The lawsuit of Nuremberg was brought against 24 war criminal Nazi S of the November 20th 1945 at October 1st 1946, for crimes against humanity (one of the four counts of indictment), and was held with Nuremberg in Germany.

The Wehrmacht was shown many war crimes. The international military Tribunal of Nuremberg was created pursuant to the agreement signed the August 8th 1945 by the Provisional government of the French Republic, the governments of the the United States of America, the the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the Union of the Soviet socialist republics, to judge and punish the large war criminals of the European countries of the Axe.

Creation of the Court

With the meetings of Teheran (1943), Yalta (1945) and Potsdam (1945), the allied powers decide that the chiefs of the Nazi regime will have to be judged and that the court will represent the principal victorious states: the USSR, the United States, France and the United Kingdom. Nearly 200 Germans are judged with Nuremberg, and some 1600 others in other military tribunals.

The Soviet Union wants that the judgments take place with Berlin, however Nuremberg is selected for several reasons:

• the law courts large, little was damaged and comprised a large prison;
• it was the meeting room annual of the Nazi party.

The judges, substitutes and prosecutors belong to the four powers:

• Geoffrey Lawrence (British judge and president)

• Norman Birkett (temporary British judge), judge at the High court of England
• Francis Biddle (American judge), Attorney General of the United States
• John Parker (temporary American judge), president of the Court of Appeal of North Carolina
• Henri Donnedieu de Vabres (French judge), criminal law professor with the University of Paris
• Robert Falco (temporary French judge), adviser with the Court of Paris
• Major-General Iona Nikitchenko (judge Soviet), former vice-president of the Supreme court of the USSR
• Lieutenant-colonel Alexander Volchkov (temporary Soviet judge), army of the USSR, professor of criminal Law to Moscow

The American prosecutor is Robert H. Jackson, the British prosecutor is Hartley Shawcross. At the beginning, the French prosecutor was François de Menthon but the Général de Gaulle names Auguste Champetier de Ribes, delegated provisional government to the lawsuit of Nuremberg. It supports there the charge on behalf of the countries occupied in the West: the France, the Belgium, the Luxembourg, the Netherlands, the Denmark and the Norway. As for the Soviet prosecutor, it is the Lieutenant-General Rudenko.

In April 1945, the end of the war approaching, the British considered the question of knowing if Hitler and the principal leaders Nazis were to be judged or carried out without lawsuit. Winston Churchill, British Prime Minister of 1940 to 1945, then planned “to carry out Adolf Hitler on the electric chair”, without lawsuit, and to once carry out summarily the leaders Nazis they would be captured. Under the pressure of the Americans and Soviets, the leaders Nazis were finally judged, the teaching value of an international lawsuit being preferred to a summary justice.

Validity of the court

Under the pretext which one refused with the defenders the right to complain about the selection of the judges, some estimate that the court was not impartial. It should be noted indeed that the character " international" judges must be balanced owing to the fact that they were in fact only the emanation of the principal winners (the neutral or colonized countries were not represented).

Moreover texts constitutive of the court of Nuremberg affirm in articles 19 and 21: " The court will not be bound by the technical rules relating to the administration of the proof. It will adopt and apply as much as possible a fast and nonformal procedure and will admit any means which it will estimate to have a value probante" ; " The court will not require that the proof of the facts of public notoriety be reported, but will hold them for asset. He also regards as authentic evidence the documents and official reports of the governments alliés."

This work made it possible to open the way towards an international jurisdiction and the creation of a International penal court which sits from now on at $the Hague.

