International Tribunal for German War Criminals. Nuremberg Trials (briefly)

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Humanity has long learned to judge individual villains, criminal groups, bandits and illegal armed groups. The International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg became the first experience in history of condemning crimes of a national scale - the ruling regime, its punitive institutions, senior political and military figures.

On August 8, 1945, three months after the Victory over Nazi Germany, the governments of the USSR, USA, Great Britain and France entered into an agreement to organize the trial of the main war criminals. This decision evoked an approving response throughout the world: it was necessary to give a harsh lesson to the authors and executors of cannibalistic plans for world domination, mass terror and murder, ominous ideas of racial superiority, genocide, monstrous destruction, and the plunder of vast territories. Subsequently, 19 more states officially joined the agreement, and the Tribunal began to rightfully be called the Court of Peoples. The process began on November 20, 1945 and lasted almost 11 months. 24 war criminals who were part of the top management fascist Germany. This has never happened before in history. Also, for the first time, the issue of recognizing as criminal a number of political and state institutions

- the leadership of the fascist party NSDAP, its assault (SA) and security (SS) detachments, the security service (SD), the secret state police (Gestapo), the government cabinet, the Supreme Command and the General Staff. The trial was not a quick reprisal against a defeated enemy. Indictment on German

was handed to the defendants 30 days before the start of the trial, and then they were given copies of all documentary evidence. Procedural guarantees gave the accused the right to defend themselves in person or with the help of a lawyer from among German lawyers, to request the summons of witnesses, to provide evidence in their defense, to give explanations, to interrogate witnesses, etc. Hundreds of witnesses were questioned in the courtroom and in the field, and thousands of documents were reviewed. The evidence also included books, articles and public speeches of Nazi leaders, photographs,, newsreel.

The reliability and credibility of this base was beyond doubt.

All 403 sessions of the Tribunal were open. About 60 thousand passes were issued to the courtroom. The work of the Tribunal was widely covered by the press, and there was a live radio broadcast. “Immediately after the war, people were skeptical about the Nuremberg trials (meaning the Germans),” the deputy chairman of the Bavarian Supreme Court, Mr. Ewald Berschmidt, told me in the summer of 2005, giving an interview to the film crew who were then working on the film “Nuremberg Alarm.” - It was still a trial of the victors over the vanquished. The Germans expected revenge, but not necessarily the triumph of justice. However, the lessons of the process turned out to be different. The judges carefully considered all the circumstances of the case, they sought the truth. The perpetrators were sentenced to death. Whose guilt was less received different punishments. Some were even acquitted. Nuremberg trial became a precedent international law

. His main lesson was equality before the law for everyone - both generals and politicians.” September 30 - October 1, 1946 The Court of Peoples rendered its verdict. The accused were found guilty of grave crimes against peace and humanity. Twelve of them were sentenced by the tribunal to death penalty

by hanging. Others faced life sentences or long sentences in prison. Three were acquitted.

The main links of the state-political machine, brought by the fascists to a diabolical ideal, were declared criminal. However, the government, the High Command, the General Staff and the assault troops (SA), contrary to the opinion of Soviet representatives, were not recognized as such. A member of the International Military Tribunal from the USSR, I. T. Nikitchenko, did not agree with this withdrawal (except for the SA), as well as the acquittal of the three accused. He also assessed Hess' life sentence as lenient. The Soviet judge outlined his objections in a Dissenting Opinion. It was read out in court and forms part of the verdict.

But first, about the main thing. The Nuremberg trials acquired world-historical significance as the first and to this day the largest legal act of the United Nations. United in their rejection of violence against people and the state, the peoples of the world have proven that they can successfully resist universal evil and administer fair justice.

The bitter experience of World War II forced everyone to take a fresh look at many of the problems facing humanity and understand that every person on Earth is responsible for the present and the future. The fact that the Nuremberg trials took place suggests that state leaders do not dare ignore the firmly expressed will of the people and stoop to double standards.

It seemed that all countries had bright prospects for collective and peaceful solutions to problems for a bright future without wars and violence.

But, unfortunately, humanity too quickly forgets the lessons of the past. Soon after Winston Churchill's famous Fulton speech, despite convincing collective action at Nuremberg, the victorious powers were divided into military-political blocs, and the work of the United Nations was complicated by political confrontation. The shadow of the Cold War fell over the world for many decades.

Under these conditions, forces intensified who wanted to reconsider the results of the Second World War, to belittle and even nullify the leading role of the Soviet Union in the defeat of fascism, to equate Germany, the aggressor country, with the USSR, which waged a just war and saved the world at the cost of enormous sacrifices. from the horrors of Nazism. 26 million 600 thousand of our compatriots died in this bloody massacre. And more than half of them - 15 million 400 thousand - were civilians.

The main prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials from the USSR, Roman Rudenko, speaks at the Palace of Justice. November 20, 1945, Germany.

A lot of publications, films, and television programs have appeared that distort historical reality. In the “works” of former brave Nazis and numerous other authors, the leaders of the Third Reich are whitewashed, or even glorified, and Soviet military leaders are denigrated - without regard to the truth and the actual course of events. In their version, the Nuremberg trials and the prosecution of war criminals in general are just an act of revenge by the victors on the vanquished.

