It was 10:00 A.M. on November 20, 1945. World War II was over. Chief Judge Geoffrey Lawrence of the United Kingdom read the indictments out loud. The International Military Tribunal of Nazi War Criminals had started. The defendants entered their pleas: all “not-guilty”. This trial could possibly have been the most important trial in American history. It was going to set the course for war crimes forever after it. There were four countries prosecuting: the U.S, the U.K, the USSR, and France. It was important that even during war, when some governments have collapsed, the world has a stable international judicial system.
The Nuremberg Trials were held in Nuremberg, Germany in the Palace of Justice. The trial was originally supposed to be in Berlin, but there was no prison there and the city was ruined from the attack Russia launched on it (Jewish Virtual Library). Berlin was the capital of Germany, so it was an ideal place to have a trial of Nazi criminals. Another reason that it was supposed to be in Berlin was that one of the countries that were prosecuting the criminals, the former USSR, had taken Berlin single-handedly and was proud that they had (Jewish Virtual Library). Russia was reluctant, but the trial was executed in Nuremberg instead of Berlin. Out of all of the other cities in Germany, the IMT chose Nuremberg because annual Nazi Rallies were held there and was the center of Nazi ideas (West’s Encyclopedia of American Law). Another reason that it was held in the Palace of Justice was because that is where the Nuremberg Laws were passed. The Nuremberg Laws were a series of laws that the Nazis made to decrease the Jewish population in 1935 (West’s Encyclopedia of American Law). Germans were not allowed to...
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...r Legacy." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial Council. Web. 20 Feb. 2014.
Source E: Roland, Paul. The Nuremberg Trials: The Nazis and Their Crimes against Humanity. London: Arcturus, 2010. Print.
Source F: "The International Military Tribunal for Germany." Avalon Project. Yale Law School. Web. 24 Jan. 2014.
Source G: "Goering, Ribbentrop, 10 Others to Hang; Von Papen, 2 More Freed; 7 Get Prison." The Washington Post [Washington D.C.] 2 Oct. 1946. Washington Post. Web. 30 Jan. 2014.
Source H: "Nuremberg Trials.” West's Encyclopedia of American Law. 2005. Encyclopedia.com. 30 Jan. 2014
Source I: History.com Staff. "Nuremberg Trials." History.com. A&E Television Networks, 2010. Web. 20 Feb. 2014.
Source J: "Nazi War Crimes Trials: The Nuremberg Trials." Jewish Virtual Library. Web. 30 Jan. 2014.
The atrocities of war can take an “ordinary man” and turn him into a ruthless killer under the right circumstances. This is exactly what Browning argues happened to the “ordinary Germans” of Reserve Police Battalion 101 during the mass murders and deportations during the Final Solution in Poland. Browning argues that a superiority complex was instilled in the German soldiers because of the mass publications of Nazi propaganda and the ideological education provided to German soldiers, both of which were rooted in hatred, racism, and anti-Semitism. Browning provides proof of Nazi propaganda and first-hand witness accounts of commanders disobeying orders and excusing reservists from duties to convince the reader that many of the men contributing to the mass
The Nuremberg Trials is considered being both a step forward in for society as it brought the birth of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. However, the tribunal was a step back for society, this is because the Allies implicitly designed it to be a show of ‘Victor’s Justice’.
During World War II, many German soldiers killed thousands of innocent lives, especially Jewish. However, not all lives lost during World War II, and the Holocaust be accounted for by German soldiers, and the mobile killing task force, Einsatzgruppen, but citizens themselves. In the book, Neighbors by Jan Gross, studies a Polish town called Jedwabne during World War II. The book provides evidence on a mass killing on July 10, 1941, by Polish citizens. The Polish citizens murdered roughly 350 victims, Jewish, in Jedwabne. This evidence brought to light by the author shows not all Germans were accountable for all the mass murders during the time period.
The Holocaust or the Ha-Shoah in Hebrew meaning ‘the day of the Holocaust and heroism’ refers to the period of time from approximately January 30,1933, when Adolf Hitler became the legal official of Germany, to May 8,1945. After the war was over in Europe, the Jews in Europe were being forced to endure the horrifying persecution that ultimately led to the slaughter of over 6 million Jews with about 1.5 million of them being children as well as the demolition of 5,000 Jewish communities.
