Trial of German War Criminals 1945. Nuremberg Tribunal: Statute, Main Principles and Exclusive Competence

2015 is the year of the 70th anniversary of the Nuremberg Trials. It took place in the city of Nuremberg (Germany) from November 20, 1945 to October 1, 1946 at the International Military Tribunal.

The first trial of major war criminals was held in Nuremberg because for many years this city was a stronghold and a symbol of fascism. It hosted congresses of the National Socialist Party, held parades of assault squads. There were other reasons for this, including a purely technical one.

The International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg is the first international court in history. Its result was the recognition of Hitler's aggression as the gravest criminal offense, the condemnation of crimes on a national scale, the ruling regime of Hitler, his punitive institutions, and the highest political and military figures of Nazi Germany. It is often referred to as the "Court of History".

It was one of the largest lawsuits in human history. He played an important role in the development of international law in general and the development of relations between states around the world after the Second World War.

This historic trial legally sealed the final defeat of fascism and went down in history as an anti-fascist trial. The whole world was exposed to the essence of fascism, its ideology, especially racism, which is the ideological basis for the preparation and unleashing of aggressive wars and the mass extermination of people. At the trial, the whole danger of the revival of fascism for the destinies of the whole world was clearly and convincingly shown.

The Second World War brought huge material and human losses to mankind. 26 million 600 thousand of our compatriots died in this bloody massacre. And more than half of them - 15 million 400 thousand - were civilians. The atrocities of the Nazis cannot be taken calmly and remain indifferent to them. The world has never seen such cruelty in the relationship of man to man. Mass looting of vast territories, mass executions, the creation of "death factories", torture, experiments on people, the destruction of entire nations, inhuman treatment of prisoners of war ... All these are crimes, a long list of which can be listed endlessly.

Long before the end of World War II, representatives of the Allied governments repeatedly spoke of the need to bring to justice and punish the war criminals who unleashed the war, started mass terror and murders, and proclaimed the ideas of racial superiority and genocide. This idea of ​​the responsibility of the Nazis for their monstrous crimes against peace and humanity was reflected in many international documents.

Including the requirement to create an International Military Tribunal was contained in the statement of the Soviet government as early as October 14, 1942 "On the responsibility of the Nazi invaders and their accomplices for the atrocities committed by them in the occupied countries of Europe."

The agreement on the establishment of the International Military Tribunal and its charter were developed by the USSR, the USA, Great Britain and France during the London conference, which took place from June 26 to August 8, 1945. The jointly developed document reflected the coordinated position of all 23 countries participating in the conference, the principles of the charter were approved by the UN General Assembly as universally recognized in the fight against crimes against humanity.

The Nuremberg Trials were specific features previously unknown to the practice of legal proceedings. This is explained by the fact that the commission of monstrous atrocities by the fascists and Nazis were made public and required appropriate legal qualifications and condemnation.

Thus, the statute stated that groups and organizations could be the subjects of the accusation, the judges had the right to independently determine the course of the process. It was also an innovation that the court was the court of final instance, its main purpose was to specify and qualify the degree of guilt of the accused - the main war criminals, hence the name - the military tribunal.

The first list of accused, which was agreed on August 8, 1945 in London, did not include Hitler, his closest subordinates Himmler and Goebbels, because. at that time, their death was reliably established.

At the same time, Bormann, who was allegedly killed on the streets of Berlin, was on the list and was charged in absentia.

In total, 24 war criminals who were members of the top leadership of Nazi Germany were brought to trial.

The initial list of defendants included:

1. Hermann Wilhelm Göring (German: Hermann Wilhelm Göring), Reichsmarschall, Commander-in-Chief of the German Air Force
2. Rudolf Hess (German Rudolf Heß), Hitler's deputy in charge of the Nazi Party.
3. Joachim von Ribbentrop (German: Ullrich Friedrich Willy Joachim von Ribbentrop), Foreign Minister of Nazi Germany.
4. Robert Ley (German: Robert Ley), head of the Labor Front
5. Wilhelm Keitel (German Wilhelm Keitel), Chief of Staff of the Supreme Command of the German Armed Forces.
6. Ernst Kaltenbrunner (German Ernst Kaltenbrunner), head of the RSHA.
7. Alfred Rosenberg (German: Alfred Rosenberg), one of the main ideologists of Nazism, Reich Minister for the Eastern Territories.
8. Hans Frank (German Dr. Hans Frank), head of the occupied Polish lands.
9. Wilhelm Frick (German Wilhelm Frick), Minister of the Interior of the Reich.
10. Julius Streicher (German: Julius Streicher), Gauleiter, editor-in-chief of the anti-Semitic newspaper Sturmovik (German: Der Stürmer - Der Stürmer).
11. Hjalmar Schacht (German Hjalmar Schacht), Reich Minister of Economics before the war.
12. Walther Funk (German Walther Funk), Minister of Economics after Mine.
13. Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach (German: Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach), head of the Friedrich Krupp concern.
14. Karl Doenitz (German: Karl Dönitz), Admiral of the Third Reich Fleet.
15. Erich Raeder (German Erich Raeder), Commander-in-Chief of the Navy.
16. Baldur von Schirach (German: Baldur Benedikt von Schirach), head of the Hitler Youth, Gauleiter of Vienna.
17. Fritz Sauckel (German Fritz Sauckel), head of forced deportations to the Reich work force from the occupied territories.
18. Alfred Jodl (German Alfred Jodl), Chief of Staff of the Operational Command of the OKW
19. Franz von Papen (German: Franz Joseph Hermann Michael Maria von Papen), Chancellor of Germany before Hitler, then ambassador to Austria and Turkey.
20. Arthur Seyss-Inquart (German Dr. Arthur Seyß-Inquart), chancellor of Austria, then imperial commissioner of the occupied Holland.
21. Albert Speer (German: Albert Speer), Reich Minister for Armaments
22. Konstantin von Neurath (German Konstantin Freiherr von Neurath), in the first years of Hitler's reign, Minister of Foreign Affairs, then Viceroy in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.
23. Hans Fritsche (German: Hans Fritzsche), Head of the Press and Broadcasting Department in the Ministry of Propaganda.

