[71][72] The military leaders were Hermann Gring, Wilhelm Keitel, Alfred Jodl, Erich Raeder, and Karl Dnitz. [86] Overall, the prosecution called 37 witnesses compared to the defense's 83, not including 19 defendants who testified on their own behalf. [214] By then, the Americans were hoping to use the offer of pardon to convicted war criminals in order to bind West Germany to the Western Bloc. Before his execution, he aligned himself with Jodl and, to a lesser extent, Raeder and Dnitz, the military clique. After two years he was released and promptly reestablished himself in a successful career as a financial consultant for developing nations. [120] Ultimately, the French prosecution was unable to convince the court that Germanization was a crime against humanity, and incidents such as the German annexation of AlsaceLorraine went unmentioned in the final verdict. Frick, one of Hitlers closest advisers during the early years of the Nazi regime, was one of those hanged. Courtroom 600 in the Nuremberg Palace of Justice was the site of the famous Nuremberg trials, a series of military tribunals that took place between November 20, 1945 and October 1, 1946. He told multiple stories of his time there. [48] The French judges were Henri Donnedieu de Vabres, a professor of criminal law, and alternate Robert Falco, who had represented France at the London Conference. The prisons concrete walls, most of which were more than three feet thick, encased the solitary cell window that offered the prisoners no view of the outside world. Prestianni guarded Streicher many times. [40] Each state appointed a prosecution team and two judges, one being an alternate. [4], In early 1942, representatives of eight governments-in-exile in the United Kingdom issued a declaration on Punishment for War Crimes, which demanded an international court to try the Axis crimes committed in occupied countries. Postal Service. The most frequently offered scenario, after intensive investigations, has been that the capsule was retrieved from Grings luggage in a storage room and was given to him by an American, Lieutenant Jack Tex Wheelis. Seven others, over time, were reduced by lengthy prison sentences to hollow, shuffling shadows of their former selves. In addition to this brass pot I have three skeleton keys to the cells that held the Nazi war criminals, as well as a pair of wooden spoons used by them. Raeder was sentenced to life imprisonment but was released for poor health on September 26, 1955. [69][37], The defendants, who were largely unrepentant,[70] included former cabinet ministers: Franz von Papen (who had brought Hitler to power); Joachim von Ribbentrop (foreign minister), Wilhelm Frick (interior minister), and Alfred Rosenberg, minister for the occupied eastern territories. After his release from prison in Nuremberg, a Stuttgart court sentenced him to eight years in a work camp. [132][169] Through a compromise among the judges, the charge of conspiracy was narrowed to a conspiracy to wage aggressive war. They wanted to run the whole show. Another favorite was Alfred Jodl, former chief of the operations staff of the Army high command, who was found guilty and executed. FRD provides custom research services to federal agencies, the District of Columbia government, and authorized federal contractors. By far the most attention--not surprisingly, given the figures involved--has focused on the first Nuremberg trial of twenty-one major war criminals. jkeller, Aug 11, 2010 #16. macrusk Proud Daughter of a Canadian WWII Veteran. Because of his moral corruption, the other prisoners shunned him. [229] Some defenders of the trial argued that the legal principle of nullum crimen sine lege (no crime without law) was not binding in international proceedings. These visits usually were brief, and participants were separated by a screen. Still others displayed docile and taciturn mannerisms and personalities. In an attempt to further depersonalize them, prisoners were designated by numbers rather than by their familial surnames. In July 1945 the 98 th set up operations in a hospital in Munich, and several months later Col. Burton C. Andrus, prison commandant at the Nuremberg Palace of Justice, requested Gerecke's service. [2] German aggression was accompanied by immense brutality in occupied areas and the systematic murder of millions of Jews in the Holocaust. All sessions of the tribunal were held in Nrnberg, Germany, under the presidency of Lord Justice Geoffrey Lawrence. [66][67] The prosecutors wanted to try representative leaders of German politics, economy, and military; and the Americans had a list of 70 names at the London Conference. Ten condemned Nazi ringleaders died on the gallows in the Nuernberg jail early today but Herman Goering, Adolf . [204] In the United Kingdom, although a variety of responses were reported, it was difficult to sustain interest in a long trial. I never treated him differently than I did the others I guarded.. Andrus, a strict disciplinarian, were constantly reminded that the prisoners should be treated with civility and objectivity at all times. [146] The Nuremberg Laws were compared to discriminatory laws in the United States. So the court then allowed him to choose any lawyer he wanted and Stahmer was his pick. [172] All 22 defendants were charged with crimes against peace, and 12 were convicted. . We jokingly told him the girls coveted the gifts American soldiers could offer and they had all forgotten his (Schirachs) Nazi National Socialism propaganda indoctrination. On October 1, 1946, the verdicts on 22 of the original 24 defendants were handed down for the Nrnberg trials. Koch ordered skin emblazoned with tattoos to be stripped from the cadavers of prisoners and made into lampshades. On November 20, 1945, several months after the end of World War II, a series of military tribunals began in the German city of Nuremberg. A. [198] The trials targeted 177 defendants and obtained 142 convictions, including 25 death sentences;[199] the severity of sentencing was related to the defendant's proximity to mass murder. They saw the horrible films the NAZIs took and heard the case the prosecution presented with all the evidence and saw the brutal photos, It was very hard on these young women, but they did their job they were asked to do. These were the intellectuals; the ramrod-stiff military officers; the cunning politicians; the world's most vicious, depraved, notorious mass murderers; an architect; a filthy-minded and sex-obsessed anti-Semitic newspaper publisher; a gentle writer of poetry; the bombastic bullies; an unrepentant, ghost-like figure; the subservient military They were individually handcuffed to guards, driven by ambulance to a nearby airfield, and flown to Berlin, where they were processed at Spandau Prison. He had been instrumental in establishing a totalitarian state. [12] The United States insisted on a fair trial as a means of reforming Germany. Hess, former deputy fhrer of the Nazi party and Hitlers private secretary during the early years of the National Socialist movement, was sentenced to life imprisonment and served every day of it to the age of 92 when he died in 1987 under mysterious circumstances in Berlins Spandau Prison. My father, Jack J. I had a chance to meet Mr. Christian Delage at a workshop on the . [231], The International Military Tribunal for the Far East (Tokyo Trial) borrowed many of its ideas from the IMT, including all four charges. Prestianni said of von Neurath, He looked like the movie version of a Prussian general with his mop of white hair and erect bearing. The Nrnberg trials began on November 20, 1945. During the dead of winter, cell temperatures constantly hovered near freezing, partially due to severe coal shortages throughout most of Germany, and some prisoners were relegated to wearing stockings as gloves and wrapping their feet in underwear or any other available cloth to keep warm. 10 issued by the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The first attempt to punish the perpetrators was conducted by the International Military Tribunal (IMT) in the German city of Nuremberg, beginning on November . [68] Most of the defendants had surrendered to the United States or United Kingdom. Twelve of the defendants were sentenced to death by hanging. Johann Georg Richert was found guilty and was executed in Minsk, Byelorussia. I tried to treat each prisoner without rancor.. My Dad was a guard at the Nuremberg trials. William L Shierer "the Rise and Fall of the third Reich", part IV, Nuremberg-chapter, the United States committed the same breach, Last and Near-Last Words of the Famous, Infamous and Those In-Between, "The International Military Tribunal for Germany", The Avalon Project: Documents in Law, History, and Diplomacy, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_defendants_at_the_International_Military_Tribunal&oldid=1114903079, Successor to Hess as Nazi Party Secretary. The United States and United Kingdom refused to endorse this proposal, citing the failure of war crimes prosecutions after World War I. [192] Members of the SS were tried in the Pohl trial, which focused on members of the SS Main Economic and Administrative Office that oversaw SS economic activity, including the Nazi concentration camps;[193] the RuSHA trial of Nazi racial policies; and the Einsatzgruppen trial, in which members of the mobile killing squads were tried for the murder of more than one million people behind the Eastern Front. The verdict was drafted by British