For example, Reichsführer SS Himmler, the chief of the most sinister punitive agencies, appears as a gentle nature, a supporter of animal protection, a loving father of the family, who hates obscenity towards women.

Who was this “tender” nature really? Here are Himmler’s words spoken publicly: “...How the Russians feel, how the Czechs feel, I don’t care at all.

Whether other peoples live in prosperity or die out of hunger, I am interested only insofar as we can use them as slaves for our culture, otherwise I don’t care at all. Whether 10 thousand Russian women will die from exhaustion during the construction of an anti-tank ditch or not, I am interested only insofar as this ditch must be built for Germany...”

This is more like the truth. This is the truth itself. The revelations fully correspond to the image of the creator of the SS - the most perfect and sophisticated repressive organization, the creator of the concentration camp system that horrifies people to this day.

There are warm colors even for Hitler. In the fantastic volume of “Hitler studies”, he is both a brave warrior of the First World War and an artistic nature - an artist, an expert on architecture, and a modest vegetarian, and an exemplary statesman.

There is a point of view that if the Fuhrer of the German people had ceased his activities in 1939 without starting the war, he would have gone down in history as the greatest politician in Germany, Europe, and the world!

But is there a force capable of freeing Hitler from responsibility for the aggressive, bloodiest and cruelest world massacre he unleashed? Of course, the positive role of the UN in the cause of post-war peace and cooperation is present, and it is absolutely indisputable.

We have to admit that the relapses of the past are echoing more and more often in many countries these days. We live in a turbulent and unstable world, becoming more fragile and vulnerable every year. The contradictions between developed and other countries are becoming more acute. Deep cracks have appeared along the borders of cultures and civilizations.

A new, large-scale evil has emerged - terrorism, which has quickly grown into an independent global force. It has many things in common with fascism, in particular, a deliberate disregard for international and domestic law, a complete disregard for morality and the value of human life. Unexpected, unpredictable attacks, cynicism and cruelty, mass casualties sow fear and horror in countries that seemed well protected from any threat.

In its most dangerous, international form, this phenomenon is directed against the entire civilization. Already today it poses a serious threat to the development of mankind. We need a new, firm, fair word in the fight against this evil, similar to what the International Military Tribunal said to German fascism 65 years ago.

The successful experience of countering aggression and terror during the Second World War is relevant to this day. Many approaches are applicable one to another, others need rethinking and development. However, you can draw your own conclusions. Time is a harsh judge. It is absolute. Being not determined by the actions of people, it does not forgive disrespectful attitude towards the verdicts that it has already rendered once, be it a specific person or entire nations and states. Unfortunately, the hands on its dial never show humanity the vector of movement, but, inexorably counting down the moments, time willingly writes fatal letters to those who try to be familiar with it.

Yes, sometimes the not so uncompromising mother history placed the implementation of the decisions of the Nuremberg Tribunal on the very weak shoulders of politicians. Therefore, it is not surprising that the brown hydra of fascism has again raised its head in many countries of the world, and the shamanistic apologists of terrorism are recruiting more and more proselytes into their ranks every day.

The activities of the International Military Tribunal are often called the “Nuremberg epilogue”. In relation to the executed leaders of the Third Reich and dissolved criminal organizations, this metaphor is completely justified. But evil, as we see, turned out to be more tenacious than many imagined then, in 1945-1946, in the euphoria Great Victory. No one today can claim that freedom and democracy have been established in the world completely and irrevocably.

In this regard, the question arises: how much and what efforts are required to make concrete conclusions from the experience of the Nuremberg trials that would be translated into good deeds and become a prologue to the creation of a world order without wars and violence, based on real non-interference in the internal affairs of other states and peoples, as well as respect for individual rights...

A.G. Zvyagintsev,

preface to the book “The Main Process of Humanity.
Report from the past. Addressing the Future"

A series of films dedicated to the Nuremberg trials:

Transfer from in English

Statement International Association prosecutors on occasion
70th anniversary of the creation of the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg

Today marks the 70th anniversary of the beginning of the work of the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg, established to try the main war criminals of the European Axis countries, the first meeting of which took place on November 20, 1945.

As a result of the coordinated work of a team of prosecutors from the four allied powers - the Soviet Union, Great Britain, the USA and France - charges were brought against 24 Nazi leaders, eighteen of whom were convicted on October 1, 1946, in accordance with the Charter.

The Nuremberg trials were a unique event in history. For the first time, state leaders were convicted of crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity. The "Court of Nations", as the Nuremberg Tribunal was called, severely condemned the Nazi regime, its institutions, officials

and their practice determined the vector of political and legal development for many years.

The work of the International Military Tribunal and the Nuremberg principles formulated at that time gave impetus to the development of international humanitarian and criminal law and contributed to the creation of other mechanisms of international criminal justice. The Nuremberg principles remain in demand in the modern globalized world, full of contradictions

and conflicts that impede peace and stability. The International Association of Prosecutors supports resolution A /RES /69/160 of December 18, 2014 of the UN General Assembly “Combating the glorification of Nazism, neo-Nazism and other practices that contribute to the escalation of modern forms calls on states take more effective measures in accordance with international human rights standards to combat manifestations of Nazism and extremist movements that pose a real threat to democratic values.

The International Association of Prosecutors calls on its members and other prosecutors around the world to take an active part in organizing and conducting national and international events dedicated to the celebration of the 70th anniversary of the creation of the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg.