In its preliminary statement, Robert H. Jackson, representing public ministry, declared: “The enormous disparity which exists between the situation of the indicters and that of marked could discredit our action if we hesitate to show of equity and moderation, even on minor points We should never forget that the facts for which we judge these defendants are those for which the History will judge us tomorrow. Their to give a poisoned cut, it is also to carry it to our lips. We must achieve our task with detachment and intellectual integrity so that this lawsuit represents for the posterity the realization of the human aspirations to justice. ”

At the same time retroactive character and ad hoc of the definitions of War crime and Crime against humanity constitutes of it however a weakness with respect to the bases of the right which poses like principle it not retroactivity of the criminal laws. The massive bombardment civil populations, for example, was excluded from the facts complained of because of its practice by the Allies (in particular in North of Germany and on Japan).

The victorious powers were not free from crimes committed during the war (Bombardement of Dresden, shipwreck of the Wilhelm Gustloff, etc). The Soviets showed the German troops of the Massacre of Katyn, whereas it was made under the authority of Stalin, and recognized as such only after the fall of the wall.

In the same way, the loads concerning the conspiracy in order to invade the Poland was an delicate subject to be treated, taking into account the signature of the Non-aggression pact between Third Reich and the the USSR in August 1939.

Principal lawsuit

The international military Tribunal opens the October 18th 1945 at the supreme court of Berlin. The first meeting is chaired by the judge Nikitchenko. The first lawsuit opens against twenty-four large war criminals and six criminal organizations: NSDAP (Nazi party), the S, SD, the Gestapo, SA and high command of the army. The requisitions relate to:

1. plane plot or concerted in order to make one of the three other crimes
2. crimes against peace (“direction, preparation, release or continuation of a war of aggression or a war of violation of the treaties, insurances or international agreements”)
3. war crimes (“assassination, ill treatments or deportation for forced labors, or any other goal, of the civil populations in the occupied territories, assassination or ill treatments of the prisoners of war or the people at sea, execution of the hostages, plunderings of public or deprived goods, destruction without reason of the cities and the villages, or devastation that do not justify the military requirements”)
4. crimes against humanity (“assassination, extermination, reduction in slavery, deportation and any other inhuman act made against all civil populations, before or during the war, persecutions for political, racial or religious reasons”)

