Study Guide – Nuremberg Trials

Introduction:

On the 30th of April, 1945, Adolf Hitler committed suicide in his bunker to avoid capture. Germany was rapidly

falling to the advance of the Allied forces, and the new order rising from the ashes of the 2nd World War had

no space for Nazi leaders.

Germany has now surrendered, the war has ended with the Allied forces reigning supreme all over Europe.

Now is the time to dispense justice. The Nuremberg trials is where the crimes committed by Nazi Germany will

be recalled, judged, and punished. The most evil criminals in the history of humanity stand trial; what will be

the sentence?

Background:

Leipzig War Crimes Trials

After the first world war, the Allied forces devised a plan to punish and persecute what they identified as

German ‘war criminals’, and articles 227-230 of the Treaty of Versailles were written to accommodate that.

Originally, the plan stipulated that a special tribunal presided by a judge from each of the Allied powers –

Britain, France, the U.S, Italy and Japan. The German Kaiser Wilhelm III was declared a war criminal.

The Dutch government however refuse to extradite the Kaiser, while the German government proposed that

the trial of the accused should take place in the German justice system, at the Reichsgericht in Leipzig. This

was accepted by the Allied forces, and on May 1920 they sent a revised list of 45 accused person to be tried.

This begun what are known as the Leipzig War Crimes Trials.

They were considered a failure by the Allied forces. Of the 45 accused persons, a most could not be traced or

had to be let go after difficulty in finding credible evidence against them. Only 12 individuals ended up being

brought to trial, and all of them received was were considered to be very lenient sentences. On January 15,

1922, a commission of Allied jurists declared that it was useless to proceed with the trials as they were any

further and recommended that the accused be tried by the Allies instead, and after this did not take place, the

trials were abandoned. However, the Leipzig trials did set a precedence to try individuals for the violation of

international law after a conflict.

The 2nd World War

During the 2nd world war, the allied forces deliberated on how to punish the Germans after the end of the war.

In October 1943, during the Moscow Conference, a statement was signed by U.S President Franklin D.

Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and the Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin.

It was largely drafted by Churchill, and identified “evidence of atrocities, massacres and cold-blooded mass

executions which are being perpetrated by Hitlerite forces in many of the countries they have overrun and from

which they are now being steadily expelled”. It went on to declare that the Allied forces would seek out

perpetrators of these crimes and serve justice after the war.

The Nuremberg Charter

On August 8 1945, the European Advisory Commission issued a decree that set down the rules and procedures

for the trial of war criminals. It was called the “Nuremberg Charter”, after the name of the Bavarian city where

the trials would take place.

Nuremberg was chosen as the site for the trials because the “Palace of Justice” was still intact and spacious

despite years of Allied bombing and had a prison complex inside it too. Moreover, it was considered a

birthplace of the Nazi party, hosting their annual propaganda rallies as well as being the location where the

German Parliament passed the anti-Semitic “Nuremberg Laws”. It was chosen to be a fitting place for the

symbolic downfall of the party.

The Nuremberg Charter defined three categories of crime; war crimes, crimes against peace, and crimes

against humanity. It declared that holding an official position cannot be considered a defense against war

crimes, and obedience to orders could only be considered as mitigation at the Tribunal’s digression.

The trial would be conducted before a panel of judges instead of a jury. Defendants could present evidence

and argument in their defense and also cross-examine witnesses. If found guilty they could appeal the verdict

to the Allied Control Council. There was a wide allowance of hearsay evidence. The procedure was closer to

civil law than to common law.

The Accused:

Hermann Goring

Hermann Goring served as a pilot during the First World War. After the war, he worked as a commercial pilot

in Denmark and Sweden, where he met his first wife, the Swedish Carin von Kantzow.

In 1921, Goring met Adolf Hitler and joined the young National Socialist German Workers’ (Nazi) Party, and

was given the command of Hitler’s storm troopers (the SA). He took part in the failed Beer Hall Putsch in 1923,

and after getting wounded he escaped into Austria. During this time he developed a drug addiction on

morphine that would be a constant feature in his life. Meanwhile, Hitler was imprisoned, and Goring remained

in exile until he was granted amnesty in 1927 and returned to Germany, re-admitted in the Nazi party.

In 1932, he became the president of the German Parliament (Reichstag) when the Nazi Party won the majority

in the July elections. When Hitler was named the German chancellor and a bill giving him dictatorial powers

was passed in 1933, he allowed Goring to create the infamous Nazi secret police, or the “Gestapo”, as well as

to establish concentration camps which held Nazi political opponents.