(Published November 20, 2015 on the website of the International Association of Prosecutors www. iap-association. org ).

Statement

Coordinating Council of Prosecutors General

member states of the Commonwealth of Independent States

on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg

This year marks the 70th anniversary of the verdict of the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg, established to try the main war criminals of Nazi Germany.

On August 8, 1945, an Agreement was signed in London between the governments of the USSR, USA, Great Britain and France on the prosecution and punishment of the main war criminals of the European Axis countries, an integral part of which was the Charter of the International Military Tribunal. The first meeting of the Nuremberg Tribunal took place on November 20, 1945.

As a result of the coordinated work of prosecutors from the Soviet Union, Great Britain, the USA and France, on October 1, 1946, the majority of the accused were found guilty.

Soviet representatives, including employees of the USSR Prosecutor's Office, actively participated in the development of the Charter of the Nuremberg Tribunal, the preparation of the indictment and at all stages of the process.

The Nuremberg trials became the first experience in history of an international court condemning crimes of a national scale - the criminal acts of the ruling regime of Nazi Germany, its punitive institutions, and a number of senior political and military figures. He also gave a proper assessment of the criminal activities of Nazi collaborators.

The work of the International Military Tribunal serves not only a shining example triumph of international justice, but also a reminder of the inevitability of responsibility for crimes against peace and humanity.

“The Court of Nations,” as they called it Nuremberg Tribunal, had a significant impact on the subsequent political and legal development of mankind.

The principles he formulated gave impetus to the development of international humanitarian and criminal law, contributed to the creation of other mechanisms of international criminal justice and remain in demand in the modern globalized world, full of contradictions and conflicts.

Attempts being made in some countries to revise the results of the Second World War, dismantling monuments to Soviet soldiers, criminal prosecution of veterans of the Great War Patriotic War, rehabilitation and glorification of Nazi collaborators lead to the erosion of historical memory and pose a real threat of repetition of crimes against peace and humanity.

Coordination Council of Prosecutors General of the member states of the Commonwealth of Independent States:

Supports UN General Assembly resolution 70/139 of December 17, 2015 “Combating the glorification of Nazism, neo-Nazism and other practices that contribute to the escalation of contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance”, which, in particular, expresses concern regarding the glorification in any form of the Nazi movement and neo-Nazism, including through the construction of monuments, memorials and public demonstrations, noting that such practices insult the memory of the countless victims of the Second World War and harm Negative influence on children and young people, and calls on States to strengthen their capacity to combat racist and xenophobic crimes, fulfill their responsibility to hold perpetrators of such crimes accountable and combat impunity;

He considers the study of the historical legacy of the Nuremberg trials to be an important element of the professional and moral training of future generations of lawyers, including prosecutors.

(Published on September 7, 2016 on the website of the Coordination Council of Prosecutors General of the CIS member states www. ksgp-cis. ru ).

Not everyone who appeared before the tribunal received the same sentence. Of the 24 people, six were found guilty on all four counts. For example, Franz Papen, ambassador to Austria and then to Turkey, was released in the courtroom, although the Soviet side insisted on his guilt. In 1947, he received a sentence, which was later commuted. The Nazi criminal ended his years... in a castle, but far from a prison. And he continued to follow his party line, releasing “Memoirs politician Hitler's Germany. 1933–1947,” where he spoke about the correctness and logic of German policy in the 1930s: “I made many mistakes in my life and more than once came to false conclusions. However, I owe it to my own family to correct at least some of the most offensive distortions of reality. The facts, when examined impartially, paint a completely different picture. However, this is not my main task. At the end of a life that has spanned three generations, my greatest concern is to contribute to a greater understanding of Germany's role in the events of this period."

The initial list of accused included:

1. Hermann Wilhelm Goering, Reichsmarshal, Commander-in-Chief of the German Air Force.

2. Rudolf Hess, Hitler's deputy in charge of the Nazi Party.

3. Joachim von Ribbentrop, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Nazi Germany.

4. Robert Ley, head of the Labor Front.

5. Wilhelm Keitel, Chief of Staff of the Supreme High Command of the German Armed Forces.

6. Ernst Kaltenbrunner, head of the RSHA.

7. Alfred Rosenberg, one of the main ideologists of Nazism, Reich Minister for Eastern Affairs.

8. Hans Frank, head of the occupied Polish lands.

9. Wilhelm Frick, Reich Minister of the Interior.

10. Julius Streicher, Gauleiter, Chief Editor anti-Semitic newspaper "Sturmovik".

11. Hjalmar Schacht, Reich Minister of Economics before the war.

12. Walter Funk, Minister of Economics after Schacht.

13. Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach, head of the Friedrich Krupp concern.

14. Karl Doenitz, admiral of the fleet of the Third Reich.

15. Erich Raeder, Commander-in-Chief of the Navy.

16. Baldur von Schirach, head of the Hitler Youth, Gauleiter of Vienna.

17. Fritz Sauckel, head of the forced deportations to the Reich of labor from the occupied territories.

18. Alfred Jodl, Chief of Staff of the OKW Operations Command.

19. Franz von Papen, Chancellor of Germany before Hitler, then Ambassador to Austria and Turkey.

20. Arthur Seyss-Inquart, Chancellor of Austria, then Imperial Commissioner of occupied Holland.

21. Albert Speer, Reich Minister of Armaments.

22. Konstantin von Neurath, in the first years of Hitler's reign, Minister of Foreign Affairs, then governor of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.