Groups or organizations to which the defendants belonged were also accused.

They were accused of unleashing an aggressive war in order to establish the world domination of German imperialism, that is, of crimes against peace, of killing and torturing prisoners of war and civilians of occupied countries, deporting the civilian population to Germany for forced labor, killing hostages, robbing public and private property, the aimless destruction of towns and villages, innumerable ruins not justified by military necessity, that is, in war crimes, in extermination, enslavement, exile committed against the civilian population for political, racial or religious reasons, that is, in crimes against humanity.

The International Military Tribunal was formed on an equal basis from representatives of the four powers in accordance with the London Agreement:

From the USSR: Deputy Chairman of the Supreme Court Soviet Union Major General of Justice I. T. Nikitchenko; Colonel of Justice A. F. Volchkov;

From the United States: Former Attorney General F Biddle; John Parker (English);

From the UK: Chief Justice Geoffrey Lawrence; Norman Birket (English);

From France: Henri Donnedier de Vabre, Professor of Criminal Law; Robert Falco (German).

From each country, the main prosecutors, their deputies and assistants were sent to the process.

The main accusers were:

From the USSR - the prosecutor of the Ukrainian SSR Roman Andreyevich Rudenko (deputy: Yu.V. Pokrovsky, assistants: N.D. Zorya, D.S. Karev, L.N. Smirnov, L.R. Sheinin);

For the United States, Federal Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson;

From Great Britain - Attorney General and member of the House of Commons Hartley Shawcross;

From France - Minister of Justice Francois de Menthon, who was then replaced by Champetier de Ribes.

The chief prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials from the USSR Roman Rudenko speaks at the Palace of Justice. November 20, 1945, Germany

On October 18, 1945, the International Military Tribunal accepted the indictment, signed by the chief prosecutors from the USSR, the USA, Great Britain and France, which on the same day, that is, more than a month before the start of the trial, was served on all the defendants in order to give them the opportunity to advance prepare for defense.

Thus, in the interests of a fair trial, a course was taken from the very beginning for the strictest observance of the rights of the defendants.

Thus, the defendants were given a wide opportunity for defense, they all had German lawyers (some even two), enjoyed such rights that the accused were deprived not only in the courts of Nazi Germany, but also in many Western countries. The prosecutors provided the defense with copies of all documentary evidence on German, assisted lawyers in searching for and obtaining documents, delivering witnesses whom the defenders wanted to call.

Thus, despite the crimes against humanity and peace committed by the defendants, the basic principles of criminal proceedings were respected, namely:

legality;

Execution of justice only by the court; equality of all participants litigation before the law and the court;

Independence of judges and their subordination only to the law;

Providing proof of guilt; competitiveness of the parties and freedom in providing the court with their evidence and in proving their persuasiveness before the court;

Maintenance of public prosecution in court by the prosecutor;

Providing the accused with the right to defense; publicity of the trial and its complete fixation by technical means;

Obligation of the judgment of the court; inevitability of punishment.

It should be especially noted that the Nuremberg Trials were a public process in the broadest sense of the word.

Of the 403 court hearings, not a single one was closed. More than 60 thousand passes were issued to the courtroom, some of them were received by the Germans. Everything that was said in court was carefully transcribed. The process was conducted simultaneously in four languages, including German. The press and radio were represented by about 250 correspondents who broadcast reports on the process to all countries.

In the speeches of the accusers, along with the analysis of the facts, they analyzed legal problems process, the jurisdiction of the Tribunal was substantiated, a legal analysis of the corpus delicti was given, and the unfounded arguments of the defense lawyers of the defendants were refuted.

The Nuremberg trials were exceptional in terms of the impeccability and strength of the prosecution's evidence. The testimony of numerous witnesses, including former prisoners of Auschwitz, Dachau and other Nazi concentration camps - eyewitnesses of fascist atrocities, as well as material evidence and documentaries appeared as evidence.

Of course, the decisive role belonged to official documents signed by those who were put on trial.

In total, 116 witnesses were heard in court, of which 33 were summoned by prosecutors and 61 by defense lawyers in individual cases, and more than 4,000 documentary evidence was presented.

At the same time, the defendants behaved boldly and impudently, skillfully playing for time, hoping that the post-war aggravation of relations between the USSR and the West and rumors about the impending danger of an impending war would put an end to the process.

The court hearings were tense. In such a difficult situation, the tough and professional actions of the Soviet prosecution played a key role. The film about concentration camps, filmed by front-line cameramen, finally turned the course of the process. The terrible pictures of Majdanek, Sachsenhausen, Auschwitz completely removed the doubts of the tribunal.

In his closing speech, delivered on July 29 - 30, the Chief Prosecutor from the USSR R.A. Rudenko, summing up the results of the judicial investigation against the main war criminals, noted that “it is judged by the Court, created by peace-loving and freedom-loving countries, expressing the will and protecting the interests of all progressive mankind, which does not want a repetition of disasters, which will not allow a gang of criminals to prepare enslavement with impunity peoples and the extermination of people... Mankind calls criminals to account, and on behalf of it we, the accusers, accuse in this process. And how pitiful are the attempts to challenge the right of mankind to judge the enemies of mankind, how untenable are the attempts to deprive peoples of the right to punish those who have made it their goal to enslave and exterminate peoples and have carried out this criminal goal for many years in a row by criminal means.