Legend. “ has ” shown - “ C ” shown and declared guilty - “ º ” no load } ||With||º||C||C ||Chief of the chancellery of the Nazi party ||Died by Hanging ||Judged by contumacy. It was proven later that it had already been killed, at the end of the Bataille of Berlin. |- | ||With||C||C|||º ||Chief of the Kriegsmarine as from 1943 ||10 years ||Initiator of the countryside of the U-boot and designated successor of Hitler (directing Third Reich enters 1st and on May 8th, 1945). Admitted guilty to have made run merchant ships without summation in violation of the international law, its lawyer succeeds in attenuating his sorrow by proving that the Americans made in the same way in the Pacific with the Japanese boats. |- | ||With|||º||C||C ||General governor of Poland ||Died by Hanging ||Lawyer of Hitler, chair Academy of German right between 1934 and 1941. Repented |- | ||With||C||C||C ||Minister of Interior Department and guard of Bohemia-Moravie ||Died by Hanging ||Author of the laws anti-semites of Nuremberg in 1935. |- | ||With||With||With|||º ||Person in charge of the press and radio operator with the ministry for propaganda ||Discharged ||Continued in the place of Joseph Goebbels. Judged later by a German court of denazification, it was released in 1950. |- | ||With||C||C||C ||Minister for the Economy and president of Reichsbank ||Life imprisonment ||Successor of Schacht. It received gold on behalf of the S ordering the concentration camps. Released due to health on May 16th, 1957 |- | ||C||C||C||C ||Police chief with aviation, ordering Luftwaffe and Minister of Interior Department of Prussia, number 2 of the mode ||Died by Hanging ||Appears considerably thinned down in front of the court. Morphine addict, it underwent a detoxification therapy. Shown most popular among the American guards and most influential among its co-defendants. Committed suicide its execution day before with a cyanide capsule. |- | ||C||C||With||With ||Private secretary of Hitler and member of the Council of the defense of Reich ||Life imprisonment ||It was captured when it lands mysteriously in Scotland, only with the orders of its plane in 1941. Claimed to be amnesic, it was diagnosed like a “hysterical personality”. It gave itself death in its cell of the prison of Spandau, on August 17th, 1987. |- | ||C||C||C||C ||Chief of the office of the operations of the supreme command of the Wehrmacht ||Died by Hanging ||Discharged on a purely posthumous basis of all the loads by a German court of denazification in 1953. |- | ||With|||º||C||C ||Chief of the supreme Office of safety of Reich (RSHA) ||Died by Hanging ||Austrian. The most chief S surviving, successor of Reinhard Heydrich (assassinated in 1942) like person in charge (1943-1945) of the RSHA (Reichssicherheitshauptamt), to which the Gestapo belonged. The camp of Mauthausen had been put in foncionnement while it was responsible S for a broad part of Austria. Its visits with Mauthausen were shown by the photographs that the witness Boix (called by the French charge) showed during his declaration. |- | ||C||C||C||C ||Chief of Oberkommando DER Wehrmacht (general staff of Wehrmacht) ||Died by Hanging ||With recognized the massive execution of Soviet prisoners by Wehrmacht. During its execution, he exclaimed: “Germany Lives”. |- | ||With||With||With||With ||Directing group Krupp Ag || - ||Regarded as médicalement inapt, it has escaped with the lawsuit. |- | ||With||With||With||With ||Directing German Face of work || - ||Commits suicide before the lawsuit, on October 25th, 1945 |- | ||C||C||C||C ||Foreign Minister and guard of Bohemian-Moravie ||15 years ||Released for health reason on November 6th, 1954 |- | ||With||With|||º|||º ||Former chancellor of the Weimar Republic, ambassador in Turkey during the war ||Discharged ||With helped, among others, Hitler to arrive at the capacity. Condemned in 1947 by a German court of denazification to a eight years sorrow, it purged two of them. |- | ||With||C||With|||º ||Chief of the Kriegsmarine until 1943 ||Life imprisonment ||Person in charge of the underwater war with excess and the execution of allied commandos. Released for health reason the September 26th 1955 |- | ||C||C||C||C ||Foreign Minister||Died by Hanging ||With signed the Non-aggression pact with the USSR in 1939. It took part in the plans of aggression of the Czechoslovakia, the Poland and the the USSR. Before passing on the scaffold, he declared: " That God protects Allemagne" |- | ||C||C||C||C ||Minister for the Territories of the East ||Died by Hanging ||Ideologist and theorist Nazi |- | ||With||With||C||C ||Plenipotentiary general for the use of the labor (responsible for STO) ||Died by Hanging ||With fact of transferring nearly five million workers forced in Germany. |- | ||With||With|||º|||º ||Minister for the Economy until 1937 and chair of Reichsbank until 1939 ||Discharged ||Banker, contributed to the economic recovery of Germany, then in disgrace, the war in a concentration camp finished. Regarded as most intelligent of marked (better results with the tests of IQ of the psychologist of the prison). Condemned thereafter to eight years of prison by a German court, it was released in 1948. |- | ||C|||º|||º||C ||Chief of Youth hitlérienne and Gauleiter of Vienna ||20 years ||Repented. Person in charge of the deportation of Austrian Jews in Poland. |- | ||With||C||C||C ||Minister of Interior Department of the Austrian Republic in 1938 and Commissaire of Reich for the Netherlands ||Died by Hanging ||Chief of the Nazi party in Austria, supported the Anschluss in 1938. Person in charge of the deportation of the Dutch Jews. |- | ||º|||º||C||C ||Minister for the armament ||20 years ||Architect of Hitler, it would have prevented it from concluding his projects of complete destruction of Germany in front of the projection of Alliés in 1945. Person in charge of the exploitation of the labor of concentration camps as a Minister for the Armament. Repented. |- | ||With|||º|||º||C ||Director of the newspaper anti-semite Der Stürmer and Gauleiter of Franconie ||Died by Hanging ||With organized a boycott of the Jewish tradesmen in 1933 and called with the extermination of the Jews. Regarded as the least intelligent of marked (worse results with the tests of IQ of the psychologist of the prison). He was deeply scorned by his co-defendants. |- |}

