After the end of the Second World War, many criminal trials were conducted in Germany as well as in other countries against war criminals and those responsible for Nazi crimes.
Although it is here impossible to provide a summary of all these trials, hereafter follows a short overview of the main trials against war criminals in Nuremberg as well as of the successive trials in other courts.
Basis under the law of nations
The German Armed Forces capitulated unconditionally on 7 and 8 May 1945. The Allies (US, Soviet Union, Great Britain and France) took over the government’s functions in Germany, formed the Allied Control Council and divided Germany into four occupation zones.
By virtue of the London Treaty of 8 August 1945,1 the Allies constituted the International Military Tribunal (IMT) to prosecute the main German war criminals. Appendix III of the treaty contains the Statute of the International Militaryl Court (IMT-Statute).2
Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal against the main war criminals
According to arts 3 - 4 of the London Treaty, war criminals for whom no geographical location can be determined are to be tried by the IMT. For the other German war criminals, the principle of territoriality applies: the courts of that state on which the crimes were committed have jurisdiction to apply their domestic law to the indicted (arts. 4 and 6).
The jurisdiction of the IMT extends as to the subject matter to
-Crimes against peace;
-war crimes; and
-crimes against humanity (art. 6 IMT Statute).
The IMT was composed of four judges and four reserve judges, provided by the four allied powers (art. 2 IMT-Statute). According to art. 13 IMT-Statute, the court determined its own procedural statute.3
Indictments against 24 people were filed by the IMT. The trial lasted from 14 November 1945 until 1 October 1946. Twelve of those indicted were sentenced to death, three were acquitted, and seven others were sentenced to jail terms between 10 years and life. In one case, the matter was dismissed for health reasons and one of the indicted committed suicide before the trial started.4
Indicted Person
Sentenced to
Profile on TW
Bormann Martin
Death (in abstentia)
√
Dönitz Karl
10 years
√
Frank Hans
Death
√
Frick Wilhelm
Death
√
Fritzsche Hans
Acquitted
√
Funk Walther
Life imprisonment
√
Göring Hermann
Death
√
Hess Rudolf
Life imprisonment
√
Jodl Alfred
Death
√
Kaltenbrunner Ernst
Death
√
Keitel Wilhelm
Death
√
Krupp Gustav
Case dismissed
√
Ley Robert
Committed suicide prior to trial
√
von Neurath Konstantin
15 years
√
von Papen Franz
Acquitted
√
Raeder Erich
Life imprisonment
√
von Ribbentrop Joachim
Death
√
Rosenberg Alfred
Death
√
Sauckel Fritz
Death
√
Schacht Horace
Acquitted
√
von Schirach Baldur
20 years
√
Seyss-Inquart Arthur
Death
√
Speer Albert
20 years
√
Streicher Julius
Death
√
Trials following Nuremberg
Based on the Allied Control Council Statute No.10 (KRG 10 (5) enacted on 20 December 1945)5, several trials conducted under the administration of the single allied powers followed the Nuremberg trial. The Allied Control Council Statute No.10 was adopted to provide for one joint legal basis on which all four occupation zones were to hold accountable those who had committed crimes under the Third Reich. The trials following Nuremberg were thus based on the IMT-Statue but on the occupying powers domestic law pursuant to the KRG No. 10, although the latter incorporated the material clauses of the prior. Hence, according to section 10 of the KRG, it was possible to refer cases against Germans who had committed crimes against Germans to German courts. This clause was used by the French, British and Soviet occupational government. The American military government at first conducted the trials in their own occupation courts.
Proceedings in US military tribunals
Special attention has to be given to the 12 great trials which were conducted until mid-1949 in US military courts. In these trials, indicted persons were grouped in particular groups of perpetrators:
1.The doctors’ trial grouped indictments relating to the euthanasia program, because of medical research conducted on people and killings operated in order to establish collections of skeletons.
2.Milch trial: trial against Field Marshal Milch because of his cooperation in the war armement production program.
3.Lawyers’ trial: trial against 16 employees of the Imperial Ministry of Justice or of special courts.
4.SS General Administration of Industry: indictment relating to the administration of the concentration camps.
5.Flick trial: case against the industrialist Flick for conspiracy to commit an aggressive war and exploitation of slave workers, prisoners of war and inmates of concentration camps.
6.IG Farben trial: trial for conspiracy to commit an aggressive war and exploitation of slave workers, prisoners of war and inmates of concentration camps.
7.Trial for the murder of hostages: indictment for illegal shooting of hostages in the Balkans.
8.RuSHA trial: Trial against employees of the SS Race and Settlement Office for, inter alia, their cooperation in the extermination of Jews and Poles and the displacement of Aryan children from the occupied territories to Germany.
9.Trial against the Special extermination units: indictment because of participation in massacres in the occupied territories in the East.
10.Krupp trial: case against industrialist Krupp for, inter alia, exploitation of slave workers.
11.Wilhelmstrassen trial: case against leading personalities of the NS regime because of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
12.General Command of the Armed Forces-trial: case against the highest-ranking officers of the Armed Forces because of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
There was a multitude of other cases in American military courts. The sum total of all people tried was 1941.
Proceedings in British, French and Soviet courts
There were also German war criminals tried in courts of the other occupational powers. The British held trials also in Italy and the Netherlands, in particular against collaborators of the concentration camps. French courts were active not only in their occupational zone but also in North Africa and France. Apart from German NS criminals, there were indictments against collaborators of the Vichy-Regime. The Soviet Union conducted trials against war criminals already during the war in the areas that were reconquered. In the Soviet occupation zone in particular, employees of the concentration camps were tried.
Proceedings in other countries
Other countries also conducted trials against Germans, among which Belgium, Denmark, Luxemburg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia and Israel.