alternate judge Norman Birkett. [179], The exact sentences to be given each defendant were debated at length by the judges. [56][57] After this division of formulating the charges, the British and American delegations decided to work jointly in drafting the charges of conspiracy to wage aggressive war. [173] The war crimes and crimes-against-humanity charges held up the best, with only two defendants who were charged being acquitted on those charges. [163] Contrary to the prosecution, the verdict dated the planning of aggression to the 1937 Hossbach Memorandum and not to the founding of the Nazi Party. [95] None of the defendants tried to assert that the Nazis' crimes had not occurred; instead, they attempted to divert blame from their own actions. Schirach, who had been replaced by Hitler as head of the youth movement in 1940 and drafted into Army service where he saw considerable combat on the Eastern Front, maintained his decorum and seldom responded to the teasing. Popular radio commentator; head of the news division of the Nazi Propaganda Ministry. [76] Of the 24 men indicted, Martin Bormann was tried in absentia, as the Allies were unaware of his death; Krupp was too ill to stand trial; and Robert Ley committed suicide. I would like any information that would lead me to a more detailed understanding of what my father did while part of this undertaking. On October 15, 1946, guards and prisoners listened to the pounding of the gallows being constructed. April 22, 2020. Prestianni said that during his guard duties he tried to adhere to his fathers advice. He, like the others, was always bumming cigarettes or cans of Prince Albert tobacco for his pipe. Speer managed to distinguish himself from other defendants, giving the impression of apologizing, although without assuming personal guilt or naming any victims other than the German people. [136][137] The Soviet prosecution case was generally well received and presented compelling evidence about the suffering of the Soviet people and the Soviet contribution to victory. Her guards were repulsed, and some requested reassignment to another cellblock. The duty roster for guards was revised daily in an attempt to prevent the development of unauthorized relationships with prisoners. In return, he often was rewarded with cigarettes, pipe tobacco, or other small items he coveted. It would be so greatly appreciated. A mother of three small children, she would eventually serve as a guard at Auschwitz, Ravensbruck and Majdanek concentration camps. He often went for hours without speaking to anyone. A further 12. Long live Germany.. [83] The American and British prosecutors focused on documentary evidence and affidavits rather than testimony from survivors, as the latter was considered less reliable and more liable to accusations of bias, but at the expense of reducing public interest in the proceedings. Ambassador to the United Kingdom 193638. Guards were under strict orders never to respond to verbal abuse by prisoners, no matter how hateful it might be. The note said, To a good man in remembrance of my going forth to death., Prestianni said, I have no idea why he gave it to me. Ambassador-Plenipotentiary 193536. [80][81] The aim was to have these organizations declared criminal, so that their members could be tried expeditiously for membership in a criminal organization. Afterwards, during the Berlin Blockade, they took part in securing Allied facilities involved in the Berlin Airlift and later also were guarding USA Army headquarters. Stahmer fought hard for his clie. [177] In the latter case, the Wehrmacht leadership was not considered an organization within the meaning of the charter;[177][178] but this verdict was later misrepresented as an acquittal of the criminality of the Wehrmacht, forming one of the foundations of the clean Wehrmacht myth. Second, it rejected the argument that the trial and adjudication were ex post facto. Thank you so much for your time and I am looking forward to getting into many discussions. Known as the Jew Baiter, even in the United States, he was rabidly anti-Semitic. [215] Early releases of those convicted by the Nuremberg Military Tribunals began in 1949;[216] and in 1951, High Commissioner John J. McCloy overturned most of the sentences. The defendants, who included Nazi Party officials . There was also a picture of him guarding Hitler. . Soviet prosecutors in Nrnberg, Germany brought out Friedrich Paulus and Erich Buschenhagen by surprise as witnesses in the war crimes trials. They were put under guard at a hotel and taken to court with armed MPs to trial each day. After 216 court sessions, on October 1, 1946, the verdict on 22 of the original 24 defendants was handed down. [47] Although the chief British judge, Sir