23. Hans Fritsche, head of the press and broadcasting department at the Ministry of Propaganda.

Groups or organizations to which the defendants belonged were also charged.

The defendants were charged with planning, preparing, unleashing or waging a war of aggression in order to establish the world domination of German imperialism, i.e. in crimes against peace; in the killing and torture of prisoners of war and civilians of occupied countries, the deportation of civilians to Germany for forced labor, the killing of hostages, the looting of public and private property, the aimless destruction of cities and villages, in devastation not justified by military necessity, i.e. in war crimes; in extermination, enslavement, exile and other cruelties committed against the civilian population for political, racial or religious reasons, i.e. in crimes against humanity.

The question was also raised about recognizing such organizations as criminal fascist Germany, as the leadership of the National Socialist Party, the assault (SA) and security detachments of the National Socialist Party (SS), the security service (SD), the state secret police (Gestapo), the government cabinet and the general staff.

October 18, 1945 the indictment was received by the International Military Tribunal and handed to each of the accused in German a month before the start of the trial.

On November 25, 1945, after reading the indictment, Robert Ley committed suicide, and Gustav Krupp was declared terminally ill by the medical commission, and the case against him was dropped before trial.

The remaining accused were brought to trial.

In accordance with the London Agreement, the International Military Tribunal was formed on a parity basis from representatives of four countries. The British representative, Lord Geoffrey Lawrence, was appointed chief judge. From other countries, members of the tribunal were approved:

From the USSR: Deputy Chairman of the Supreme Court of the Soviet Union, Major General of Justice Iona Nikitchenko;

From the USA: former Attorney General Francis Biddle;

From France: Professor of Criminal Law Henri Donnedier de Vabres.

Each of the four countries sent its own chief prosecutors, their deputies and assistants to the trial:

From the USSR: Prosecutor General of the Ukrainian SSR Roman Rudenko;

From the USA: Member of the Federal Supreme Court Robert Jackson;

From UK: Hartley Shawcross;

For France: François de Menton, who was absent during the first days of the trial and was replaced by Charles Dubost, and then Champentier de Ribes was appointed instead of de Menton.

During the trial, 403 open court hearings were held, 116 witnesses were questioned, numerous written testimonies and documentary evidence were considered (mainly official documents of German ministries and departments, the General Staff, military concerns and banks).

Due to the unprecedented gravity of the crimes committed by the defendants, doubts arose whether democratic norms of legal proceedings would be observed in relation to them. For example, representatives of the prosecution from the UK and the USA proposed not to give the defendants last word. However, the French and Soviet sides insisted on the opposite.

The trial was tense not only because of the unusual nature of the tribunal itself and the charges brought against the defendants. The post-war aggravation of relations between the USSR and the West after Churchill’s famous Fulton speech also had an effect, and the defendants, sensing the current political situation, skillfully played for time and hoped to escape their well-deserved punishment. In such a difficult situation, the tough and professional actions of the Soviet prosecution played a key role. The film about concentration camps, shot by front-line cameramen, finally turned the tide of the process. The terrible pictures of Majdanek, Sachsenhausen, Auschwitz completely removed the doubts of the tribunal.

The International Military Tribunal sentenced:

To death by hanging: Goering, Ribbentrop, Keitel, Kaltenbrunner, Rosenberg, Frank, Frick, Streicher, Sauckel, Seyss-Inquart, Bormann (in absentia), Jodl (was posthumously acquitted during a review of the case by a Munich court in 1953).

To life imprisonment: Hess, Funk, Raeder.

To 20 years in prison: Schirach, Speer.

To 15 years in prison: Neurata.

To 10 years in prison: Denitsa.

Acquitted: Fritsche, Papen, Schacht.

The Tribunal recognized the SS, SD, SA, Gestapo and the leadership of the Nazi Party as criminal organizations and did not recognize the government cabinet of Nazi Germany, the General Staff and the High Command of the Wehrmacht as criminal. A member of the Tribunal from the USSR stated in a dissenting opinion his disagreement with the decision not to recognize these organizations as criminal, with the acquittal of Shakht, Papen, Fritzsche and the undeservedly lenient sentence for Hess.

(Military Encyclopedia. Chairman of the Main Editorial Commission S.B. Ivanov. Military Publishing House. Moscow. in 8 volumes - 2004)

Most of the convicts filed petitions for clemency; Raeder - on replacing life imprisonment with the death penalty; Goering, Jodl and Keitel - about replacing hanging with shooting if the request for clemency is not granted. All of these requests were rejected.

Death sentences were carried out on the night of October 16, 1946 in the building of the Nuremberg prison. Goering poisoned himself in prison shortly before his execution.

The sentence was carried out by American Sergeant John Wood.

Funk and Raeder, sentenced to life imprisonment, were pardoned in 1957. After Speer and Schirach were released in 1966, only Hess remained in prison. The right-wing forces of Germany repeatedly demanded to pardon him, but the victorious powers refused to commute the sentence. On August 17, 1987, Hess was found hanged in his cell.

The Nuremberg Tribunal, having created a precedent for the jurisdiction of senior government officials by an international court, refuted the medieval principle “Kings are subject to the jurisdiction only of God.” It was with the Nuremberg trials that the history of international criminal law began.

