaps, but there wasnt really any alternative. At its conclusion, the Tribunal had acquitted three of the accused.
Eight received long prison sentences, and the rest were sentenced to death. On October 15, 1946, Hermann Goering cheated the executioner with a cyanide capsule. Two hours later the executions began. Bibliography: Cost, Robert E. , Justice at Nuremberg. Harper & Row Publishers, New York, 1983. PP. 99 - 120, 389 - 400.
Taylor, Telford, The Anatomy of the Nuremberg Trials. Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. , New York, 1992. PP 3, 23, 165 - 180, 262 - 273. Bassiouni, M. Chris and Ved P.
Nanda. A Treatise on International Law, Volume I, Crimes and Punishment. Charles C. Thomas, Publisher, Springfield, Illinois, 1973.
PP 231 - 232, 575,
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Research essay sample on The Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal
