The Nuremberg Trials, 75 Years Later - The Unwritten Record For the Tokyo Trial, see. And I can't believe you're 97 years old. Twelve defendants received a death sentence, seven were sentenced to prison terms of varying lengths, and three were acquitted. Benjamin Ferencz: I don't think I'm an idealist. [204] In the United Kingdom, although a variety of responses were reported, it was difficult to sustain interest in a long trial. [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. Below his face, his motto: "law, not war.". [17] On May 8, Germany surrendered unconditionally. Well, see here, this-- they rounded 'em up. Shoot 'em there. By early 1946, Western prosecutors were uneasy about the Katyn charge, although they never publicly rejected it for fear of casting the entire proceedings into question. Never again doesnt mean anything unless you know what has happened and why, said Cohen, who has partnered with Stanford Libraries to digitally archive the records and create a searchable website for the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg (1945-1946). [38], In early 1946, there were a thousand employees from the four countries' delegations in Nuremberg, of which about two-thirds were from the United States. . [153] Midway through the trial, Winston Churchill's Iron Curtain speech denouncing the Soviet threat delighted the defense. [144] Most defendants argued their own insignificance within the Nazi system, but Gring took the opposite approach, presenting himself as Hitler's loyalist and expecting that while he would be executed, the German people would eventually appreciate his loyalty. He's an intelligent, patriotic human being. Testimony is ultimately human narratives, and it means a lot to help keep those voices alive through time and space so that we can learn from history and hopefully better understand the implications of atrocities carried out in different cultural and historical contexts, said Penelope Van Tuyl, associate director of the Center for Human Rights and International Justice, who has also contributed to the preservation efforts and development of the Virtual Tribunals exhibit platform. He's a patriotic human being acting in the interest of his country, in his mind. [111][112] The British case covered invasions, from that of Poland to that of the Soviet Union, which Shawcross covered in the second part of his speech;[113] these charges took three days to present, with Maxwell Fyfe detailing 15 treaties broken by Germany. On This Day: 12 Nazis sentenced to death in the Nuremberg Trials On 17 September, the various delegations met to discuss the indictment. [145], Despite the fact that the charter did not recognize a tu quoque defense, such arguments were repeatedly raised during the trial. [19], The Nuremberg Charter upended the traditional view of international law by holding individuals, rather than states, responsible for breaches of international law. Ferencz learned quickly. 06/29/2021. But he isn't content just being a part of 20th-century history -- he believes he has something important to offer the world right now. [146] The Nuremberg Laws were compared to discriminatory laws in the United States. [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. subscribe to Stanford Report. You're not getting very far. [187] Pursuant to this law, United States forces had arrested almost 100,000 Germans as war criminals. Stanford University is marking the 75th anniversary of the International Military Tribunal of Nuremberg with a significant expansion of records from the historic trial. [98] Jackson maintained that while the United States did "not seek to convict the whole German people of crime", neither did the trial "serve to absolve the whole German people except 21 men in the dock". This March, Ben Ferencz turned 101 and he's still in there fighting. People receiving the COVID-19 vaccines at this point are not taking part in a medical experiment, because the vaccines already have gone through clinical trials and have received emergency . Between 1939 and 1945, Nazi Germany invaded many countries . Twelve Nazi leaders were sentenced to death by hanging. [141] The defendants tried to blame their crimes on Hitler, who was mentioned 1,200 times during the trialmore than the top five defendants combined. You know, kick 'em in. This photograph was taken in Kyiv, Ukraine, not Nuremberg . And you know what keeps me going? [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. 40 years on from the Majdanek trial verdict - DW - 06/29/2021 Nuremberg Combo Tour WWII + Old Town. Without calling a single witness, he entered into evidence the defendants' own reports of what they'd done. By UPI Staff. On December 9, 1946, an American military tribunal opened criminal proceedings against 23 leading German physicians and administrators for their willing participation in war crimes and crimes against humanity. FALSE: "Nuremberg Trial 2" took place due to the - Poynter QAnon Followers Think Secret Trials Will Be Held for COVID Rule They all have already tags on 'em. [45] At Jackson's recommendation, the United States appointed judges Francis Biddle and John Parker. I am naive? This additional collection, to be known as the Taube Archive of the International Military