The International Military Tribunal sentenced:

To death by hanging: Goering, Ribbentrop, Keitel, Kaltenbrunner, Rosenberg, Frank, Frick, Streicher, Sauckel, Seyss-Inquart, Bormann (in absentia), Jodl (was posthumously acquitted during a retrial by a Munich court in 1953);

To life imprisonment: Hess, Funk, Reder;

By 20 years in prison: Schirach, Speer;

By 15 years in prison: Neurata;

By 10 years in prison: Doenica;

Exonerated: Fritsche, Papen, Shakht.

The Tribunal recognized as criminal the organizations of German fascism - the SS, SA, Gestapo, SD, as well as the leadership of the National Socialist Party.

The Nuremberg Trials became a precedent in international law. One of his main merits was the implementation of the principle of equality before the law for all and the inevitability of punishment.

Today we are witnessing a picture when fascism is reborn again. Under these conditions, those who wish to rethink the results of the Great Victory in their own way, level the leading role of the Soviet Union in the defeat of fascism, and put an equal sign between Germany, the USSR and the aggressor country, become more active.

Against this background, there is a mass of various publications, films, television programs that distort historical facts and events.

In the public speeches of many extremists, and even a number of politicians, the leaders of the Third Reich and their accomplices are glorified, while Soviet military leaders, on the contrary, are vilified. In their interpretation, the Nuremberg trials are just an act of revenge on the vanquished by the victors. At the same time, they characterize well-known fascists as ordinary and rather nice people, and not as executioners and sadists.

However, it should be emphasized that the verdict of the Nuremberg trials has entered into legal force, no one challenged or canceled it, and the attempts of certain radical forces to interpret it in their own way do not have any legal grounds, and moral right in general.

The distortion of historical truth, the denigration of the Soviet past, the fascistization of an ideology elevated to the rank of state in a number of former Soviet republics, leads to manifestations of racism, nationalism in the most extreme and extremist forms. And this must be fought.

Our main task is to try to prevent this “rethinking”, to preserve reliable information about it and pass it on from generation to generation unchanged.

Interests careful attitude to the Great Victory, to the memory of those who gave their lives in the name of deliverance from fascism, are incompatible with the facts of falsification of the history of the war, with the facts of desecration of the monuments to the soldiers-liberators, the facts when discord is artificially planted among the fraternal peoples who fought together against fascism.

From the accusatory speech of the chief prosecutor from the USSR R.A. Rudenko:

Lord Judge! In order to carry out the atrocities they conceived, the leaders of the fascist conspiracy created a system of criminal organizations, to which my speech was devoted. Today, those who have set themselves the goal of establishing dominion over the world and the extermination of peoples are waiting with trepidation for the coming verdict of the court. This verdict must overtake not only the authors of bloody fascist "ideas" put on trial, the main organizers of the crimes of Hitlerism. Your verdict must condemn the entire criminal system of German fascism, that complex, widely ramified network of party, government, SS, military organizations that directly put into practice the villainous plans of the main conspirators. On the battlefields, mankind has already pronounced its verdict on the criminal German fascism. In the fire of the greatest heroic battles in the history of mankind Soviet Army and the valiant troops of the allies not only defeated the Nazi hordes, but approved the high and noble principles of international cooperation, human morality, humane rules of human society. The Prosecution has fulfilled its duty to the High Court, to the blessed memory of the innocent victims, to the conscience of the nations, to its own conscience. May the judgment of the peoples be carried out over the fascist executioners - just and severe.

Websites were used in the preparation of information.

Göring in the dock at the Nuremberg Trials

On October 1, 1946, the verdict of the International Military Tribunal was proclaimed in Nuremberg, condemning the main war criminals. It is often referred to as the "Court of History". It was not only one of the largest trials in the history of mankind, but also milestone in the development of international law. The Nuremberg trials legally sealed the final defeat of fascism.

On the dock:

For the first time, criminals who made a whole state criminal appeared and suffered severe punishment. The initial list of defendants included:

1. Hermann Wilhelm Göring (German: Hermann Wilhelm Göring), Reichsmarschall, Commander-in-Chief of the German Air Force
2. Rudolf Hess (German Rudolf Heß), Hitler's deputy in charge of the Nazi Party.
3. Joachim von Ribbentrop (German: Ullrich Friedrich Willy Joachim von Ribbentrop), Foreign Minister of Nazi Germany.
4. Robert Ley (German: Robert Ley), head of the Labor Front
5. Wilhelm Keitel (German Wilhelm Keitel), Chief of Staff of the Supreme Command of the German Armed Forces.
6. Ernst Kaltenbrunner (German Ernst Kaltenbrunner), head of the RSHA.
7. Alfred Rosenberg (German: Alfred Rosenberg), one of the main ideologists of Nazism, Reich Minister for the Eastern Territories.
8. Hans Frank (German Dr. Hans Frank), head of the occupied Polish lands.
9. Wilhelm Frick (German Wilhelm Frick), Minister of the Interior of the Reich.
10. Julius Streicher (German: Julius Streicher), Gauleiter, editor-in-chief of the anti-Semitic newspaper Sturmovik (German: Der Stürmer - Der Stürmer).
11. Hjalmar Schacht (German Hjalmar Schacht), Reich Minister of Economics before the war.
12. Walther Funk (German Walther Funk), Minister of Economics after Mine.
13. Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach (German: Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach), head of the Friedrich Krupp concern.
14. Karl Doenitz (German: Karl Dönitz), Admiral of the Third Reich Fleet.
15. Erich Raeder (German Erich Raeder), Commander-in-Chief of the Navy.
16. Baldur von Schirach (German: Baldur Benedikt von Schirach), head of the Hitler Youth, Gauleiter of Vienna.
17. Fritz Sauckel (German: Fritz Sauckel), head of forced deportations to the Reich of labor from the occupied territories.
18. Alfred Jodl (German Alfred Jodl), Chief of Staff of the Operational Command of the OKW
19. Franz von Papen (German: Franz Joseph Hermann Michael Maria von Papen), Chancellor of Germany before Hitler, then Ambassador to Austria and Turkey.
20. Arthur Seyss-Inquart (German Dr. Arthur Seyß-Inquart), chancellor of Austria, then imperial commissioner of the occupied Holland.
21. Albert Speer (German: Albert Speer), Reich Minister for Armaments
22. Konstantin von Neurath (German Konstantin Freiherr von Neurath), in the first years of Hitler's reign, Minister of Foreign Affairs, then Viceroy in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.
23. Hans Fritsche (German: Hans Fritzsche), Head of the Press and Broadcasting Department in the Ministry of Propaganda.

Twenty-fourth - Martin Bormann (German Martin Bormann), head of the party office, was charged in absentia. Groups or organizations to which the defendants belonged were also accused.

Investigation and charges

Shortly after the end of the war, the victorious countries of the USSR, the USA, Great Britain and France, during the London conference, approved the Agreement on the Establishment of the International Military Tribunal and its Charter, the principles of which the UN General Assembly approved as universally recognized in the fight against crimes against humanity. On August 29, 1945, a list of top war criminals was published, which included 24 prominent Nazis. The charges brought against them included the following:

Nazi party plans

• -The use of Nazi control for aggression against foreign states.
• - Aggressive actions against Austria and Czechoslovakia.
• - Attack on Poland.
• - Aggressive war against the whole world (1939-1941).
• -The invasion of Germany into the territory of the USSR in violation of the non-aggression pact of August 23, 1939.
• -Cooperation with Italy and Japan and aggressive war against the USA (November 1936 - December 1941).

Crimes against the world

"All the accused and various other persons, for a number of years up to May 8, 1945, participated in the planning, preparation, initiation and conduct of aggressive wars, which were also wars in violation of international treaties, agreements and obligations."

War crimes

• -Murder and cruel treatment with the civilian population in the occupied territories and on the high seas.

• - Withdrawal of the civilian population of the occupied territories into slavery and for other purposes.
• -Murder and ill-treatment of prisoners of war and military personnel of countries with which Germany was at war, as well as with persons who were sailing on the high seas.
• - Aimless destruction of cities and towns and villages, devastation not justified by military necessity.
• -Germanization of the occupied territories.

Crimes against humanity

• -The accused pursued a policy of persecution, repression and extermination of enemies of the Nazi government. The Nazis threw people into prison without a trial, subjected them to persecution, humiliation, enslavement, torture, and killed them.

On October 18, 1945, the indictment was submitted to the International Military Tribunal and a month before the start of the trial, it was handed to each of the accused in German. On November 25, 1945, after reading the indictment, Robert Ley committed suicide, and Gustav Krupp was declared terminally ill by the medical commission, and the case against him was dismissed before the trial.

The rest of the accused were put on trial.

Court

In accordance with the London Agreement, the International Military Tribunal was formed on an equal basis from representatives of four countries. The representative of Great Britain, Lord J. Lawrence, was appointed Chief Justice. From other countries, the members of the tribunal approved:

• - from the USSR: Deputy Chairman of the Supreme Court of the Soviet Union, Major General of Justice I. T. Nikitchenko.
• -from the USA: former Attorney General of the country F. Biddle.
• -from France: Professor of Criminal Law A. Donnedier de Vabre.

Each of the 4 countries sent its main prosecutors, their deputies and assistants to the trial:

• - from the USSR: Prosecutor General of the Ukrainian SSR R. A. Rudenko.
• -from the United States: Federal Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson.
• -from UK: Hartley Shawcross
• -from France: François de Menthon, who was absent during the first days of the process, and was replaced by Charles Dubost, and then Champentier de Ribe was appointed instead of de Menthon.

The process lasted ten months in Nuremberg. A total of 216 court hearings were held. Each side presented evidence of crimes committed Nazi criminals.

Due to the unprecedented gravity of the crimes committed by the defendants, doubts arose whether to observe democratic norms of justice in relation to them. For example, representatives of the prosecution from England and the United States proposed not to give the defendants last word. However, the French and Soviet sides insisted on the opposite.

The process was tense, not only because of the unusual nature of the tribunal itself and the charges brought against the defendants.

The post-war aggravation of relations between the USSR and the West after Churchill's famous Fulton speech also had an effect, and the defendants, feeling the current political situation, skillfully played for time and expected to escape the deserved punishment. In such a difficult situation, the tough and professional actions of the Soviet prosecution played a key role. The film about concentration camps, filmed by front-line cameramen, finally turned the course of the process. The terrible pictures of Majdanek, Sachsenhausen, Auschwitz completely removed the doubts of the tribunal.