The principles of international law contained in the Charter of the Tribunal and expressed in the verdict were confirmed by the resolution of the UN General Assembly of December 11, 1946.

The Nuremberg trials legally secured the final defeat of fascism.

The material was prepared based on information from open sources

MOSCOW, November 20. /TASS/. November 20, 2015 marks the 70th anniversary of the opening of the Nuremberg trials, which tried the case of the main Nazi criminals responsible for unleashing the Second World War. This was the first experience in history of condemning crimes of a national scale - the ruling regime, its punitive institutions, senior political and military figures.

For the first time, war criminals failed to evade responsibility, citing the need to carry out orders from above.

The Nuremberg trial is the only one of its kind in the history of world jurisprudence; it has the greatest social significance for millions of people around the globe

Geoffrey Lawrence

chairman of the tribunal

24 government and military leaders of Nazi Germany were put on trial. Cases against the leader of the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP) Adolf Hitler and representatives of the Fuhrer's inner circle - Joseph Goebbels (Minister of Education and Propaganda) and Heinrich Himmler (Minister of the Interior and head of the SS) were not initiated, since they committed suicide yet before the process starts.

The issue of recognizing as criminal was also brought up for consideration by the tribunal:

• SS (Schutzstaffel, security detachments, paramilitary forces of the NSDAP),
• SA (Sturmabteilung, assault troops),
• SD (Sicherheitsdienst, security service),
• Gestapo (Gestapo, Geheime Staatspolizei, secret state police),

as well as the government, the leadership of the NSDAP, the General Staff and the High Command of the German Armed Forces.

How the tribunal was created

The issue of punishing Nazi criminals was raised by the leaders of the USSR, Great Britain and the USA even before the end of World War II.

It was emphasized that Nazi officers and soldiers who committed “atrocities, murders and mass executions” on the territory of the occupied countries, after the end of the war, would be sent “to the places of their crimes and will be judged by the peoples against whom they committed violence.”

The agreement on the establishment of the International Military Tribunal was concluded by the governments of the USSR, USA, Great Britain and France on August 8, 1945 in London.

Tribunal Charter

On the same day, the tribunal's charter was adopted. His first article noted that the goal of the Nuremberg trials was “a speedy and fair trial and punishment of the main war criminals of the Axis countries.”

Article 6 of the statute classified three main groups of crimes:

crimes against peace (unleashing a war of aggression);

war crimes (violations of the laws and customs of warfare recorded in various international documents, including the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907);

crimes against humanity (murder of civilians, racism, genocide, etc.).

The defendants were accused of these crimes, as well as “participation in the creation and implementation general plan to accomplish them."

Article 27 provided for "the death penalty or such other punishment as the tribunal considers just."

To find the defendant guilty and determine his punishment, the votes of at least three members of the tribunal were required.

It is believed that the process marked the beginning of the formation and development of a new direction of jurisprudence - international criminal law and justice.

Who entered the tribunal

To make judicial decisions, each of the four parties appointed one member and one alternate to the tribunal:

• USSR- Chairman of the Supreme Court of the USSR, Major General of Justice Ion Nikitchenko and Colonel of Justice Alexander Volchkov;
• USA- former prosecutor general of the country Francis Biddle and judge John Parker;
• Great Britain- Chief Justice Geoffrey Lawrence and Justice Norman Birket;
• France- Professor of Criminal Law Henri Donnedier de Vabres and Judge Robert Falco.

An indictment committee was also established, to which each of the four governments appointed a chief prosecutor:

• USSR- Prosecutor of the Ukrainian SSR Roman Rudenko;
• USA- US Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson;
• Great Britain- lawyer Hartley Shawcross;
• France - law professor François de Menton, but during the trial he was replaced by lawyers Charles Dubost and Champetier de Ribes.

Other prosecutors also took part in the trial.

Continuation

"Youtube/moymoymoyification"s channel"

Press about the tribunal

Media representatives from 31 countries attended the trial. In the USSR, the press reported daily on what was happening in Nuremberg. TASS information was supplemented by reports from journalists present at the meetings, including famous writers– Leonid Leonov, Ilya Erenburg, Boris Polevoy and documentary filmmaker Roman Karmen.

Today at 10 a.m. local time (12 p.m. Moscow time) a meeting of the International Military Tribunal took place. For many years in a row, the Nazis held their congresses in Nuremberg, where they outlined aggressive plans to enslave the world, where, to the beat of drums and the sounds of fanfare, the Nazis boasted of their victories and proclaimed a “new order” in Europe

TASS correspondent

Before the opening of the meeting, the hall was filled with:

"There are 20 main German war criminals in the dock. Four defendants are missing. There is no Martin Bormann, Hitler's deputy for the leadership of the Hitler party. He cowardly fled after heart-rendingly calling German army and the German people fight to the last drop of blood. Defendant Robert Ley hanged himself in prison without waiting for trial. The defendant Gustav Krupp von Bohlen lies in Salzburg, paralyzed, and, according to experts, cannot stand trial. Defendant Kaltenbrunner, a famous executioner and one of the leaders of the Gestapo, suddenly fell ill. But the court announced its decision to examine his case in his absence,” TASS reported.