Geoffrey Lawrence (Lord Justice of Appeal), was the nominal president of the tribunal, in practice Biddle exercised more authority. Three were sentenced to life imprisonment. [126] Lev Smirnov presented evidence on the Lidice massacre in Czechoslovakia, adding that such destruction of villages had occurred throughout eastern Europe. [6] The Soviet Union wanted to hold a show trial similar to the 1930s Moscow trials, in order to demonstrate the Nazi leaders' guilt and build a case for war reparations to rebuild the Soviet economy, which had been devastated by the war. Throughout the trial, he steadfastly maintained his innocence, saying they had arrested and charged the wrong person. I sure would like to find out more about his service. The Subsequent Nuremberg Trials tried major war criminals, but of lower ranks than those tried in the first trial. Alfred Rosenberg, Joachim von Ribbentrop and others were condemned on 16th October, 1946. [28] The charter limited the jurisdiction of the court to Germany's actions because the Allies did not want to answer to an international court for their own actions;[29] only Germans could be tried. The Nuremberg prison was a Bastille-like affair. View full size Courtesy, U.S. Army The Military Tribunal proceedings in Nuremberg, Germany, Herman Goering sits between two guards, the left one being Andrew Wendland of Bay City. Eighteen-inch rectangular holes were cut from the heavy, oaken cell doors, slightly below eye level. Hello everybody, this morning ended an auction on ebay of a Nuremberg Trials Guard uniform and I would hear your thoughts about the patch - especially of the scale on the patch because the right bowl has three strings and the left one has two strings.The Nuremberg Trial patches were German made ( Bullions) and all of . [34][35] Located in the American occupation zone, Nuremberg was a symbolic location as the site of Nazi rallies. SS members were generally frowned upon and can't imagine them having anything to do with the trials except sit in the dock. Verdicts were handed down on October 1, 1946. My father was an MP at The Nuremberg Trails. [219][220] The German public took the early releases as confirmation of what they saw as the illegitimacy of the trials. How long did it take you to learn what you are doing? he often asked. [22][23] War crimes already existed in international law as criminal violations of the laws and customs of war. [119] Unlike the British and American prosecution strategy, which focused on using German documents to make their case, the French prosecutors took the perspective of the victims, submitting postwar police reports and calling eleven witnesses. An enduring mystery of the 1946 Nuremberg trials was apparently solved yesterday when an American former prison guard claimed it was he who, as an unwitting accomplice, passed to Hermann. 1 They were convened under the authority of Control Council Law No.. What was the name of that individual? (Robert Ley committed suicide while in prison, and Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbachs mental and physical condition prevented his being tried.) The two men were deep in the Palace of Justice in Nuremberg, Germany, venue for the Nuremberg War Crimes trials of Germany's Nazi leaders. [105] The American prosecutors were not any more effective when presenting documentary evidence on the conspiracy to commit crimes against humanity, and ended up reaching a "saturation point of horror" by their indiscriminate selection and disorganized presentation of evidence without tying it to specific defendants. In this capacity, he was ultimately responsible for the use of slave laborers from the occupied territories in armaments production. All of those with whom I came in contact spoke flawless English, he remembered. It was supposed to pass to me, but my brothers widow lost it and it has not been turned over to me. Corrections? The 24 accused were, with respect to each charge, either indicted but not convicted (I), indicted and found guilty (G), or not charged (), as listed below by defendant, charge, and eventual outcome: Gustav was selected for indictment in error, instead of his son Alfried, who ran Krupp during most of the war. But the Nuremberg Trials showed contempt for the only-obeying-orders position, and we hold it in contempt too.". [67] Former Nazis were allowed to serve as counsel[45] and by mid-November all defendants had lawyers. [156], On 31 August, closing arguments were presented. Where the convicted were housed on the ground floor, lower-tier cellblock, the main corridor was 60 meters (195 feet) long, lined by 16 cells on each side, and constantly patrolled by 1st Division guards. [95][96] As Jackson made clear, the purpose of the trial was not just to convict the defendants but also to assemble irrefutable evidence of Nazi crimes, establish individual responsibility and the crime of aggression in international law, offer a history lesson to the defeated Germans, delegitimize the traditional German elite,[97] and allow the Allies to distance themselves from appeasement. Some of these camps, such as Treblinka, were death camps, intended to kill every prisoner that passed through their gates. Also represented were some leaders of the German economy, such as Gustav Krupp (of the conglomerate Krupp AG) and former Reichsbank president Hjalmar Schacht. 