Court verdict

The International Military Tribunal sentenced:

• -To the death penalty by hanging: Goering, Ribbentrop, Keitel, Kaltenbrunner, Rosenberg, Frank, Frick, Streicher, Sauckel, Seyss-Inquart, Bormann (in absentia), Jodl (was posthumously acquitted during the retrial by the Munich court in 1953).
• -To life imprisonment: Hess, Funk, Raeder.
• -To 20 years in prison: Schirach, Speer.
• -To 15 years in prison: Neurata.
• -To 10 years in prison: Doenica.
• - Justified: Fritsche, Papen, Shakht.

The Soviet side protested in connection with the acquittal of Papen, Fritsche, Schacht and the non-application of the death penalty to Hess.
The Tribunal recognized as criminal the organizations of the SS, SD, SA, Gestapo and the leadership of the Nazi Party. The decision to recognize the Supreme Command and the General Staff as criminal was not made, which caused the disagreement of the member of the tribunal from the USSR.

Most of the convicts filed petitions for clemency; Raeder - on the replacement of life imprisonment with the death penalty; Goering, Jodl and Keitel - about replacing hanging with execution if the request for pardon is not satisfied. All of these applications were denied.
The death penalty was carried out on the night of October 16, 1946 in the building of the Nuremberg prison. Göring poisoned himself in prison shortly before his execution.

The sentence was carried out "by own will US Sergeant John Wood.

Funk and Raeder, sentenced to life imprisonment, were pardoned in 1957. After Speer and Schirach were released in 1966, only Hess remained in prison. The right-wing forces of Germany repeatedly demanded that he be pardoned, but the victorious powers refused to commute the sentence. On August 17, 1987, Hess was found hanged in his cell.

Results and conclusions

The Nuremberg Tribunal, having created a precedent for the jurisdiction of senior government officials to an international court, refuted the medieval principle "Kings are under the jurisdiction of God alone." It was with the Nuremberg trials that the history of international criminal law began. The principles enshrined in the Charter of the Tribunal were soon confirmed by the decisions of the UN General Assembly as universally recognized principles of international law. Having passed a guilty verdict on the main Nazi criminals, the International Military Tribunal recognized aggression as the gravest crime of an international character.

Not all who appeared before the tribunal received the same term. Of the 24 people, six were found guilty on all four counts. For example, Franz Papen, ambassador to Austria and then to Turkey, was released in the courtroom, although the Soviet side insisted that he was guilty. In 1947, he received a term, which was then softened. The Nazi criminal ended his years ... in a castle, but far from a prison. And he continued to bend the line of his party, releasing "Memoirs politician Hitler's Germany. 1933–1947”, where he spoke about the correctness and logic of German policy in the 1930s: “I made many mistakes in my life and more than once came to false conclusions. However, for the sake of my own family, I am obliged to correct at least some of the distortions of reality that are most offensive to me. The facts, when viewed impartially, paint a completely different picture. However, this is not my main task. At the end of a life spanning three generations, my greatest concern is to contribute to a greater understanding of Germany's role in the events of this period."

MOSCOW, 20 November. /TASS/. November 20, 2015 marks the 70th anniversary of the opening of the Nuremberg trials, which considered the case of the main Nazi criminals responsible for unleashing World War II. This was the first experience in history of condemning crimes on a national scale - the ruling regime, its punitive institutions, top political and military figures.

For the first time, war criminals failed to evade responsibility, citing the need to execute an order from above.

The Nuremberg trial is the only one of its kind in the history of world jurisprudence; he has the greatest public importance for millions of people around the world

Geoffrey Lawrence

tribunal president

24 state and military figures of Nazi Germany were put on trial. Cases against the leader of the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP) Adolf Hitler and representatives of the Fuhrer's inner circle - Joseph Goebbels (Minister of Education and Propaganda) and Heinrich Himmler (Minister of the Interior and head of the SS) were not initiated, since they committed suicide yet before starting the process.

The issue of recognition as criminal was also submitted to the tribunal for consideration:

• SS (Schutzstaffel, security units, NSDAP paramilitaries),
• SA (Sturmabteilung, assault squads),
• SD (Sicherheitsdienst, security service),
• Gestapo (Gestapo, Geheime Staatspolizei, secret state police),

as well as the government, the leadership of the NSDAP, the general staff and the high command of the German armed forces.

How the tribunal was created

The question of punishing Nazi criminals was raised by the leaders of the USSR, Great Britain and the United States even before the end of World War II.

It was emphasized that Nazi officers and soldiers who committed "atrocities, murders and mass executions" on the territory of the occupied countries, after the end of the war, will be sent "to the places of their crimes and will be judged by the peoples over whom they committed violence."

The agreement on the establishment of the International Military Tribunal was concluded by the governments of the USSR, the USA, Great Britain and France on August 8, 1945 in London.

statute of the tribunal

On the same day, the charter of the tribunal was adopted. His first article noted that the purpose of the Nuremberg trials was "the speedy and fair trial and punishing the main war criminals of the Axis."

Article 6 of the charter classified three main groups of crimes:

crimes against peace (unleashing an aggressive war);

war crimes (violations of the laws and customs of war, recorded in various international documents, including the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907);

crimes against humanity (murder of civilians, racism, genocide, etc.).

The defendants were accused of these crimes, as well as "participation in the creation and implementation general plan to make them."

Article 27 provided for "the death penalty or such other punishment as the tribunal may consider just".

To recognize the guilt of the defendant and determine his punishment, the votes of at least three members of the tribunal were required.

It is believed that the process marked the beginning of the formation and development of a new direction of jurisprudence - international criminal law and justice.