The Gestapo and the “Schutzstaffel” (the SS) carried out the “Night of the Long Knives” in 1934. 85 members

of the political opposition were assassinated, and the power of the Nazi party was consolidated. In 1935,

Goring took command of the German air force.

Goring had a close association with Hitler. In 1939, Hitler declared him his successor, and the next year he

gave him the special rank of marshal of the empire. He was also made the commissioner of Hilter’s 4 year plan

for the war economy.

In April 1945, the Allies were moving in and Goring attempted to assume Hitler’s powers with the

pronouncements of 1939, believing Hitler to be helpless in Berlin. In response, Hilter stripped him of all his

offices and titles and placed him under house arrest. On April 1945, Hilter would commit suicide in his bunker

and Goring was freed from prison, subsequently surrendering to Allied forces. He was identified as one of the

accused to be tried at Nuremberg, and is the highest ranking surviving Nazi official to be present.

Charged with: count 1 (common plan or conspiracy), count 2 (crimes against peace), count 3 (war crimes), and

count 4 (crimes against humanity)

Ernst Kaltenbrunner

Ernst Kaltenbrunner was born in October 4, 1903 in Austria-Hungary. He attended public schools at Linz and

would study at the University of Prague. After joining the Austrian Nazi Party in 1932, he would rise to become

the leader of the SS, the elite guards, in Austria in 1935.

Kaltenbrunner was instrumental in securing the success of the “Anschluss”, which was the union of Austria

with Germany, in 1938. He would then become the official head of the Austrian storm troopers and would be

appointed the minister of state security in Austria.

After the assassination of the head of the Reich Security Central Office, Reinhard Heydrich in 1942,

Kaltenbrunner was picked by Heinrich Himmler to succeed him. He became the head of the Gestapo and was

responsible for the organization of the Nazi concentration camps system throughout Europe. He controlled

extermination of the Jewish population in 1943-1945, and was a rabid anti-Semite, apparently agreeing with

Himmler that gas chambers should be the preferred method of execution.

He was taken prisoner by Allied troops on May 15, 1945 and was charged with war crimes at the Nuremberg

trials. He was the highest ranked SS officer to be present at the trials.

Charged with counts I (common plan or conspiracy), 2 (crimes against peace), 3 (war crimes) and 4 (crimes

against humanity)

Alfred Rosenberg

Rosenberg was one of the early visionaries of the Nazi ideology. He was born in Revel in modern-day Estonia

to a German father, and studied in Riga and Moscow before fleeing the communist revolution to Germany.

A staunch anti-Semitic and anti-communist, he combined these views and propagated the red revolution in

Russia to be a conspiracy by the Jews. He gained renown as the author of anti-Semitic pieces and would join

the Nazi party and start writing for its newspaper.

He would participate in the Beer Hall Putsch, which lead to Hitler’s arrest. He would then become the interim

leader of the Nazi Party during Hitler’s imprisonment, and reportedly struggled in that position. Rosenberg

begun his chief work, “The Myth of the Twentieth Century” after Hitler got released from prison and it got

published in 1930. He would get inspired by the likes of race theorists like Houston Stewart Chamberlain and

came up with a paradigm that pitied the “Aryan” race against the inferior Jewish “races”.

Rosenberg would go on to hold important appointments such as the taking charge of the party’s foreign policy

and supervising the its ideological training. He came up with the idea of a fully Nazified university education

system in 1938 to fully entrench the country in its racist ideology.

During the war he would partake in the plundering of art in the German occupied provinces. The preparation

of the invasion of the Soviet Union upended his position in Hitler’s inner circle due to his authority on the

region. He was appointed the Reich Minister for the Occupied Easter Territories which were designated to

extend from the former Polish border to the Ural Mountains.

The area under his authority would become the first where the “Final Solution of the Jewish Question”, the

complete extinction of Jewish people, would be carried out. More than half a million Jews had been

annihilated by 1941. After the surrender of Nazi Germany, Rosenberg was captured and brought before trial

before the International Justice Tribunal in Nuremberg.

Charged with counts I (common plan or conspiracy), 2(crimes against peace), 3 (war crimes) and 4 (crimes

against humanity)

Fritz Saukel

Sauckel was the General Plenipotentiary for Labor Deployment from March 1942 until the end of the Second

World War, the chief recruiter of slave labor for the Nazi Party. He served in the navy during the First World

War, where we was captured and held prisoner by the Allied forces.