The brackets of condemned were prepared by old the Bourreau of Reich Reichhart. They were drawn up in the old gymnasium of the Law courts of Nuremberg (which was destroyed in 1987 during renovation work). However, it was the official executor of the American army the staff sergeant John C. Woods who officiated, assisted of its assistant Joseph Malta.

After the executions, on October 16th, 1946, the bodies of condemned were incinerated in a crématorium with Munich, and them ashes dispersed in an affluent of the Isar, so that the burials of condemned do not become a place of worship.

Those which were condemned to the imprisonment purged their sorrows with the Prison of Spandau to Berlin.

Stakes and finalities of the lawsuit

This lawsuit raises several great questions. The answers brought are partial or debatable today because of their political dimension, philosophical and ethical. There are three topics in the debate:

• Up to what point obedience can be used as excuse?
• Which knew what of the committed crimes?
• were These crimes committed only by Germany?

The gestapo and the S are considered to be criminal. All those are collectively criminal which became or remained members of these organizations by knowing that they were used at criminal ends.

Moreover the lawsuit of Nuremberg founds a new right, that of the winners to judge overcome, if they committed contrary crimes with common morals.

Thus this lawsuit can, beyond of a will of justice, being also seen like an ideological fight.

Following lawsuits

Other Nazi criminals were judged separately in Nuremberg and were condemned to death, such as Otto Ohlendorf, chief of a Einsatzgruppe (special action group) and section III of RSHA; Karl Brandt, personal doctor of Hitler and person in charge of the program of Euthanasia; Wolfram Sievers, general secretary of the Ahnenerbe (Research institute of the S), etc

On the whole, there were twelve other distinct lawsuits:

1. the Lawsuit of the doctors (or Procès of the doctors), which leads to seven death sentences, five with perpetuity, the remainder being composed of custodial sentences and payments
2. the Milch Lawsuit: a life sentence
3. the Lawsuit of the judges: four life sentences
4. the Lawsuit Pohl, or lawsuit of the WVHA: four death sentences, three life sentences
5. the Flick Lawsuit: custodial sentences
6. the Lawsuit IG Farben: custodial sentences
7. the Lawsuit of the hostages: two life sentences
8. the Lawsuit of RuSHA: a life sentence
9. the Lawsuit of Einsatzgruppen: thirteen four death sentences including carried out, two with perpetuity
10. the Lawsuit Krupp: custodial sentences
11. the Lawsuit of the ministries: custodial sentences
12. the Lawsuit of the military High command: two life sentences

Heritages of the lawsuit

One must with the Principes of Nuremberg, a document carried out during this lawsuit, the definition of the crimes against peace, of the war crimes and the crimes against humanity. Moreover, the medical experiments conduits by doctors Nazis led, at the conclusion of the “Procès of the Doctors”, with the creation of the Code of Nuremberg which poses principles as regards medical experimentation on human subjects.

The documentary films on the concentration camps projected at the time of the lawsuit in addition deeply marked the public opinion, contributing “to popularize” the images of the atrocities made by the Nazis.

Catalog of films

• Judgment in Nuremberg , 1961, of Stanley Kramer.
• From Nuremberg to Nuremberg , documentary of Frederic Rossif, 1989,2h 57mn (in two parts).
• Nuremberg realized by Yves Simonneau, 2000, with the actors Alec Baldwin, Christopher Plummer, max Von Sydow, Brian Cox, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Jill Hennessy.
• '' the lawsuit of Nuremberg. Nazis vis-a-vis their crimes '', 2006, documentary of Christian Delage.