Who entered the tribunal

For adjudication, each of the four parties appointed to the tribunal one member and one alternate:

• USSR- Chairman of the Supreme Court of the USSR Major General of Justice Ion Nikitchenko and Colonel of Justice Alexander Volchkov;
• USA- Former Attorney General Francis Biddle and Judge John Parker;
• Great Britain- Chief Judge Jeffrey Lawrence and Judge Norman Birket;
• France- Professor of Criminal Law Henri Donnedier de Vabre and Judge Robert Falco.

An accusatory committee was also established, to which each of the four governments appointed a chief prosecutor:

• USSR- Prosecutor of the Ukrainian SSR Roman Rudenko;
• USA- US Supreme Court Judge Robert Jackson;
• Great Britain- lawyer Hartley Shawcross;
• France - law professor Francois de Menthon, but during the process he was replaced by lawyers Charles Dubost and Champetier de Ribes.

Other accusers were also involved in the process.

Continuation

"Youtube/ mymoymoyification"s channel"

Press about the tribunal

Media representatives from 31 countries worked at the trial. In the USSR, the press daily reported on what was happening in Nuremberg. The TASS information was supplemented by the reports of journalists who attended the meetings, including famous writers- Leonid Leonov, Ilya Erenburg, Boris Polevoy and documentary filmmaker Roman Karmen.

Today at 10 am local time (12 pm Moscow time) a meeting of the International Military Tribunal was held. For many years in a row, the Nazis held their congresses in Nuremberg, where aggressive plans for the enslavement of the world were outlined, where, to the beat of drums and the sounds of fanfare, the Nazis boasted of their victories, proclaimed a "new order" in Europe

TASS correspondent

Before the opening of the meeting, the hall was filled with:

"There are 20 major German war criminals on the dock. Four defendants are missing. There is no Martin Bormann, Hitler's deputy in charge of the Nazi party. He cowardly fled after heart-rendingly urging the German army and the German people to fight until last drop blood. Defendant Robert Ley hanged himself in prison without waiting for trial. Defendant Gustav Krupp von Bohlen lies paralyzed in Salzburg and, in the opinion of the expert, cannot stand trial. The Defendant Kaltenbruner, a well-known executioner and one of the leaders of the Gestapo, suddenly fell ill. But the court announced its decision to try his case in his absence," TASS reported.

We're kind of in the devil's kitchen right now. What we learn deserves such a name. Thanks to the documents presented by the Prosecution, we see how a bunch of international brigands, intoxicated by their bloody successes in Western Europe, completely cold-bloodedly planned not only the dismemberment of our Motherland, not only the robbery of its peoples, but also their physical extermination

Boris Polevoy

During the process, a film was shown about the crimes of the Nazis in the concentration camps Majdanek, Sachsenhausen, Auschwitz, as well as in the occupied territories of the USSR. This moment, which was called the face-to-face confrontation between the executioners and the victims, is considered the culmination of the Nuremberg trials.

When a film about the camps was shown, Schacht turned his back on the screen - he did not want to watch; others watched, while Frank wept and wiped his eyes with a handkerchief. It sounds unbelievable, but I saw it: Frank, the one who wrote that in Poland when he arrived there, there were three and a half million Jews, and in 1944 there were one hundred thousand of them left, sobbed when he saw on the screen what that a million times seen in reality; maybe he was crying over himself - he realized what was waiting for him

Ilya Erenburg

12 death sentences

The process lasted 11 months.

During this time, 403 open court sessions were held. A total of 360 witnesses were questioned and about 200,000 affidavits were considered.

Most were found guilty on all counts or in part. None of them pleaded guilty.

The tribunal sentenced twelve defendants to death, nine more to death. imprisonment, including a life sentence. Three were acquitted.

The following were sentenced to death by hanging:

• Hermann Goering ("Fuhrer's successor", President of the Reichstag, Commander-in-Chief of the Air Force);
• Wilhelm Keitel (Chief of Staff of the High Command of the Wehrmacht);
• Joachim von Ribbentrop (Foreign Minister);
• Hans Frank (Governor-General of occupied Poland);
• Wilhelm Frick (one of the leaders of the NSDAP);
• Alfred Jodl (Head of Operations, High Command of the German Armed Forces);
• Ernst Kaltenbrunner (Head of the Imperial Security Main Office);
• Alfred Rosenberg (one of the main ideologists of Nazism);
• Fritz Sauckel (led the forced deportations of the population from the occupied territories);
• Arthur Seyss-Inquart (German Commissioner in the occupied Netherlands);
• Julius Streicher (one of the ideologists of Nazism);
• Martin Bormann (Head of the Office of the Nazi Party; convicted in absentia, as his whereabouts were unknown; in 1973, the German court officially declared him dead).

Life imprisonment received:

• Rudolf Hess (one of Hitler's closest associates, committed suicide in Spandau prison in Berlin in 1987);
• Erich Raeder (Commander-in-Chief of the Naval Forces, released in 1955 for health reasons);
• Walter Funk (Minister of Economics, released in 1957 for health reasons).

Sentenced to 20 years in prison:

• Baldur von Schirach (one of the leaders of the NSDAP);
• Albert Speer (Minister of Armaments).

Konstantin von Neurath (one of the leaders of the SS) was sentenced to 15 years in prison, Karl Doenitz (Hitler's successor as head of state) to 10 years.

The leaders of the Nazi Party, the SS, the SD and the Gestapo were declared criminal organizations.

The SA (storm troops), the government of Nazi Germany, the general staff and the high command of the German armed forces were not recognized as criminal.

Justified

Acquittals were issued against the diplomat Franz von Papen, the financier Helmar Schacht and the head of the internal propaganda department of the German Ministry of Education and Propaganda, Hans Fritsche.

