[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. At the opening of his trial in Nuremberg, . [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. He promoted an intentionalist view of the Nazi state and its overall conspiracy to commit all of the crimes mentioned in the indictment. [52][46] The Soviet personnel's lack of knowledge of English, lack of interpreters, and unfamiliarity with diplomacy and international institutions also limited their influence. Massachusetts woman arrested for placing swastikas at Jewish womans home, Netflixs Rough Diamonds brings viewers into the drama of Antwerps Orthodox diamond district, Sofia Richie, Lionel Richies daughter, marries Jewish music executive after converting to Judaism, Sammys Roumanian, iconic Lower East Side Jewish restaurant, mounts a comeback, Stranger Things star Brett Gelman proposes to singer girlfriend Ari Dayan in Jerusalem, Disney+ series A Small Light tells the Anne Frank story from the perspective of the woman who hid her, Barbra Streisand is getting the next Jewish Nobel, in prizes return to celebrity tradition, Meet the real-life rabbi in the synagogue scene of Are You There God? [159] During the closing statements, most defendants disappointed the judges by their lies and denial. [212], The German churches, both Catholic and Protestant, were vociferous proponents of amnesty,[213] which had cross-party support in West Germany, which was established in 1949. The speech was favorably received by the prosecution, the tribunal, the audience, historians, and even the defendants. There's the rabbi coming along there. Benjamin Ferencz: And I start screaming. Nuremburg Trial Courthouse (Nuremberg) - All You Need to - Tripadvisor Marie-Claude Valliant Couturier revealed the conditions under which French women existed while interned; 49 of the 230 French women sent to Auschwitz survived. [39] Besides legal professionals, there were many social-science researchers, psychologists, translators and interpreters, and graphic designers, the latter to make the many charts used during the trial. Included in the archive are firsthand accounts from the few who survived the Nazi concentration camps, including for example Marie-Claude Vaillant Couturier, a member of the French Resistance who was imprisoned at Auschwitz and Ravensbrck. So you see these human stories which are not -- they're not real. Benjamin Ferencz: Do you think the man who dropped the nuclear bomb on Hiroshima was a savage? [151], In order to appease concerns about fair process, the defendants were allowed a free hand with their witnesses and a great deal of irrelevant testimony was heard. [60] The American prosecution became derailed during attempts to provide evidence of the German annexation of Austria. Innocent lamb. QAnon Followers Think Secret Trials Will Be Held for COVID Rule 2023 jewish telegraphic agency all rights reserved. Benjamin Ferencz: And I've got-- I've got his reports of how many he killed. Until the end of the negotiations, it was not clear that any trial would be held at all, due to acrimonious disputes over fundamental matters; the American delegation threatened to walk out. [238][239] The Palace of Justice houses a museum on the trial and the courtroom became a tourist attraction, drawing 13,138 visitors in 2005. [230] The selectivity in trying Germans but not the Allies has garnered the most persistent criticism. [161][162], The International Military Tribunal agreed with the prosecution that aggression was the gravest charge against the accused, stating in its judgement that because war in general is evil, "To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole. [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. And these were daily reports from the Eastern Front-- which unit entered which town, how many people they killed. That is the current system. Lesley Stahl: Did you meet a lot of people who perpetrated war crimes who would otherwise in your opinion have been just a normal, upstanding citizen? [19], The Nuremberg Charter upended the traditional view of international law by holding individuals, rather than states, responsible for breaches of international law. There are also transcripts of eyewitness accounts, including that of Hermann Grbe, a construction manager who described the horrors of a mass execution he saw in Dubno, Ukraine. 'The unsung heroes of the Nuremberg trials': How translators played a We've had genocide since then. A bust of Ferencz was just installed outside that Nuremberg courtroom where he argued almost three-quarters of a century ago. Ferencz says his goal from the beginning was to affirm the rule of law and deter similar crimes from ever being committed again. 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. Benjamin Ferencz: I don't think I'm an idealist. [146][147] Defense lawyer Alfred Seidl[de] repeatedly tried to disclose the secret protocols of the GermanSoviet pact. The defendants' lawyers jointly appealed to the court, claiming it did not have jurisdiction against the accused; but this motion was rejected. Below his face, his motto: "law, not war.". Does COVID-19 vaccine rollout violate Nuremberg Code that protects Fact Check: 10,000 Medical Experts Did NOT Start Nuremberg 2 Trial [100], On 21 November, Jackson gave the opening speech for the prosecution. The judgement argued that aggressive war had already been illegal, even if no one had been punished for it, and therefore the German leaders could not count on immunity from prosecution. [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. You know, kick 'em in. Lesley Stahl: What turns a man into a savage beast like that? Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Channette Alexander). For the scholars, what makes the Nuremberg archives particularly captivating is the variety of human narratives that emerges from the variety of documents and transcripts stories that are now easier to find thanks to Stanfords preservation efforts. [188] The Office of Chief Counsel for War Crimes identified 2,500 major war criminals, of whom 177 were tried. more_horiz. Justice Jackson's Persistent Post-Nuremberg Legacy - Duke University This photograph was taken in Kyiv, Ukraine, not Nuremberg . The Rome Statute establishing a permanent International Criminal Court (ICC), which had been proposed in 1953, was finally agreed to in 1998. So Ferencz has spent the rest of his life trying to deter war and war crimes by establishing an international court like Nuremburg. FALSE: "Nuremberg Trial 2" took place due to the - Poynter [158][136] In contrast to the opening prosecution statements, all eight closing statements highlighted the Holocaust; and the French and British prosecutors made this the main charge, as opposed to that of aggression. [186] These trials were held under Law No. [86] Overall, the prosecution called 37 witnesses compared to the defense's 83, not including 19 defendants who testified on their own behalf. A 103-year-old South Florida man who fought Nazi atrocities as a Nuremberg prosecutor is now the recipient of the Governor's Medal of Freedom. It helps people understand the human consequences of the things that are going on today and to understand the human dimension of what these kinds of events mean, said Cohen. [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. [17] On May 8, Germany surrendered unconditionally. [195][196], These trials emphasized the crimes committed during the Holocaust. He became the first in his family to go to college, then got a scholarship to Harvard Law School. [127] Evidence was presented on the murder of children, attempts to cover up atrocities,[128] systematic plunder of occupied territories, and confiscation or destruction of cultural heritage. [126] Lev Smirnov presented evidence on the Lidice massacre in Czechoslovakia, adding that such destruction of villages had occurred throughout eastern Europe. And I see the progress. Episode 9 - To Stay the Hand of Vengeance. (Image credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Courtesy Randy Cole). [224][225][226] During the two decades after the trial, opinions were predominantly negative. Yes. All 22 defendants were found guilty, and four of them, including Ohlendorf, were hanged. . And you're full of energy and passion. Top ways to experience Nuremburg Trial Courthouse and nearby attractions. [3] War losses in the Soviet Union alone included 27 million dead, mostly civilians, which was .mw-parser-output .frac{white-space:nowrap}.mw-parser-output .frac .num,.mw-parser-output .frac .den{font-size:80%;line-height:0;vertical-align:super}.mw-parser-output .frac .den{vertical-align:sub}.mw-parser-output .sr-only{border:0;clip:rect(0,0,0,0);height:1px;margin:-1px;overflow:hidden;padding:0;position:absolute;width:1px}17th of the prewar population. [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. [125], More so than other delegations, Soviet prosecutors showed the gruesome details of German mistreatment of prisoners of war and forced laborers, as well as the systematic murder of Jews in eastern Europe. Your legs won't reach the pedals." Institutional rivalries hampered the search. Fact check: COVID-19 vaccine mandates, Nuremberg Code not related [208][209] Many Germans lumped criminal trials with denazification, internment, and confrontation with the concentration camps, as illegitimate victor's justice and the imposition of collective guilt. The Nuremberg Trials, 75 Years Later - The Unwritten Record [179], The exact sentences to be given each defendant were debated at length by the judges. Lesley Stahl: What was going on inside of you? 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. [18], At the London Conference, held from 26 June to 2 August 1945, representatives of France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States negotiated the exact form that the trial would take. [190][191] Also on trial were industrialistsin the Flick trial, the IG Farben trial, and the Krupp trialfor using forced labor, looting property from Nazi victims, and funding SS atrocities. subscribe to Stanford Report. Stanford University is marking the 75th anniversary of the International Military Tribunal of Nuremberg with a significant expansion of records from the historic trial. Why is the Nuremberg Code being used to oppose Covid-1 [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. Two of the 24 defendants died during the trials, including Hermann Goring, commander of Nazi Germanys air force, who committed suicide. President Harry Truman asked Robert Jackson, an associate justice of the Supreme Court, to serve as the chief American prosecutor . Toward the end of the war, because of his legal training, he was transferred to a brand new unit in General Patton's Third Army, created to investigate war crimes. Benjamin Ferencz: And I'm still in there fighting. This week, the U.S. [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. Ferencz came home, married his childhood sweetheart and vowed never to set foot in Germany again. [203], In all, 249 journalists were accredited to cover the IMT[40] and 61,854 visitor tickets were issued. "Informed consent for treatment serves a slightly different purpose. [99] According to historian Kim Christian Priemel, the conspiracy charge "invited apologetic interpretations: narratives of absolute, totalitarian dictatorship, run by society's lunatic fringe, of which the Germans had been the first victims rather than agents, collaborators, and fellow travellers". [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. [167] The judges were aware that both the Allies and the Axis had planned or committed acts of aggression, writing the verdict carefully to avoid discrediting either the Allied governments or the tribunal. 