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WWII: War crime trials

- Nuremberg Trials prosecution of prominent members of the political and military


leadership of Nazi Germany, before the International Military Tribunal (IMT)
- Tokyo Trials prosecution of the Japanese political and military leadership, before
the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE)

WWII consequences

Ruins of Rotterdam
Holocaust v ictims in Bergen-Belsen
concentration camp

Nanking massacre

Hiroshima after the atomic bombing

Some of the mass death figures of WWII


German war crimes
Number of victims
Jews
4,9-6 mil. (2,8 mil. In
concentration camps)
Roma
130 000 500 000 (up to 1,5 mil.)
Physically and mentally disabled
200 000 250 000
Prisoners of war
3,1 mil (2,6-3 mil. Soviet prisoners
of war)
Poles
1,8-1,9 mil.
Homosexuals
10 000-15 000
Bombing of British cities
60 595
Japanese war crimes
Number of victims
Total number of civilian victims
5,4-20,3 mil.
Chinese
3,6-12,3 mil.
Nanking massacre
250 000-300 000
People of Indochina
457 000-1,5 mil.
Koreans
378 000-500 000
Potential Allied war crimes
Number of victims
Bombing of German cities (Western Allies)
400 000-600 000
Bombing of Japanese cities (USA)
241 000-900 000
Atomic bombing of Hiroshima (USA)
90 000-166 000
Atomic bombing of Nagasaki (USA)
60 000-80 000
Katyn massacre (USSR)
21 768-22 000

Legal basis for war crime trials

International humanitarian law:


- 1st Geneva Convention 1864 (Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded in Armies in
the Field)
- 2nd Geneva Convention 1906 (Amelioration of the Condition of Wounded, Sick and
Shipwrecked Members of Armed Forces at Sea)
- 3rd Geneva Convention 1929 (Treatment of Prisoners of War)
Laws of war:
- 1st Hague Convention 1899 (Laws and Customs of War on Land)
- 2nd Hague Convention 1907 (Laws and Customs of War on Land)

Nuremberg trials
- Trial of the Major War Criminals
October 1945-Okctober 1946
- 24 accused
- 8 judges + 4 prosecutors from 4 countries (UK, USA,
France, USSR)
Evidence used in court:
Official documents, eyewitness accounts, suspect interrogation
accounts, material evidence, photos, etc.

Indictments:
1. Participation in a common plan or conspiracy
for the accomplishment of a crime against peace
2. Planning, initiating and waging wars of
aggression and other crimes against peace
3. War crimes
4. Crimes against humanity

Palace of Justice, Nuremberg

12 sentenced to death

Martin Bormann Nazi Party Secretary

Hans Frank Governor-General of the General Government in occupied Poland

Hermann Goring Commander of Luftwaffe (committed suiced the night before his execution)

Wilhelm Keitel Commander of Wehrmacht

Joachim von Ribbentrop Minister of Foreign Affairs

Wilhelm Frick governer of Bohemia-Moravia, co-author of the Nuremberg Race Laws

Alfred Jodl Keitels deputy

Ernst Kaltenbrunner highest surviving SS leader, head of the Reich Main Security Office

Alfred Rosenberg Minister of the Eastern Occupied territories, racial theory ideologist

Fritz Sauckel regional Nazi party leader of Thuringia

Arthur Seyss-Inquart Reich Commissioner of the occupied Netherlands

Julius Streicher publisher of Der Sturmer


12 more trials in Nuremberg 1946-1949.
7 sentenced to imprisonment
Several other trials for crimes committed in

Rudolf Hess Hitlers deputy Fuhrer (life )


concentration campsDachau,Auschwitz, Belsen, etc.

Walther Funk Economics Minister (life)

Erich Raeder former Commander of the Kriegsmarine (life)

Baldur von Schirach leader of Hitlerjugend (20 years)

Albert Speer Minister of Armaments, architect (20 years)

Konstantin von Neurath former Protector of Bohemia and Moravia (15 years)

Karl Donitz Commander of the Kriegsmarine (10 years)


3 free from the charge

Hjalmar Schacht former Economics Minister

Franz von Papen former Vice-Chancellor

Hans Firtzche head of the news division of the Propaganda Ministry

Robert Ley head of DAF (committed suicide before the trial)

Gustav Krupp head of Krupp A.G , armament industry (unfit for trial)

British political cartoons following the verdict (1 October 1946)

Leslie Gilbert Illingworth, Daily Mail

David Low, Evening Standard

Tokyo trial
- Main trial April 1946 - November 1948
- 28 accused
- 11 judges (USA, USSR, Australia, UK, China-Taiwan,
France, Canada, British India, Netherlands, Philippines,
Netherlands)
Indictments according to Nuremberg procedures.
7 sentenced to death
Hideki Tojo Prime Minister
Seishiro Itagaki War Minister
Koki Hirota former Minister of Foreign Affairs
and others
16 sentenced to life imprisonment
2 to lesser prison sentences
2 died during the trial
1 released as mentally unfit for trial
Number of trials organized later (over 5700
accused).

Imperial Japanese Army headquarters, Tokyo

Legacy of WWII war crime trials


Major impact on the development of International criminal law.
Nuremberg principles used as a model for several international conventions and declarations
Genocide Convention 1948., Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948., 4th Geneva
Convention (Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War) 1949., etc.)
- Several international criminal courts founded.

International Criminal Court, Hague

International Criminal Tribunal for the former


Yugoslavia, Hague

War crime trials evaluation


Criticism
Historical revisionism;
- victors justice? judges from USA, UK, France and USSR
- double standards? possible allied war crimes (bombing of German and Japanese cities,
Hiroshima i Nagasaki, Katyn massacre); Italy not prosecuted; members of Japanese imperial
Family not prosecuted
Defence
- importance of war crime trials for the process of denazification in Germany and
democratization of Japan
- lack of alternative solution
- basis for the International criminal law
Can prosecution of war crimes ever be too late?
Some of the subsequent trials of Nazis and collaborators:
Adolf Eichmann 1962 (SS leadership member, high ranking Wehrmacht officer)
Franz Stangl 1970 (Commander of Sobibor and Treblinka concentration camps)
Andrija Artukovi 1986 (Minister in the government of Independent State of Croatia (NDH)
Dinko aki 1998 (Commander of the Jasenovac concentration camp)

Some useful books:


- Norbert Ehrenfreund , The Nuremberg Legacy,Palgrave Macmillan, 2007
- Yves Beibeder, International Criminal tribunals Justice and Politics,Palgrave
Macmillan, 2011

Useful web sites:


- The Avalon Project (Yale Law School International Military Tribunal Nuremberg trials
documents collection: http://avalon.law.yale.edu/subject_menus/imt.asp
International Military Tribunal for the Far East Charter at University of Oslo,
Faculty of Law web site:
-

http://www.jus.uio.no/english/services/library/treaties/04/4-06/military-tribunal-far-east.xml

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