The representative in the tribunal from the USSR, Iona Nikitchenko, made a statement in which he expressed his disagreement with the acquittals.

Continuation

In the future, the materials of the Nuremberg Trials were used in the course of trials against fascist criminals in other countries. In particular, on their basis, a prominent NSDAP figure Erich Koch (1959, Poland; later the execution was commuted to life imprisonment) and one of the Gestapo leaders responsible for the extermination of Jews, Adolf Eichmann (1961, Israel) were sentenced to death .

Execution of the sentence

On the night of October 16, 1946, the death sentences were carried out in the building of the Nuremberg prison (Hermann Goering took potassium cyanide 2.5 hours before the execution).

The bodies of war criminals were burned in the Munich crematorium, and the ashes were scattered from the plane.

The execution of the sentence was attended by journalists - two people from each of the four allied powers.

History has never known such a court. The leaders of the country that was defeated in the war were not killed, they were not treated as honorary prisoners, they were not given asylum by any neutral state. The leadership of Nazi Germany, almost in its entirety, was detained, arrested and put on trial. They did the same with Japanese war criminals, holding the Tokyo Court of Nations, but this happened a little later. The Nuremberg trials gave a criminal and ideological assessment of the actions of statesmen with whom, up to 1939 inclusive, world leaders negotiated, concluded pacts and trade agreements. Then they were received, they paid visits, in general, they were treated with respect. Now they were sitting in the dock, silent or answering questions. Then they, accustomed to honor and luxury, were taken to cells.

Retribution

US Army Sergeant J. Wood was an experienced professional executioner with extensive pre-war experience. IN hometown San Antonio (Texas), he personally executed almost three and a half hundred notorious villains, most of whom were serial killers. But with such "material" he had to work for the first time.

The permanent head of the Nazi youth organization "Hitler Youth" Streicher resisted, he had to be dragged to the gallows by force. Then John strangled him by hand. Keitel, Jodl and Ribbentrop suffered for a long time with the airways already clamped by the noose, for several minutes they could not die.

At the last moment, realizing that the executioner could not be moved to pity, many of the condemned still found the strength to accept death for granted. Von Ribbentrop said words that have not lost their topicality even today, wishing Germany unity, and East and West - mutual understanding. Keitel, who signed the surrender and, in general, did not participate in the planning of aggressive campaigns (except for the attack on India that was never carried out), paid tribute to the fallen German soldiers by changing them. Jodl greeted in the end home country. Well, and so on.

Ribbentrop was the first to ascend the scaffold. Then it was the turn of Kaltenbrunner, who suddenly remembered God. His last prayer was not denied him.

The execution went on for a long time, and in order to speed up the process, the convicts were brought into the gym where it took place, without waiting for the agony of the previous victim to end. Ten people were hanged, two more (Göring and Ley) were able to avoid the shameful execution by laying their hands on themselves.

After several examinations, the corpses were burned, and the ashes were scattered.

Process preparation

The Nuremberg trials began in the deep autumn of 1945, on November 20. It was preceded by an investigation that lasted six months. In total, 27 kilometers of tape were used up, thirty thousand photographic prints were made, a huge number of newsreels (mostly captured) were viewed. According to these figures, unprecedented in 1945, one can judge the titanic work of the investigators who prepared the Nuremberg trials. Transcripts and other documents took about two hundred tons of writing paper (fifty million sheets).

To make a decision, the court needed to hold more than four hundred meetings.

Charges were brought against 24 officials who held various posts in Nazi Germany. It was based on the principles of the Charter adopted for the new court called the International Military Tribunal. First introduced legal concept crimes against humanity. The list of persons to be prosecuted under the articles of this document was published on August 29, 1945, after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Criminal plans and intentions

Aggression against Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, the USSR and, as the document says, "the whole world" was blamed on the leadership of Germany. The conclusion of cooperation agreements with fascist Italy and militaristic Japan was also called criminal actions. One of the charges was an attack on the United States. In addition to specific actions, the former German government was charged with aggressive designs.

But that was not the point. Whatever insidious plans the Hitlerite elite built, they were judged not for thinking about the capture of India, Africa, Ukraine and Russia, but for what the Nazis did in their own country and abroad.

Crimes against nations

The hundreds of thousands of pages occupied by the materials of the Nuremberg Trials irrefutably prove the inhuman treatment of civilians in the occupied territories, prisoners of war and crews of ships, military and commercial, that sank the ships of the German Navy. Large-scale ethnic cleansing carried out on a national basis also took place. The civilian population was exported to the Reich in order to be used as labor resources. Were built and worked on full power death factories, in which the process of exterminating people took on an industrial character, for which unique technological methods invented by the Nazis were used.

Information about the progress of the investigation and some materials from the Nuremberg trials were published, although not all.

Humanity trembled.

From unpublished

Already at the stage of the formation of the International Military Tribunal, some delicate situations arose. The Soviet delegation brought with them to London, where preliminary consultations were held on the organization of the future court, a list of issues, the consideration of which was considered undesirable for the leadership of the USSR. The Western allies agreed not to discuss topics relating to the circumstances of the conclusion of the 1939 Soviet-German non-aggression pact, and in particular the secret protocol attached to it.

There were other secrets of the Nuremberg Trials that were not made public due to the far from ideal behavior of the leadership of the victorious countries in the pre-war situation and during the fighting on the fronts. It was they who could shake the balance that has developed in the world and Europe thanks to the decisions of the Tehran and Potsdam conferences. The boundaries of both states and spheres of influence, stipulated by the Big Three, were established by 1945, and, according to the intention of their authors, were not subject to revision.

What is fascism?