It's like we're in the devil's kitchen right now. What we learn deserves such a name. Thanks to the documents brought by the prosecution, we see how a bunch of international robbers, intoxicated by their bloody successes in Western Europe, completely cold-bloodedly planned not only the dismemberment of our Motherland, not only the robbery of its peoples, but also their physical extermination

Boris Polevoy

During the trial, a film was shown about the crimes of the Nazis in the concentration camps of Majdanek, Sachsenhausen, Auschwitz, as well as in the occupied territories of the USSR. This moment, which was called the confrontation between executioners and victims, is considered the culmination of the Nuremberg trials.

When they showed a film about the camps, Schacht turned his back to the screen - he didn’t want to watch; others looked on, and Frank cried and wiped his eyes with a handkerchief. It sounds implausible, but I saw it: Frank, the same one who wrote that in Poland when he arrived there there were three and a half million Jews, and in 1944 of them a hundred thousand remained, sobbed when he saw on the screen what which I have seen a million times in reality; maybe he cried over himself - he realized what awaited him

Ilya Erenburg

12 death sentences

The process lasted 11 months.

During this time, 403 open court hearings took place. A total of 360 witnesses were questioned and about 200 thousand written testimonies were reviewed.

Most were found guilty on all charges or partially. None of them admitted their guilt.

The tribunal sentenced twelve defendants to death, and another nine to prison terms, including life sentences. Three were acquitted.

The following were sentenced to death by hanging:

• Hermann Goering ("successor of the Fuhrer", President of the Reichstag, Commander-in-Chief air force);
• Wilhelm Keitel (Chief of Staff of the Wehrmacht High Command);
• Joachim von Ribbentrop (Foreign Minister);
• Hans Frank (Governor General of occupied Poland);
• Wilhelm Frick (one of the leaders of the NSDAP);
• Alfred Jodl (Chief of Operations of the German High Command);
• Ernst Kaltenbrunner (Head of the Main Office of Reich Security);
• Alfred Rosenberg (one of the main ideologists of Nazism);
• Fritz Sauckel (led the forced deportations of the population from the occupied territories);
• Arthur Seyss-Inquart (German Commissioner in the occupied Netherlands);
• Julius Streicher (one of the ideologists of Nazism);
• Martin Bormann (head of the Nazi Party chancellery; convicted in absentia because his whereabouts were unknown; in 1973, a German court officially declared him dead).

Life imprisonment received:

• Rudolf Hess (one of Hitler's closest associates, committed suicide in Berlin Spandau prison in 1987);
• Erich Raeder (Commander-in-Chief naval forces, was released in 1955 for health reasons);
• Walter Funk (Minister of Economics, released in 1957 for health reasons).

Sentenced to 20 years in prison:

• Baldur von Schirach (one of the leaders of the NSDAP);
• Albert Speer (Minister of Armaments).

Konstantin von Neurath (one of the leaders of the SS) was sentenced to 15 years in prison, and Karl Doenitz (Hitler's successor as head of state) was sentenced to 10 years.

The leadership of the Nazi Party, SS, SD and Gestapo were declared criminal organizations.

The SA (assault troopers), the government of Nazi Germany, the general staff and the high command of the German armed forces were not recognized as criminal.

Acquitted

Acquittals were made against diplomat Franz von Papen, financier Helmar Schacht and head of the internal propaganda department of the German Ministry of Education and Propaganda Hans Fritsche.

The representative of the USSR at the tribunal, Iona Nikitchenko, issued a statement in which he expressed disagreement with the acquittals.

Continuation

Subsequently, materials from the Nuremberg trials were used during trials against fascist criminals in other countries. In particular, on their basis, a prominent figure of the NSDAP, Erich Koch (1959, Poland; the execution was later commuted to life imprisonment) and one of the Gestapo leaders responsible for the extermination of Jews, Adolf Eichmann (1961, Israel) were sentenced to death. .

Execution of the sentence

On the night of October 16, 1946, death sentences were carried out in the building of the Nuremberg prison (Herman Goering took potassium cyanide 2.5 hours before his execution).

The bodies of the war criminals were burned in a crematorium in Munich, and the ashes were scattered from the plane.

Journalists were present at the execution of the sentence - two people from each of the four Allied powers.

2015 is the year of the 70th anniversary of the Nuremberg trials. It took place in the city of Nuremberg (Germany) from November 20, 1945 to October 1, 1946 at the International Military Tribunal.

The first trial of the main war criminals was held in Nuremberg because for many years this city was a stronghold and symbol of fascism. It hosted congresses of the National Socialist Party and parades of assault troops. There were other reasons for this, including purely technical ones.

International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg - the first in history international Court. Its result was the recognition of Hitler's aggression as a grave criminal offense, the condemnation of crimes of a national scale, the ruling regime of Hitler, his punitive institutions, and the highest political and military figures of Nazi Germany. It is often called the “Court of History”.

It was one of the largest trials in human history. He played important role in the development of international law in general and the development of relations between states around the World after the Second World War.

This historic trial legally secured the final defeat of fascism and went down in history as an anti-fascist trial. The essence of fascism, its ideology, especially racism, which is the ideological basis for the preparation and unleashing of aggressive wars and mass extermination of people. The trial clearly and convincingly demonstrated the danger of the revival of fascism for the destinies of the whole world.