08-12-2007, 10:07 PM. Procurement is quick and merely requires an . [187] Pursuant to this law, United States forces had arrested almost 100,000 Germans as war criminals. This is a good documentary on the Nuremberg Trials that occurred after the end of the war. Kaltenbrunner had perpetrated extreme barbarism in the extermination of Jews through the planning and execution of the Final Solution. They were not to be shown disrespect. Had I known just who these prisoners were at the time and what they had been accused and convicted of having done, I probably would not have had such a close relationship with them. Sentenced to death, Reich Law Leader 193345 and Governor-General of the, Hitler's Minister of the Interior 193343 and. None outwardly felt they had done anything to warrant being in prison.. Each watch was of two hours duration, standing almost motionless looking in the cell door openings. However, one thread of similarity was woven among them. [241][242], Coordinates: .mw-parser-output .geo-default,.mw-parser-output .geo-dms,.mw-parser-output .geo-dec{display:inline}.mw-parser-output .geo-nondefault,.mw-parser-output .geo-multi-punct{display:none}.mw-parser-output .longitude,.mw-parser-output .latitude{white-space:nowrap}492716N 110254E / 49.45444N 11.04833E / 49.45444; 11.04833. [202] All four powers later fought independence movements using methods that had been ruled illegal at Nuremberg. The authority of the International Military Tribunal to conduct these trials stemmed from the London Agreement of August 8, 1945. [121], On 8 February, the Soviet prosecution opened its case with a speech by Rudenko that covered all four prosecution charges, highlighting both aggressive war and the devastation of Eastern Europe[122] and listing many crimes committed by the German occupiers against the Soviet people. Neurath, Konstantin von. After the first trial ended in October 1946, the United States held 12 other trials at Nuremberg under the authority of the International Military Tribunal. Prestianni also favorably related to Ernst Kaltenbrunner, the notorious chief of Germanys security police and a behind-the-scenes prime mover at the January 1942 Wannsee Conference where the proposed extermination of Jewry in central Europe was discussed by top Nazis. I never really got to know him very well during the few months before he was released, commented Prestianni, but at one time he tried to teach me an intricate German card game, but I never could catch on to it. Ten of those men would be hung 16 days later. [159] During the closing statements, most defendants disappointed the judges by their lies and denial. [194] Luftwaffe general Erhard Milch was tried for using slave labor and deporting civilians. In one report i read, it mentioned that "K" Company of the 26th Inf., 1st Div. And when he spoke, it was to lash out violently at anyone close to him at the time, even the guards.. Dnitz, who was named successor to Hitler during the waning days of the war and served 10 years in prison, remained aloof. [169][170] The judges did not agree that the conspiracy extended to anyone who participated in the affairs of the Nazi government, only taking being present at the high-level meetings discussing war plans in 1937 and 1939 as evidence of belonging to the conspiracy. [45] At Jackson's recommendation, the United States appointed judges Francis Biddle and John Parker. [90][91] The bringing of conspiracy charges also slowed the trial, as the same evidence ended up being read out multiple times, when it was relevant to both substantive and conspiracy charges. I asked him why that necessitated the killing of people to achieve this so-called needed land, especially the people of Poland. Alfred Rosenberg was considered by Hitler the philosopher of National Socialism. Of course he was amongst other guards to his left and right. Proposals for how to punish the defeated Nazi leaders ranged from a . Other absent and dead men including Himmler, Reinhard Heydrich, Adolf Eichmann, and Bormann were also blamed. He promoted an intentionalist view of the Nazi state and its overall conspiracy to commit all of the crimes mentioned in the indictment.