Almost all the documents of the Nuremberg Trials have become publicly available today. It was this fact that, in a certain sense, cooled interest in them. They are appealed to during ideological discussions. An example is the attitude towards Stepan Bandera, who is often called Hitler's henchman. Is it so?

German Nazism, also called fascism and recognized by the international court as a criminal ideological base, is in its essence an exaggerated form of nationalism. Giving an advantage to an ethnic group may well lead to the idea that representatives of other peoples living in the territory nation state, one can either be forced to renounce one's own culture, language, or religious beliefs, or be forced to emigrate. In case of disobedience, the option of forced expulsion or even physical destruction is possible. There are more than enough examples in history.

About Bandera

In connection with the recent events in Ukraine, such an odious person as Bandera deserves special attention. The Nuremberg trials did not directly address the activities of the UPA. There were mentions of this organization in the materials of the court, but they concerned relations between the occupying German troops and representatives of Ukrainian nationalists, and those did not always work out well. Thus, according to document No. 192-PS, which is a report of the Reichskommissar of Ukraine to Alfred Rozneberg (written in Rovno on March 16, 1943), the author of the document complains about the hostility of the Melnik and Bandera organizations towards the German authorities (p. 25). In the same place, on the following pages, mention is made of "political impudence", expressed in the demands to grant Ukraine state independence.

It was this goal that Stepan Bandera set for the OUN. The Nuremberg trials did not consider the crimes committed by the UPA in Volhynia against the Polish population, and other numerous atrocities of Ukrainian nationalists, perhaps because this topic was among the "undesirable" for the Soviet leadership. At the time when the International Military Tribunal was taking place, pockets of resistance in Lvov, Ivano-Frankivsk and other western regions had not yet been suppressed by the forces of the MGB. And the Nuremberg trials were not engaged in Ukrainian nationalists. Bandera Stepan Andreevich tried to take advantage of the German invasion to implement his own idea of ​​national independence. He didn't succeed. Soon he ended up in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, however, as a privileged prisoner. For the time being…

Documentary

The cinematic documentary chronicle of the Nuremberg trials in 1946 became more than just accessible. The Germans were forced to watch it, and in case of refusal they were deprived of food rations. This order was in effect in all four occupation zones. It was hard for people who had consumed Nazi propaganda for twelve years to look at the humiliation that those they had recently believed were subjected to. But it was necessary, otherwise it would hardly have been possible to get rid of the past so quickly.

The film "The Court of Nations" was shown on a wide screen both in the USSR and in other countries, but it evoked completely different feelings among the citizens of the victorious countries. Pride for their people, who made a decisive contribution to the victory over the personification of absolute evil, overwhelmed the hearts of Russians and Ukrainians, Kazakhs and Tajiks, Georgians and Armenians, Jews and Azerbaijanis, in general, all Soviet people, regardless of nationality. The Americans, the French, the British also rejoiced, it was their victory. “The Nuremberg trials paid tribute to the warmongers,” everyone who watched this documentary thought so.

"Little" Nurembergs

The Nuremberg trials ended, some war criminals were hanged, others were imprisoned in Spandau, and others managed to avoid fair retribution by taking poison or building a makeshift noose. Some even ran away and lived the rest of their lives in fear of exposure. Others were found decades later, and it was not clear whether punishment awaited them, or deliverance.

In 1946-1948, in the same Nuremberg (there was already a prepared room there, a certain symbolism also played a role in choosing a place) trials of Nazi criminals of the "second echelon" were held. One of them tells a very good american film Nuremberg Trials, 1961. The picture was shot on black and white film, although in the early 60s Hollywood could afford the brightest Technicolor. Stars of the first magnitude are involved in the roles (Marlene Dietrich, Burt Lancaster, Judy Garland, Spencer Tracy and many other wonderful artists). The plot is quite real, they are trying Nazi judges who passed terrible sentences on the basis of absurd articles that filled the codes of the Third Reich. main topic- repentance, to which not everyone can come.

It was also the Nuremberg Trials. The trial stretched out in time, it involved everyone: those who executed the sentences, and those who only wrote papers, and those who simply wanted to survive and sat on the sidelines, hoping to survive. Meanwhile, young men were executed “for disrespect for great Germany”, men who seemed inferior to someone were forcibly sterilized, girls were thrown into prison on charges of being “subhuman”.

Decades later

With every decade, the events of the Second World War seem more and more academic and historical, losing their vitality in the eyes of new generations. Quite a bit of time will pass, and they will begin to seem something like the Suvorov campaigns or the Crimean campaign. There are fewer and fewer living witnesses, and this process, unfortunately, is irreversible. Quite differently than contemporaries, the Nuremberg trials are perceived today. The collection of materials available to readers reveals many legal gaps, shortcomings of the investigation, contradictions in the testimony of witnesses and the accused. The international situation of the mid-1940s was by no means conducive to the objectivity of judges, and the restrictions originally set for the International Tribunal sometimes dictated political expediency at the expense of justice. Field Marshal Keitel, who had nothing to do with the Barbarossa plan, was executed, and his "colleague" Paulus, who took an active part in the development of the aggressive doctrines of the Third Reich, testified as a witness. At the same time, both surrendered. Of interest is the behavior of Hermann Goering, who clearly explained to the accusers that the actions of the allied countries were sometimes also criminal both in war and in domestic life. Nobody, however, listened to him.

Mankind in 1945 was outraged, it was thirsty for revenge. There was little time, and there were a lot of events to be assessed. The war has become an invaluable storehouse of plots, human tragedies and destinies for thousands of novelists and filmmakers. Future historians have yet to evaluate Nuremberg.