27 Aug 2021. [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. [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. [52] Initially, it was planned that Iona Nikitchenko, who had presided over the Moscow trials, would serve as the chief prosecutor, but he was appointed as a judge and replaced by Roman Rudenko, a show trial prosecutor[53] chosen for his skill as an orator. You're not getting very far. The main target of the prosecution was Hermann Gring (at the left edge on the first row of benches). [157] Over the course of the trial, crimes against humanity and especially against Jews (who were mentioned as victims of Nazi atrocities far more than any other group) came to upstage the aggressive war charge. [227] The main legal criticisms of the trial focused on questions of retroactivity, selectivity, and jurisdiction. War makes murderers out of otherwise decent people. But that didn't last long. [87], Initially, it was planned to hold a second international tribunal for German industrialists, but this was never held because of differences between the Allies. [10] The declaration also stated that those high-ranking Nazis who had committed crimes in several countries would be dealt with jointly. You may have given little thought to the role Native Americans played in the creation of the U.S. Constitution. Jan Lemnitzer, University of Oxford. [135] The Soviet Union also called two Holocaust survivors as witnesses, Samuel Rajzmana Treblinka survivorand poet Abraham Sutzkever, who eloquently described the murder of tens of thousands of Jews from Vilna, although their testimony did not directly incriminate any of the defendants. Benjamin Ferencz: Standard routine, nicht schuldig. [30] Article 7 prevented the defendants from claiming immunity for their actions under the act of state doctrine,[31] and the plea of acting under superior orders was left for the judges to decide. And look at you. Fact check:Doctors' Trial was one of 13 Nuremberg Trials. All eight judges participated in the deliberations, but the alternates could not cast a vote. [228] The most controversial charge was crimes against peace. A high court recently . [233] In 1950, the International Law Commission drafted the Nuremberg principles to codify international criminal law, although the Cold War prevented the adoption of these principles until the 1990s. It isn't easy viewing. He's an intelligent, patriotic human being. In doing so, it established a legal precedent in international humanitarian law that is still relevant today. [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. The only part of the French charges that were accepted by the judges was the deportation of Jews from France and other parts of Western Europe. (The U.S. But during his first semester, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, and he, like many classmates, raced to enlist. Lesley Stahl: He's a savage when he does the murder though. Nuremberg trials News, Research and Analysis - The Conversation Benjamin Ferencz: When I reached over a million people murdered that way, over a million people, that's more people than you've ever seen in your life, I took a sample. [180][172] On 16 October, ten were hanged, with Gring committing suicide the day before. It is not often you get the chance to meet a man who holds a place in history like Ben Ferencz. As U.S. forces liberated concentration camps, his job was to rush in and gather evidence. [116] In contrast to the other prosecution teams, the French prosecution emphasized how Nazi ideology and pan-Germanism had led to the Nazis' crimes, and delved into the Sonderweg theory of Germany's development in the nineteenth century. Jackson submitted his final report to President Truman one week after the verdicts. He wanted to be a pilot, but the Army Air Corps wouldn't take him. [36][35] On 8 August, the Nuremberg Charter was signed in London. But Ferencz knew they were guilty and could prove it. [205] Where the prosecution was disappointed by some of the verdicts, the defense could take satisfaction. If we believe that understanding whats happened in the past is important for understanding the present and thinking about the future, then these testimonies are important.. [14][15] The exact form that retribution would take was left unresolved at the Yalta Conference in February 1945. If you are a doctor or a nurse, . Proposals for how to punish the defeated Nazi leaders ranged from a show trial (the Soviet Union) to summary executions (the United Kingdom). 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. [67] Former Nazis were allowed to serve as counsel[45] and by mid-November all defendants had lawyers. #. He grew up in a tough New York City neighborhood where his father found work as a janitor. / CBS News. The progress has been remarkable. 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). [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. [129] The Soviet prosecution also attempted to fabricate German responsibility for the Katyn massacre, which had in fact been committed by the Soviet Union. HumansAreFree@HumansAreFree. I don't. Streicher, editor in chief of the Der Sturmer anti-Semitic weekly, claimed that hed always viewed German Jews as legitimate compatriots and long supported Zionism. [181] All three acquittals (Papen, Schacht, and Fritzsche) were based on a deadlock between the judges; these acquittals surprised observers. Lesley Stahl: And you had his name down on a piece of. Lesley Stahl: They're making them run to their own death? Some people say I'm crazy. Eventually, the online database will include digital versions of film, audio recordings and photographs that will also include links and annotations. Exhibit 111: "In the last 10 weeks, we have liquidated around 55,000 Jews." You're sitting here as a female. 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. Building a digital space for the archives is part of Cohens and the Libraries larger vision to create a comprehensive database, known as the Virtual Tribunals Initiative, of all international criminal proceedings that deal with mass atrocities, starting from post-WWII court proceedings to contemporary cases like the Special Panels for Serious Crimes in East Timor (SPSC) or similar international criminal tribunals for Rwanda, Sierra Leone or the former Yugoslavia.
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