The idea of trying those Germans responsible for war crimes strengthened as Allied leaders realised that the Nazis would not be bound of any of the ‘normal’ usages of war. In October 1941 Churchill declared, “Retribution must take its place among the major purposes of this war” and in January 1942 the Governments in exile in London formally rejected ‘acts of vengeance’ against Germans and opted for ‘punishment through the channels of organised justice’. The declaration stated that war criminals whose acts affected several countries should be punished by a ‘common decision’ of the Allies. The International Military Tribunal was to try the leading Nazi war criminals in the Palace of Justice in Nuremberg, the home of the Nazi rallies.
The Allied armies were on the lookout for all the Nazi leaders. Goebbels and Martin Bormann had already committed suicide. Himmler too, chose suicide. The SS chief, seeing himself as Hitler’s heir apparent, had tried to negotiate peace on his own account, been expelled from the Party by Hitler for doing so, failed to get a place in Donitz’s government and then tried to escape through the Allied lines. He was picked up with a team of SS men in a hopelessly inadequate disguise, having shaved off his moustache and donned an eye patch. His clothes were searched for poison, and a capsule of potassium cyanide was found. A doctor ordered another search, this time of his mouth, where he had concealed another capsule. Immediately he bit on it, and was dead in seconds. Many others, including Hess and Streicher were held on captivity.
The trial of the remaining leaders opened on 20th November 1945. The first day the charges were read. The prisoners were to be tried on four counts: crimes against peace – preparing and initiating wars of aggression; war crimes – the ill treatment of civilian populations and prisoners of war; crimes against humanity – extremes of brutality against whole groups or nations; and conspiracy – involvement in a common plan to commit the other three crimes. The tribunal tried a group of leading Nazis, which included Haydrich’s successor as chief of the Reich Main Security Office, and Hans Frank, the Governor – General of occupied Poland.
Over the following months the prosecution then continued its task of detailing the whole history of Nazism. Emerging many details about the horrors of the Nazi persecution and death camps. A vast amount of what is now standard history was revealed the first time at Nuremberg. It is possible that the true horrors of the concentration camps would never fully be appreciated without the showing of an American film complied as the camps were liberated.
Week after week, the case against the accused built up by the truckloads consisting of documents and eyewitness accounts. There were Himmlers orders for the enslavement and extermination of ‘sub – human’ races. There was Hans Frank’s thirty-eight-volume diary, a history of murder, starvation and extermination, an unassailable indictment of its author. All the horrors of Nazi rule came out: the concentration camps, the experiments and the exterminations. In their cells, the prisoners were clearly shaken by what had been revealed. Even Goring admitted that things seem to have got out of hand, placing the blame more on Himmler than Hitler. With respect to war crimes and crimes against humanity, the tribunal found overwhelming evidence of a systematic rule of violence, brutality, and terrorism by the German government in the territories occupied by its forces. Millions of persons were destroyed in concentration camps, many of which were equipped with gas chambers for the extermination of Jews, Roma (Gypsies), and members of other ethnic or religious groups. Under the slave-labour policy of the German government, at least 5 million persons had been forcibly deported from their homes to Germany. Many of them died because of inhuman treatment. The tribunal also found that atrocities had been committed on a large scale and as a matter of official policy.
The case for the defence included one of the most appalling episodes of the trial, when the former commandment of Auschwitz, Rudolf Hoess, gave evidence. He described some of the worst excesses of the extermination campaign. He estimated that 2,500,000 were gassed and burned at Auschwitz, and that a further 500,00 died of starvation, a total representing 70%-80% of all those sent to the camps. On 31st August came the last statements. Goring again denied everything. His only inspiration had been love of his people. Hess made confused remarks until the President interrupted him His claim to be suffering from amnesia was a high point in the trial. Frank begged the Germans to return to God and Keitel said his loyalty had been exploited for obscure reasons. Other service chiefs and civil servants remained convinced that they had done their duty. Speer, the most objective, predicted the destruction that would result if the technical developments of the previous five years were exploited in another war. The most common defence heard in the court was that they were all ‘obeying orders’.
On 30th September came the judgement and the next day the sentence was passed. The twenty-one who were to appear in Nuremberg dock were gathered, but there were many who evaded justice. Dozens committed suicide. There were acquitted; Fritzsche, Papen and Schacht. Hess, Speer and Schirach got twenty years. Neurath fifteen and Donitz ten. Hanging condemned the rest. Goring managed to kill himself a few hours before his schedule execution. Dozens committed suicide; one was Dr Robert Ley, the ‘stammering drunkard’ who was head of the Labour Nazi Front. Ley was captured, but in prison he was a shattered man. Late on 25th October 1945, they found Ley hanging dead from the lever of the lavatory cistern. He had stuffed his mouth full of rags so as no to alert the guards as he died.
Of the thousands involved in war crimes and the Holocaust, only a fraction were tracked down and brought to justice. Many that were, received relatively light sentences. For example Alfried Krupp, who was the head of the great steel firm was sentenced to 12 years in 1948 but was released in 1951. Few would dispute the moral justification for the trial. The crimes involved were so enormous that the idea of there being no redress was never raised. Not everyone got away with the terrible things they inflicted on the Jews, such as, after the conclusion of the first Nuremberg trial, 12 more trials were held under the authority of Control Council Law No. 10, which closely resembled the London Agreement but provided the war crimes trials in each of the four zones of occupied Germany.
About 185 individuals were indicted in the 12 cases. Those indicted included doctors who had conducted medical experiments on concentration camp inmates and prisoners of war, judges who had committed murder and other crimes under the guise of the judicial process, and industrialists who had participated in the looting of occupied countries and in the forced-labor program. Other persons indicted included SS officials, who had headed the concentration camps, administered the Nazi racial laws, and carried out the extermination of Jews and other groups in the eastern territories overrun by the German army; and high military and civilian officials who bore responsibility for these and other criminal acts and policies of the Third Reich. A number of doctors and SS leaders were condemned to death by hanging, and approximately 120 other defendants were given prison sentences of various durations; 35 defendants were acquitted. However many of the people were brought to justice there were still many, many others who weren’t.
