Nuremberg Trials
After World War II, numerous war-crimes
trials tried and convicted many Axis
leaders. Judges from Great Britain,
France, the Soviet Union, and the United
States tried twenty-two Nazi
leaders for: crimes against humanity (mostly about
the Holocaust), violating
long-established rules of war, and waging aggressive
war. This was known as
the "Nuremberg Trials." Late in 1946, the German
defendants were indicted and
arraigned before a war crimes tribunal at
Nuremberg. Twenty of the
defendants were physicians who, as governmental,
military, or SS officials,
stood at or near the top of the medical hierarchy of
the Third Reich. The
other three occupied administrative positions which brought
them into close
connection with medical affairs. It all started when people
started hearing
about the Nazi’s in human acts, just about four months after
World War II
started. No one would believe that such a thing would happen. While
the
people were thinking like that the Jews were being shipped out of
the
country. Some of them were put in working camps or at a person’s farm.
This
was the beginning of the Final Solution of the German’s Problem
(the
Holocaust). On August 8 the Four Power nation signed the London
Agreement. They
later named it the International Military Tribunal (IMT), it
had 8 judges, one
judge and one alternate. This was made so that they would
try to stop the Nazi
crimes (Rice Jr. 81). They had supplementary Nuremberg
hearings that were broken
down into twelve trials. In connection with these
trials, the U.S. military
tribunals had thirty-five defendants and released
nineteen of them because they
could find anything to get them on (Rice Jr.
76). They made Nuremberg Laws
because of Hitler’s concentration camps and his
other inhuman acts (Rice Jr.
31). He didn’t go by the lead system, he
made himself the Supreme Judge.
Hitler could imprison or execute anyone
he wanted to. He made laws keeping Jews
out of certain public places or jobs.
He wouldn’t let Jews have German
citizenship. The Nuremberg Laws stated that
there would be no more inhuman acts
or segregation of Jews. One of the
positive sides of the Nuremberg incident was
the trials documented Nazi
crimes for posterity. Many citizens of the world
remember hearing about the
Nazi’s brutalities and inhuman acts (Rice Jr., 5).
Hundreds of official
Nazi documents entered into evidence at Nuremberg tell the
horrible tale of
the Third Reich in the Nazi’s own words. Six million Jews,
and others not
liked by the Nazis were killed. Not one convicted Nazi denied
that the mass
killing had occurred. Each disclaimed only personal knowledge
and
responsibility. The negative things that happened at Nuremberg were
the
establishment of the I.M.T. has yet to lead to a permanent counterpart
before
which crimes against humanity can be tried. Twenty-four wars between
nations and
ninety-three civil wars or insurgencies between 1945 and 1992, no
international
body had been convened to try aggressor nations or individuals
accused of war
crimes. To prosecute and punish aggression rest still on the
wavering will of an
international community ever reluctant to impose
sanctions on offending
governments (Rice Jr. 100). Despite the reluctance of
nations to unite in common
cause and move swiftly toward a lasting road to
aggression, hope yes abides for
the best of Nuremberg’s brightest promise.
The world had a problem of what to
do about the Nazi regime that had presided
over the extermination of some six
million Jews and deaths of millions of
others with no basis in military
necessity. Never before in history had the
victors tried the vanquished for
crimes committed during a war (Rice Jr.,
97). Yet never in history had the
vanquished perpetrated crimes of such
inhumanity. The I.M.T., like the courts in
many countries, have held to the
principle that persons committing a criminal
violation of international law
are responsible for violation, on the grounds
that crimes of this nature are
the result of their own acts (Rice 1492). The
tribunal thought for crimes
carried out on orders from above, since many of the
crimes had been committed
in one with the Reich policy (Rice 1493). The portion
of the I.M.T. judgment
dealing with war crimes and crimes against humanity
committed by the
defendants in the trial and by the criminal organizations
concerns, in large
measure, the persecution and murder of the Jewish people. In
its analysis of
these crimes, the I.M.T. found it appropriate to single out the
persecution
of the Jews as a manifestation of consistent and systematic in
humanity on a
huge scale (Rice 1493). The testimony given at the Nuremberg
Trial, the
document presented by the prosecution, and the entire record of
its
proceedings constitute an incomparable source for the study of the
Holocaust.
The Nuremberg debates may continue for decades. But because of
the tribunal’s
rulings at Nuremberg, the initiating and waging of aggressive
war is now
irrefutably criminal under international law. And that in itself
is not a bad
legacy.