Second World War brought enormous material and human losses to humanity. 26 million 600 thousand of our compatriots died in this bloody massacre. And more than half of them - 15 million 400 thousand - were civilians. It is impossible to accept the atrocities of the fascists calmly and remain indifferent to them. The world has never seen such cruelty in human-to-human relations. Mass plunder of vast territories, mass executions, the creation of “death factories”, torture, experiments on people, the destruction of entire nations, inhumane treatment of prisoners of war... All these are crimes, a long list of which can be listed endlessly.

Long before the end of World War II, representatives of the Allied governments repeatedly spoke out about the need to bring to justice and punish the war criminals who started the war, began mass terror and murder, and proclaimed the ideas of racial superiority and genocide. This idea about the responsibility of the Nazis for their monstrous crimes against peace and humanity was reflected in many international documents.

In particular, the demand for the creation of an International Military Tribunal was contained in the statement of the Soviet government dated October 14, 1942 “On the responsibility of the Nazi invaders and their accomplices for the atrocities they committed in the occupied countries of Europe.”

The agreement on the creation of the International Military Tribunal and its charter were developed by the USSR, USA, Great Britain and France during the London Conference, held from June 26 to August 8, 1945. The jointly developed document reflected the agreed position of all 23 countries participating in the conference; the principles of the charter were approved by the UN General Assembly as generally recognized in the fight against crimes against humanity.

The Nuremberg trials had specific features previously unknown to judicial practice. This is explained by the fact that the commission of monstrous atrocities by the fascists and Nazis was public knowledge and required appropriate legal qualifications and condemnation.

Thus, the charter stated that groups and organizations could be the subjects of prosecution; judges had the right to independently determine the course of the process. Another innovation was that the court was the court of final instance, its main goal It was necessary to specify and qualify the degree of guilt of the accused - the main war criminals, hence the name - a military tribunal.

The first list of accused, which was agreed on August 8, 1945 in London, did not include Hitler, his closest subordinates Himmler and Goebbels, because. at that time their death was reliably established.

At the same time, Bormann, who was allegedly killed on the streets of Berlin, was on the list and accused in absentia.

In total, 24 war criminals who were members of the top leadership of Nazi Germany stood trial.

The initial list of accused included:

1. Hermann Wilhelm Goering (German: Hermann Wilhelm Göring), Reichsmarshal, Commander-in-Chief of the German Air Force
2. Rudolf Hess (German: Rudolf Heß), Hitler's deputy for leadership of the Nazi Party.
3. Joachim von Ribbentrop (German: Ullrich Friedrich Willy Joachim von Ribbentrop), Minister of Foreign Affairs of Nazi Germany.
4. Robert Ley (German: Robert Ley), head of the Labor Front
5. Wilhelm Keitel (German: Wilhelm Keitel), Chief of Staff of the Supreme High Command of the German Armed Forces.
6. Ernst Kaltenbrunner (German: Ernst Kaltenbrunner), head of the RSHA.
7. Alfred Rosenberg (German: Alfred Rosenberg), one of the main ideologists of Nazism, Reich Minister for Eastern Territories.
8. Hans Frank (German: Dr. Hans Frank), head of the occupied Polish lands.
9. Wilhelm Frick (German: Wilhelm Frick), Reich Minister of the Interior.
10. Julius Streicher (German: Julius Streicher), Gauleiter, editor-in-chief of the anti-Semitic newspaper "Stormtrooper" (German: Der Stürmer - Der Sturmer).
11. Hjalmar Schacht, Reich Minister of Economics before the war.
12. Walter Funk (German: Walther Funk), Minister of Economics after Schacht.
13. Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach (German: Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach), head of the Friedrich Krupp concern.
14. Karl Doenitz (German: Karl Dönitz), admiral of the fleet of the Third Reich.
15. Erich Raeder (German: Erich Raeder), Commander-in-Chief of the Navy.
16. Baldur von Schirach (German: Baldur Benedikt von Schirach), head of the Hitler Youth, Gauleiter of Vienna.
17. Fritz Sauckel (German: Fritz Sauckel), head of forced deportations to the Reich of labor from occupied territories.
18. Alfred Jodl (German: Alfred Jodl), Chief of Staff of the OKW Operations Command
19. Franz von Papen (German: Franz Joseph Hermann Michael Maria von Papen), Chancellor of Germany before Hitler, then ambassador to Austria and Turkey.
20. Arthur Seyß-Inquart (German: Dr. Arthur Seyß-Inquart), Chancellor of Austria, then Imperial Commissioner of occupied Holland.
21. Albert Speer (German: Albert Speer), Reich Minister of Armaments.
22. Konstantin von Neurath (German: Konstantin Freiherr von Neurath), in the first years of Hitler's reign, Minister of Foreign Affairs, then governor of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.
23. Hans Fritzsche (German: Hans Fritzsche), head of the press and broadcasting department at the Ministry of Propaganda.

Groups or organizations to which the defendants belonged were also charged.

They were accused of unleashing an aggressive war in order to establish the world domination of German imperialism, that is, of crimes against peace, of killing and torturing prisoners of war and civilians of occupied countries, of deporting civilians to Germany for forced labor, of killing hostages, of robbing public and private property, the aimless destruction of cities and villages, countless devastations not justified by military necessity, that is, war crimes, extermination, enslavement, exile committed against the civilian population for political, racial or religious reasons, that is, crimes against humanity.