Tribunal of Nuremberg, will allow the public to easily browse and discover the contents of over 5,000 trial records including 250,000 pages of digitized paper documents showing in meticulous detail the efforts of the IMT, a group of representatives from four Allied countries the U.S., the U.K., the Soviet Union and France who were tasked with prosecuting former officials of the Third Reich and holding them accountable for the horrific acts inflicted during World War II and the Holocaust. [174] The judges interpreted crimes against humanity narrowly; they determined that crimes against German Jews before 1939 were not under the court's jurisdiction because the prosecution had not proven a connection to aggressive war. Flags from left to right: International Military Tribunal for the Far East, Charter of the International Military Tribunal, List of defendants at the International Military Tribunal, SS Main Economic and Administrative Office, mass expulsion of millions of Germans from central and eastern Europe, confrontation with the concentration camps, Journal of International Criminal Justice, "Notre combat pour la paix: la France et le procs de Nuremberg (1945-1946)", "Le procs de Nuremberg: retour sur soixante-dix ans de recherche", "German Participation in the Nuremberg Trials and Its Implications for Today", "Imperfect Justice at Nuremberg and Tokyo", Trial of the Major War Criminals before the International Military Tribunal, International Military Tribunal (Nuremberg Trials), International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, Special Panels of the Dili District Court, International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals, List of major perpetrators of the Holocaust, Nazis and Nazi Collaborators (Punishment) Law, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nuremberg_trials&oldid=1152692054, International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg, Courts and tribunals disestablished in 1946, Short description is different from Wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 1 May 2023, at 18:42. [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. Just put 'em in the ditch. / CBS News. Benjamin Ferencz: They said, "No, you're too short. She said: "The Nuremberg Code relates to research, where the emphasis of informed consent requirements is on preventing the research participants from being used as a means to an end. Part of an artillery battalion, he landed on the beach at Normandy and fought in the Battle of the Bulge. Were Doctors and Members of the Media Hanged in This Nuremberg Trial You know? So Ferencz has spent the rest of his life trying to deter war and war crimes by establishing an international court like Nuremburg. And he's been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. Benjamin Ferencz: Well, if it's naive to want peace instead of war, let 'em make sure they say I'm naive. Lesley Stahl: He's a savage when he does the murder though. Copyright 2023 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. $211.69. But during his first semester, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, and he, like many classmates, raced to enlist. Published Jul 14, 2021. Stanford News is a publication of Stanford University Communications. [206], Many Germans at the time of the trials focused on finding food and shelter; few followed the trial closely. And you shouldn't-- you know-- be despairing because it's never happened before. Preserving records from the Nuremberg Trial as well as materials from the subsequent tribunals and truth and reconciliation commissions it inspired is crucial to protecting the historic and judicial legacies of the war and acknowledging the consequences of mass atrocities, said David Cohen, director of the Stanford Center for Human Rights and International Justice and professor of classics in the School of Humanities and Sciences. The Rome Statute establishing a permanent International Criminal Court (ICC), which had been proposed in 1953, was finally agreed to in 1998. [92], The International Military Tribunal began trial on 20 November 1945,[93] after postponement requests from the Soviet prosecution, who wanted more time to prepare its case, were rejected. Grbe painfully recounts how he saw a grave of over a thousand bodies, some of whom were still moving.. By Cnaan Liphshiz January 15, 2021 11:48 am. Benjamin Ferencz: Going on right this minute, yes. Many of the worst offenders were not prosecuted, for logistical or financial reasons. It was also a way to indirectly charge crimes committed before the beginning of World War II, which the charter placed outside the court's jurisdiction. Although controversial at the time for their use of ex post facto law, the trials' innovation of holding individuals responsible for violations of international law established international criminal law. The International Military Tribunal, more commonly known at the Nuremberg trials, began this week 75 years ago in Nuremberg, Germany.The trials were a series of military tribunals held to convict major Nazi German leaders on charges of crimes against peace, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and conspiracy to commit each of these crimes. [106][107] The Americans summoned Einsatzgruppen commander Otto Ohlendorf, who testified about the murder of 80,000 people by those under his command, and SS general Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski, who admitted that German anti-partisan warfare was little more than a cover for the mass murder of Jews. Benjamin Ferencz: A father who, his son told me the story. 