The Nuremberg Trials: How the Nazis were finally brought to justice

Allied leaders began to discuss the legal consequences for Nazi crimes during the war itself, as reports of atrocities reached Western governments.

The 1943 Moscow Declaration outlined their shared commitment to pursuing justice against those who bore the greatest responsibility for crimes that ignored international norms, and it proposed that those without specific geographical affiliations would be tried jointly by the Allied powers. 

When the war ended in Europe in May 1945, the Allies acted quickly to create an official court system.

In August of that year, representatives from the United States, United Kingdom, Soviet Union, and France signed the London Charter, which established the International Military Tribunal (IMT) and defined the crimes it would prosecute.

These categories covered crimes against peace and aggression. They also encompassed war crimes, crimes against humanity, and conspiracy to commit these acts.

American representatives, particularly Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson, played a leading role in shaping the trial process and legal rules.

Jackson advocated for clear, careful trials that used the Nazis’ own records against them, and he insisted that international law must hold individuals accountable for aggression and atrocities rather than states.

His approach rejected executions without trial and helped elevate the proceedings into a turning point for international law.

In his opening address to the court, Jackson stated that, "That four great nations, flushed with victory and stung with injury stay the hand of vengeance and voluntarily submit their captive enemies to the judgment of the law is one of the most significant tributes that Power has ever paid to Reason." 

By establishing a courtroom that admitted evidence in multiple languages and upheld the right to defence, the tribunal departed from the idea of victors' justice and tried to create a legal process that future generations could examine as fair and consistent.

The Palace of Justice in Nuremberg, with its symbolic associations with Nazi power, became the venue for this trial in international legal practice.

The introduction of the real-time translation system, developed under the guidance of Colonel Leon Dostert, which used IBM equipment, made real-time multilingual communication possible and became a milestone in courtroom procedure. 

The initial trial lasted from 20 November 1945 to 1 October 1946 and indicted twenty-four of the most senior Nazi officials, although only twenty-two were tried and just twenty-one appeared in court.

Among them were well-known figures such as Hermann Göring, who had led the Luftwaffe and briefly oversaw the Gestapo during its formation in Prussia before Himmler took control, Joachim von Ribbentrop, who served as Hitler’s Foreign Minister and negotiated the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, and Wilhelm Keitel, the head of the German High Command who signed numerous directives authorising massacres of civilians.

Also present was Ernst Kaltenbrunner, the highest-ranking surviving SS leader and head of the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA), which controlled the Gestapo and oversaw the concentration camps. 

Each defendant faced charges of planning illegal aggression under a conspiracy to violate peace treaties.

The tribunal then addressed war crimes and crimes against humanity as separate offences under its mandate.

The latter category covered systematic murder, extermination, deportation, and other inhumane acts, particularly those targeting civilians, including the Jewish population in the Holocaust.

The court also allowed prosecution of individuals based on their involvement in criminal organisations such as the SS, Gestapo, and Nazi Party Leadership Corps. 

Rather than targeting Germans indiscriminately, the tribunal focused on individuals who had planned, directed, or facilitated these crimes at the highest levels of state and military command.

The goal focused on holding powerful decision-makers accountable for policies that inflicted mass suffering and violated longstanding international agreements, including the Hague Conventions and the Kellogg-Briand Pact, rather than punishing a defeated enemy population.

Among the accused were also Hans Frank, Governor-General of occupied Poland who oversaw mass deportations and executions, and Walther Funk, who used his roles as Reich Minister of Economics and president of the Reichsbank to facilitate the looting of valuables from Holocaust victims. 

The indictment process made clear that responsibility could no longer be shielded behind institutions or the anonymity of bureaucracy.

Leaders who had signed deportation orders, issued shooting directives, or enabled forced labour programs were treated as personally culpable, even if they had not physically committed the acts themselves. 

Inside the courtroom, the atmosphere remained tense and formal. The IMT new interpretation technology allowed real-time translation in English, French, German and Russian.

This new feature had already been used earlier in the trial process under Colonel Leon Dostert.

Judges from the four Allied nations, including Geoffrey Lawrence of Britain, Francis Biddle of the United States, Iona Nikitchenko of the Soviet Union and Henri Donnedieu de Vabres of France, oversaw the proceedings that lasted for almost a year. 

Prosecutors introduced thousands of documents captured from German ministries, military offices, and Nazi Party archives.

These included orders signed by Hitler and his deputies, minutes from high-level meetings, and reports from SS units that operated in occupied territories.

In one instance, the prosecution presented the Einsatzgruppen Reports, which detailed the killing of more than one million Jews by mobile death squads in Eastern Europe. 

Eyewitness accounts from concentration camp survivors and defecting military officials added detail to the court’s understanding of how the Nazi regime operated.