In 1923, he would join the Nazi party and become a leading propagandist. He would serve as the minister of

interior and the commissioner of the Thuringia region. In 1942, Sauckel was the chief commissioner for the

utilization of manpower. He would travel through Nazi-occupied spaces in Europe, where he would forcefully

recruit slave labor and exploit them to power Germany’s needs for greater industrial production. After the

war, he is brought before the International Military Tribunal and must face trial.

Charged with counts 1 (common plan or conspiracy), 2 (crime against peace), 3 (war crimes) and 4 (crimes

against humanity)

Julius Streicher

Streicher was a soldier in the German army during the first world war and would later become an elementary

school teacher in Nuremberg. He would join the Nazi Party in 1921 and become a close friend of Adolf Hitler.

In 1925 he was appointed the district leader of Franconia, and after the Nazis came to power in 1933 he

administered that. He was the founder and the editor of the weekly anti-Semitic newspaper “Der Sturmer”

and achieved a position of great wealth and influence in Nazi Germany. The newspaper’s racist tune would set

the general mood that led to the passage of the Nuremberg laws in 1935.

His irresponsible and explicit behavior would put him out of favor with other party officials, and in 1940, after

a commission’s investigations into his business transactions and personal life, he was stripped of his party

posts. However, owing to Hitler’s protection, he would continue to serve as editor of Der Sturmer till the end

of the war.

After the German surrender, Streicher was captured by the allied forces disguised as a painter in Bavaria and

indicted to stand trial before the international military tribunal at Nurenberg.

Charged under count 1 (common plan or conspiracy), and 4 (crimes against humanity)

Hans Frank

Hans Frank was a politican and lawyer. He fought in the First World War, and would join the Nazi Party in

1921, eventually becoming the party’s chief legal counsel. He was Hitler’s personal lawyer.

In 1933 Frank would be appointed to a variety of important positions after the Nazis came to power in

Germany. He would become the president of the Reichstag and a minister of justice in the Nazi government.

He would become the governor-general of the German occupied Poland in 1939, and ordered the execution of

thousands of Poles, as well as the confiscation of Polish property and the enslavement of millions of people,

among other atrocities.

Although he would remain the governor-general of Poland, Hitler stripped him of his other posts. He was

captured by U.S Army troops on May 4, 1945, and was indicted to stand trial before the International Military

Tribunal.

Charged on count 1 (Common Plan or Conspiracy), count 3 (War Crimes) and count 4 (Crimes against

Humanity)

Wilhelm Frick

Frick was more or less the expert in German domestic politics on the Nazi Party. He was convicted of treason

after his participation in the Beer Hall Putsch of 1923 but managed to avoid imprisonment. He was elected to

the German Parliament in 1924, and eventually became the Nazi leader in that body in 1928.

He was the first Nazi to hold a ministerial-level post in Germany when he became the minister of the interorior

in the state government of Thuringia. He would become Hitler’s national minister of the interior from 1933 to

1943 and would be instrumental in passing legislation to consolidate the power of the Nazi party.

Frick drafted a significant amount of measures against the Jews, most notably the infamous Nuremberg Laws

of 1935, and propagated the systematic oppression of what the Nazis’ considered to be their inferiors.

However, he would be replaced as the interior minister by the SS chief Heinrich Himmler, as the power of the

SS grew as the state’s internal security force. He would serve as protector for Bohemia and Moravia until the

end of the war, where he stands to face trial in front of the international military tribunal at Nuremberg.

Charged with counts 1 (concerted plan or conspiracy), 2 (crimes against peace), 3 (war crimes) and 4 (crimes

against humanity)

Alfred Jodl

Alfred Jodl fought for Germany during the First World War and would meet Adolf Hitler in 1923, after which

he worked to gain power for the German Nazi Party. In 1935, he was named the Chief of the National Defense

Section in the High Command of the Army, and in 1938 he would lead forces into Austria and Czechoslovakia.

In 1939, he would lead troops during the invasion of Poland and become the Chief of Operation with the

Supreme Command of the Armed Forces. He was among the top advisors of Adolf Hilter, and was involved in

planning the invasions of the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway and Greece. He would sign the instruments of

unconditional surrender on 7 May 1945, and was arrested by the Allied forces. Now he is set to face trial

before the International Tribunal.