2021 19:03. Lesley Stahl: We've had Rwanda, we've had Bosnia. It isn't easy viewing. [181] All three acquittals (Papen, Schacht, and Fritzsche) were based on a deadlock between the judges; these acquittals surprised observers. The British government was still opposed, unable to see the benefit of such a trial and preferring the summary execution of Nazi leaders. [182] Nikichenko released a dissent approved by Moscow that rejected all the acquittals, called for a death sentence for Hess, and convicted all the organizations. 27 Aug 2021. The Jews were shot? [234][235] Further developments in international criminal law in the aftermath of the trials included the Genocide Convention (1948) and the Fourth Geneva Convention (1949). That's insane. The Nuremberg trials after World War II were historic -- the first international war crimes tribunals ever held. COVID-19 and Crimes Against Humanity: What the Nuremberg-Hague Trials He was carrying out his government's instructions. Complete Nuremberg Trials recordings online for the first time Fact-checked by: Myth Detector. [231], The International Military Tribunal for the Far East (Tokyo Trial) borrowed many of its ideas from the IMT, including all four charges. [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. [171] Only eight defendants were convicted on that charge; all of whom were also found guilty of crimes against peace. The recordings, many of them in German without translation, offer an insight into the mood, mindset and history of people like Frank and Streicher, who spoke at length about his personal history growing up in a small village in Bavaria as the youngest of nine children. [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. [54] The Soviet judges and prosecutors were not permitted to make any major decisions without consulting a commission in Moscow led by Soviet politician Andrei Vyshinsky; the resulting delays hampered the Soviet effort to set the agenda. The first of the Nuremberg trials was to be the biggest murder trial in human history, with 21 Nazi leaders appearing before the court charged with the deaths of millions of innocent people during . It was classified, so many Jews, so many gypsies, so many others--. Gabrielle Karampelas, Stanford Libraries: (650) 497-4414, gkaram@stanford.edu. [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. The father had died just as we were entering the camp. [67] Also prosecuted were leaders of the German economy, such as Gustav Krupp (of the conglomerate Krupp AG), former Reichsbank president Hjalmar Schacht, and economic planners Albert Speer and Walther Funk, along with Speer's subordinate and head of the forced labor program, Fritz Sauckel. Benjamin Ferencz: Well, don't say that. The Nuremberg trials were a series of 13 trials carried out between 1945 and 1949, the Trial of Major War Criminals being held from November 20, 1945 to October 1, 1946. . Lesley Stahl: You've really seen evil. Benjamin Ferencz: And I've got-- I've got his reports of how many he killed. Be there when human rights changed with 'The World's - Guide [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. [67] Former Nazis were allowed to serve as counsel[45] and by mid-November all defendants had lawyers. Ferencz came home, married his childhood sweetheart and vowed never to set foot in Germany again. [117] The French prosecutors, more than their British or American counterparts, emphasized the guilt of the German people;[118] they barely mentioned the charge of aggressive war and instead focused on forced labor, economic plunder, massacres, and Germanization. [102] Jackson's focus was on the aggressive war charge, which he described as the root of the crimes against humanity and of war crimes. Between 1939 and 1945, Nazi Germany waged war across Europe, invading Czechoslovakia, Poland, the Low Countries, France, Denmark, Norway, Yugoslavia, Greece, and the Soviet Union, among others. To receive Stanford news daily,
[16] On May 2, at the San Francisco Conference, the United States' new president Harry S. Truman announced the formation of an international military tribunal. Ferencz had stumbled upon reports sent back to headquarters by secret SS units called Einsatzgruppen, or action groups. Ferencz had immigrated to the U.S. as a baby, the son of poor Jewish parents from a small town in Romania. [88], The charter allowed the admissibility of any evidence deemed to have probative value, including depositions. A Supreme Court justice led the American team of prosecutors. [143] Although a few defense lawyers inverted the arguments of the prosecution to assert that the Germans' authoritarian mindset and obedience to the state exonerated them from any personal guilt, most rejected such arguments. The speech was favorably received by the prosecution, the tribunal, the audience, historians, and even the defendants.
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