The prosecution also screened footage taken by Allied soldiers during the liberation of camps such as Buchenwald, Dachau, and Auschwitz, and this process forced the accused to witness the evidence of crimes that had been carried out under their command or authority. 

Göring stayed defiant throughout the proceedings and he attempted to dominate the courtroom and manipulate public perception.

Others, including Albert Speer, tried to distance themselves from the worst atrocities.

They expressed regret or ignorance, though they had remained in Hitler’s inner circle and profited from forced labour.

The differing attitudes among the accused showed the varied strategies they employed in attempting to avoid the death penalty or long-term imprisonment. 

Several defendants said they had simply followed orders from higher authorities.

They argued that the one-party structure of the Nazi system left no room for personal choice or opposition.

They insisted that if they had refused orders they would have faced imprisonment or execution.

However, the court rejected this argument and stated that duty did not vanish in a military or political chain of command. 

Göring, who had been one of Hitler’s most trusted aides, said that the regime’s actions were legal under German law and necessary during wartime.

He also questioned the court’s authority and noted that the Allies had carried out similar actions in their bombing campaigns.

The court explained that it was focused on the planning and execution of aggressive war and genocide, not on normal combat. 

Others, such as Hans Fritzsche and Alfred Jodl, said that they had no part in crimes against civilians and that their roles involved only military orders or propaganda work.

Speer, the Minister of Armaments, said he had acted as a neutral expert and had tried to ease suffering among workers.

His partial confessions and his refusal to name other officials helped him avoid a death sentence. 

Defence teams also said that charges like crimes against peace and conspiracy applied after the fact and therefore broke legal rules.

The judges ruled that these actions violated international treaties and accepted practices, including the ban on wars of aggression in the 1928 Kellogg-Briand Pact.

The court’s decision was the first time crimes against peace were tried in an international court. 

On 1 October 1946, the court announced its verdicts in a report of over 200,000 words.

Twelve defendants received death sentences by hanging, including Göring, Ribbentrop, Keitel, Hans Frank, Julius Streicher, and Arthur Seyss-Inquart.

Göring avoided execution when he took cyanide in his cell the night before. 

Seven others received prison terms of ten years to life, and three were cleared.

Those imprisoned included Rudolf Hess, who had flown to Scotland in 1941 on a failed peace mission, and Karl Dönitz, who briefly became head of state after Hitler’s suicide.

Hess received life imprisonment and spent over forty years in Spandau Prison before dying on 17 August 1987, reportedly by suicide, though the exact circumstances remain unclear.

Baldur von Schirach received 20 years for youth indoctrination, and Konstantin von Neurath received 15 years for enforcing Nazi rule in Czechoslovakia. 

The court also declared several groups criminal, including the SS, the Gestapo, and the Nazi Party Leadership Corps.

This label allowed postwar authorities to charge members of these groups if they could show personal guilt. 

The hangings took place on 16 October 1946 at Nuremberg Prison. The court ordered that the bodies be burned in Munich and that their ashes be scattered in the Isar River to prevent the creation of martyr sites or symbols of Nazi memory.

Master Sergeant John C. Woods carried out the hangings.

After the main trial, the United States held twelve more proceedings between 1946 and 1949 under Control Council Law No. 10.

This rule allowed the occupying powers to try other people who had taken part in Nazi crimes but who did not face the main court. 

In the Doctors’ Trial, twenty-three medical professionals faced charges for deadly experiments on prisoners and for operating the T4 euthanasia programme, which aimed to kill disabled people.

The court found many guilty of crimes against humanity and issued seven death sentences.

This trial produced the Nuremberg Code, a set of rules on ethics in human research that still guides medical studies today. 

The Judges’ Trial, also called the Justice Trial, showed how members of the Nazi legal system had used the law to imprison, torture, and execute those they saw as enemies of the state.

These proceedings showed that judges took part in racial persecution and suppression of opposition. 

In the Trials of Business Leaders, executives from companies like IG Farben, Krupp, and Flick faced charges for their use of forced labour, for working with the SS, and for supporting aggressive war.

Prosecutors presented contracts between companies and concentration camps, proving that profit often drove involvement in Nazi crimes. 

One of the most serious later trials was the Einsatzgruppen Trial, which focused on mobile killing units that carried out mass shootings in Poland, Ukraine, and the Baltic states.

These squads killed over one million people, and the court imposed fourteen death sentences and several life terms.

The High Command Trial, another set of these proceedings, examined senior military officers and showed that regular military leaders could also share blame for war crimes. 

Though less well known than the first court, these later trials broadened justice and showed that anyone who took part in systematic crime, whether a doctor, a lawyer, or a factory manager, could face legal consequences, even years later.

The rules set at Nuremberg influenced the 1948 Genocide Convention, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and led to the creation of the International Criminal Court, which has guided how countries handle mass violence ever since.