Charged with counts I (common plan or conspiracy), II (crimes against peace), III (war crimes) and IV (crimes

against humanity)

Wilhelm Keitel

Keitel was part of the top brass of the Nazi military command during WWII. He served as a staff officer in

World War 1 before holding posts under the Weimar Republic. When the Nazis came to power, he would

become the chief of staff of the Armed Forces Office under the ministry of the war.

In 1938, Hitler created a central control agency for Germany’s military effort called the Armed Forces High

Command and Keitel was made the head until the end of the 2nd World War. He would feature prominently in

the German war campaign, dictating terms of the French surrender in 1940, signing operational orders and

directing most of the campaigns in the 2nd World War. He was present during the July plot on Hitler’s life and

would take part in the purges following it.

Charged with counts 1 (concerted plan or conspiracy), 2 (crimes against peace), 3 (war crimes) and 4 (crimes

against humanity)

Dr. Hjalmar Schacht

Schacht was a banker and commerce expert that served high posts during Hitler’s reign. In his early career he

was the vice dricter of the Dresdner Bank in 1908 and served as the financial consultant for the Germany

occupation government at Brussels and was later named the director of the German National Bank.

He developed a monetary program that halted inflation and stabilized the German currency in 1923 while

serving as a special currency commissioner in the finance ministry, and would later become the president of

the Reichsbank.

In 1930, Schacht resigned from his presidency and forged an alliance with the German right-wing parties. He

would again become the president of the Reichsbank after Hitler’s rise to power in 1933, and later become the

German minister of economics. His position as the minister however become threated by the rise of Hermann

Goring and led to the Schact’s resignation from that post in 1936. Later on he would be dismissed from the

position of Reichsbank after opposing Hitler’s rearmament expenditure.

On July 20, 1944, there was an attempt on Hilter’s life that came to be known as the “July plot”, which failed.

Schacht was arrested by the Nazi government following this and imprisoned, before being captured by the

Allied forces after the surrender of Germany. Now, he stands trial before the International Military Tribunal at

Nuremberg.

counts 1 (concerted plan or conspiracy) and 2 (crimes against peace)

Arthur Seysss-Inquart

Seysss-Inquart served in the Austria-Hungary army in the 1st World War and would return to Vienna after it to

take part in politics. He was made the chancellor of Austria due to German pressure and would participate in

Nazi intrigue to unite Austria and Germany.

He welcomed the union of Austria and Germany and was made the Reichs Governor of Austria after the

German invasion as well as given the title of general in the SS. During his reign as governor, Jews in Austria

were forced to emigrate and subject to various other atrocities.

In 1939, he was appointed of “Chief of Civil Administration of South Poland” and made the Deputy Governor

General of the General Government of Poland. In 1940 he would be appointed the commissioner for German

occupied Netherlands.

In these positions, Seyss-Inquart would employ a variety of policies that exploited the resources and

inhabitants of the occupied territories as well as commit atrocities against the Jewish populations. Around

120,000 of Holland’s Jews to Auschwitz, where the “Final Solution” awaited them; complete extinction.

Charged with counts 1 (concerted plan or conspiracy), 2 (crimes against peace), 3 (war crimes) and 4 (crimes

against humaninity)

Albert Speer

Speer was the Nazi Party’s chief of war production. He studied at technical schools in Karlsruhe, Munich and

Berlin, where he heard Hitler speak at a rally and joined the Nazi Party. He would eventually become Hitler’s

personal architect, and received many important commissions such as the designs of the parade of the

fabulous Nuremberg party congress of 1934 and plans to rebuild all of Berlin which never came to life.

Speer would become the German minister of armaments and war production in 1942, which meant he was in

charge of fueling the German war machine raging all over Europe. His efficient and smart work in this post

meant that the war production reach its peak in 1944, despite the constant bombing from Allied forces. The

factories responsible for this production used a system of conscript and slave labor to supply their manpower

and maintain production.

4 counts (1: participation in a common plan or conspiracy; 2: crimes against peace; 3: war crimes; 4: crimes

against humanity)

Rudolf Hess

Hess was an early member of the Nazi Party and fanatic follower of Hitler. He served in the German army

during World War 1 and would get involved in nationalist propaganda in the post-war years, eventually

meeting Hitler and joining the Nazi Party in 1920. He would quickly become Hitler’s friend, and would take

party in the failed Beer Hall Putsch.

After the Putsch, he escaped to Austria but would later voluntary return to be imprisoned in the Lansberg

prison with Hitler. Inside the prison, he would edit and advice Hitler on his “Mein Kampf”, stressing upon the

idea of “living space” for the German people.