In 1943, under Soviet leadership the first war crime trials were conducted, however the first trial to involve the Allied powers was the Nuremburg International Military Tribunal in 1945 . The International Military Tribunal (IMT), set out to prosecute 22 defendants comprising largely of the administration arm of the Third Reich . The American's initially wished to indict whole Nazi organisations for their crimes. This focus was soon altered to determine the accountability of particular individuals. The accused were tried under at least two of the following four headings devised for indictment. The first count was the "formulation of a common plan or conspiracy"; two, "crimes against peace (planning and waging a war of aggression
"War Guilt Clause." Treaty of Versailles and Nazism. N.p., 9 Nov. 2011. Web. 27 Nov. 2013.
People are often afraid of what they do not know. The Salem Witch Trials and the Holocaust were both times when fear overwhelmed the world; hysteria played a major role because it caused most of the horrific events to occur. During the times of the Salem Witch Trials and the Holocaust, fear drove people to act rashly based on fear of the unknown.
McKale, Donald M. Nazis after Hitler: how perpetrators of the Holocaust cheated justice and truth. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2012. Print.
The Rosenberg trial, which ended in a double execution in 1953, was one of the century's most controversial trials. It was sometimes referred to as, "the best publicized spy hunt of all times" as it came to the public eye in the time of atom-spy hysteria. Husband and wife, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, were charged with conspiracy to commit espionage. Most of the controversy surrounding this case came from mass speculation that there were influences being reinforced by behind-the-scenes pressure, mainly from the government, which was detected through much inconsistencies in testimonies and other misconduct in the court. Many shared the belief that Ethel Rosenberg expressed best as she wrote in one of her last letters before being executed, "-knowing my husband and I must be vindicated by history.
Jaspers, Karl. The Question of German Guilt. Trans. E. B. Ashton. New York: The Dial P, 1947.
One of the most well-known trials is the Nuremberg trials. The Nuremberg trials were a sequence of 13 trials that took place in Nuremberg, Germany, from 1945 to 1949. According to history.com, “Nuremberg had been the site of annual Nazi propaganda; holding the postwar trials there marked the symbolic end of Hitler’s government.” The people that were going to be charged were Nazi Party Officials, high-ranking military officers, German industrialists, doctors, and lawyers. They were charged with crimes against peace and humanity. The leader of the Nazi’s, Adolf Hitler took his own life before he could be tried. During the trials, the m...
Judgment at Nuremberg The Nuremberg trials took place between 1945 and 1949 and were used to judge the acts of over a hundred judges accused of committing war crimes. The movie "Trials at Nuremberg" dealt specifically with the justice trials. The justice trials adjudicated the criminal responsibility of judges accused of enforcing immoral, unjust, and inhumane laws set by the Nazi party. =
Was the Rosenberg trial a fair trial? This has been a very controversial and debated question throughout the 20th century. Many people believe that the Rosenbergs where innocent but had an unfair trial. Others believe that the Rosenbergs had a fair trial and are guilty because of their involvement with espionage and the Soviet Union. Overall the Trial is still a very controversial because of their involvement with communism, their convictions of espionage, and their show of treason against he United States with the Soviets. Before the Rosenbergs were convicted of espionage, events took place first that made America anti-Communism. According to Douglas Linder, on March 1917 the Russian Revolution began which was the beginning of Communism. Another event was in 1939, when Britain and Germany went to war (James Sweeney). America looked down on Communism after confrontations with Germany and the Soviet Union. In 1917 an Espionage Act is put into terms (Douglas Linder). According to Douglas Linder, in 1923, a Communist Party was formed into the United States. Megan Barnett thought that the Rosenberg's joined a Communist Party due to Hitler's carnage.
Prior to WWII any concept of international human rights would not have been able to be Kept. State sovereignty was still the norm leaders around the globe followed when it came to international relations. Of course that all changed after the atrocities committed by the Nazi regime in the Holocaust were exposed to the global community. After what had happen to the Jewish population in Europe at the hands of Hitler's army was reviled to the world, the international community realized that there was something to the whole idea of human rights that could quite possibly go beyond the recognizable sovereignty of independent states(Collaway, Harrelson-Stephens, 2007 p.4). December 17, 1942 was the date that leaders of the allied forces of WWII that included the US, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union came together and issued the first declaration that officially noted and acknowledged the mass murder of European Jews and settled to find a solution to prosecute those responsible for violence against civilians. Because of the type of acts that were committed some political leaders advocated for summary executions instead of trials (Collaway, Harrelson-Stephens, 2007). If you really think about it by doing this the allied forces would have been defeating the purpose of what they were trying to accomplish which was to make those responsible for the acts to pay but by giving them a f...
The Death Penalty and War.Full Text Available By: Duner, Bertil; Geurtsen, Hanna. International Journal of Human Rights, Winter2002, Vol. 6 Issue 4, p1-28, 28p