He would eventually become Hitler’s private secretary and in 1933, the deputy party leader. In 1939, he would

declared the third in the line of succession to Hitler, second to Goring. However, due to the scheming of the

top Nazi officials who schemed for greater personal power, Hess’s influence waned.

In 1941, Hess would attempt what would be the most baffling events in the war by a top official. He secretly

flew a plane from Germany to Britain, parachuting himself in Scotland, on a ‘peace trip’. He landed with peace

proposals, which included a demand for free hand for Germany in Euope and the return of former German

colonies. However, the British government simple treated him as a high-profile prisoner of war and kept him

imprisoned until the end of the war, while Hitler accused him of “pacific delusions”. After the end of the war,

he is brought to Nuremberg to stand trial before the International Military Tribunal.

Charged with counts 1 (concerted plan or conspiracy), 2 (crimes against peace), 3 (war crimes) and 4 (crimes

against humanity)

Hans Fritzsche

Fritzsche was a radio commentator that worked under the Nazi propaganda ministry. He attended the

universities of the Wurzburg and Leipzig, and practiced law. He would join the nationalist Young Conservative

movement and in 1929 the Nazi Party, becoming a member of the Strom Troopers.

He started broadcasting in 1932, in a daily program called “Hans Fritzsche Speaks”. He was later named the

head of the Wireless News services, which was a government agency. This agency would later be made a part

of Goebbels’ propaganda ministry in 1933. Fritzsche became the chief of the ministry’s radio division in 1942.

He was arrested by Soviet troops during the fall of Berlin, and is now present to stand trial before the

International Military Tribunal.

Charged on counts 1 (common plan or conspiracy), 3 (war crimes) and 4 (crimes against humanity)

Walther Funk

Funk served as the economics minister and the president of the Reichsbank. He attended universities at Berlin

and Leipzig and joined the German army with the start of the first world war. He was discharged in 1916 and

became the editor of the “Berliner Boersen Zeitung” in 1922.

He would join the Nazi party and become the economic adviser in Hitler’s personal staff in 1931. He acted as a

middleman between Hitler and the German industrialists. In 1938, he was appointed the economics minister

but operated under the supervision of Goring, who was the general of the four-year war plan for the German

economy.

In 1939, he would replace Schacht as the president of the Reichsbank. He would participate in the economic

planning to invade the Soviet Union and the program for economic discrimination against the Jews. He was

captured by Allied troops in 1945 and is now brought to trial before the International Military Tribunal.

Charged with: count 1 (concerted plan or conspiracy), count 2 (crimes against peace), count 3 (war crimes) and

count 4 (crimes against humanity)

Joachim Von Ribbentrop

Ribbentrop was a diplomat and the Nazi foreign minister. He was the negotiator of important treaties that

Germany was involved in. He served in the German army during the first world war, and worked as a wine

salesman in the post-war years. He met Adolf Hitler in 1932 and joined the Nazi party.

After Hitler’s rise to power, Ribbentrop would become his chief adviser on foreign policy. He was appointed

the Reich commissioner for disarmament at Geneva in 1934, and in 1935 he negotiated the Anglo-German

Naval Agreement which allowed German navel rearmament. He served as the ambassador to Great Britain

from 1936 to 1938.

He would negotiate Anti-Comintern Pact with Japan in 1936 against the USSR, and signed the “Pact of Steel”

with Italy that ensured alliance in the case of war. His greatest achievement was the German-Soviet Non-

Aggression Pact, known as the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, which paved the way for the German invasion of the

Soviet Union and started the 2nd World War. He would later sign the Tripartite Pact with Italy and Japan in

1940 that ensured mutual assistance against the United States. After the end of the war, he was captured by

Allied troops and now faces trial before the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg.

Charged with: count 1 (concerted plan or conspiracy), count 2 (crimes against peace), count 3 (war crimes) and

count 4 (crimes against humanity)

The Prosecutors:

Attorney General Sir Hartley Shawcross (United Kingdom)

Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson (United States)

Lieutenant-General Roman Andreyevich Rudenko (Soviet Union)

François de Menthon (France)

Delegates Role in the Committee:

The delegates playing the role of the accused persons will be expected to put up their defense in front of the Tribunal. They must cite their actions during the war and try to justify/undermine them in order to argue their cases against the accusations leveled against them.

The delegates playing the role of the prosecutors would have to research the crimes of the people before them, and argue with the use of it that they person in question is guilty of what he has been accused of.