The International Military Tribunal was formed on a parity basis from representatives of the four powers in accordance with the London Agreement:

From the USSR: Deputy Chairman of the Supreme Court of the Soviet Union, Major General of Justice I. T. Nikitchenko; Colonel of Justice A.F. Volchkov;

From the USA: former Attorney General F. Biddle; John Parker (English);

For the UK: Chief Justice Geoffrey Lawrence; Norman Birket (English);

From France: Professor of Criminal Law Henri Donnedier de Vabre (English); Robert Falco (German).

From each country, the main prosecutors, their deputies and assistants were sent to the trial.

The main accusers were:

From the USSR - Prosecutor of the Ukrainian SSR Roman Andreevich Rudenko (deputy: Yu.V. Pokrovsky, assistants: N.D. Zorya, D.S. Karev, L.N. Smirnov, L.R. Sheinin);

From the USA - member of the federal Supreme Court Robert Jackson;

From Great Britain - Attorney General and Member of the House of Commons Hartley Shawcross;

From France - Minister of Justice Francois de Menton, who was then replaced by Champetier de Ribes.

The main prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials from the USSR, Roman Rudenko, speaks at the Palace of Justice. November 20, 1945, Germany.

On October 18, 1945, the International Military Tribunal accepted the indictment signed by the main prosecutors from the USSR, USA, Great Britain and France, which on the same day, that is, more than a month before the start of the trial, was handed over to all defendants in order to give them the opportunity in advance prepare for defense.

Thus, in the interests of a fair trial, a course was taken from the very beginning towards the strictest respect for the rights of the defendants.

Thus, the defendants were given ample opportunity for defense; they all had German lawyers (some even two), and enjoyed rights that were deprived of those accused not only in the courts of Nazi Germany, but also in many Western countries. The prosecutors provided the defense with copies of all documentary evidence in German, assisted the lawyers in searching for and obtaining documents, and delivering witnesses that the defense wanted to call.

Thus, despite the crimes committed by the defendants against humanity and peace, the basic principles of criminal proceedings were observed, namely:

Legality;

Administration of justice only by the court; equality of all participants trial before the law and court;

The independence of judges and their subordination only to the law;

Ensuring proof of guilt; competitiveness of the parties and freedom to present their evidence to the court and to prove their credibility to the court;

Support of the state prosecution in court by the prosecutor;

Providing the accused with the right to defense; publicity of the trial and its full recording by technical means;

Bindingness of the court verdict; inevitability of punishment.

It should be especially noted that the Nuremberg trial was a public trial in the broadest sense of the word.

Of the 403 court hearings, not a single one was closed. More than 60 thousand passes were issued to the courtroom, some of them were received by the Germans. Everything that was said at the trial was carefully recorded in shorthand. The process was conducted simultaneously in four languages, including German. The press and radio were represented by about 250 correspondents who transmitted reports about the progress of the process to all countries.

In the speeches of the prosecutors, along with an analysis of the facts, the legal problems of the trial were analyzed, the jurisdiction of the Tribunal was justified, a legal analysis of the elements of the crime was given, and the unfounded arguments of the defendants' defenders were refuted.

The Nuremberg trials were exceptional in terms of the impeccability and strength of the prosecution's evidence. The evidence included the testimony of numerous witnesses, including former prisoners of Auschwitz, Dachau and other Nazi concentration camps - eyewitnesses of fascist atrocities, as well as material evidence and documentaries.

Of course, the decisive role belonged to official documents, signed by those who were put in the dock.

In total, 116 witnesses were heard in court, of which in individual cases 33 were called by prosecutors and 61 by defense attorneys, and more than 4 thousand documentary evidence was presented.

At the same time, the accused behaved boldly and brazenly, skillfully playing for time, hoping that the post-war aggravation of relations between the USSR and the West and rumors about the impending danger of a coming war would put an end to the trial.

The court hearings were tense. In such a difficult situation, the tough and professional actions of the Soviet prosecution played a key role. The film about concentration camps, shot by front-line cameramen, finally turned the tide of the process. The terrible pictures of Majdanek, Sachsenhausen, Auschwitz completely removed the doubts of the tribunal.

In his final speech, delivered on July 29 - 30, the Chief Prosecutor from the USSR R.A. Rudenko, summing up the results of the judicial investigation against the main war criminals, noted that “the Court is judging, created by peace-loving and freedom-loving countries, expressing the will and protecting the interests of all progressive humanity, which does not want a repetition of disasters, which will not allow a gang of criminals to prepare enslavement with impunity nations and the extermination of people... Humanity calls criminals to account, and on its behalf we, the prosecutors, blame in this process. And how pathetic are the attempts to challenge the right of humanity to judge the enemies of humanity, how untenable are the attempts to deprive peoples of the right to punish those who made the enslavement and extermination of peoples their goal and carried out this criminal goal for many years in a row through criminal means.”

The International Military Tribunal sentenced:

To death by hanging: Goering, Ribbentrop, Keitel, Kaltenbrunner, Rosenberg, Frank, Frick, Streicher, Sauckel, Seyss-Inquart, Bormann (in absentia), Jodl (was posthumously acquitted during a review of the case by a Munich court in 1953);

To life imprisonment: Hess, Funk, Raeder;

To 20 years in prison: Schirach, Speer;

To 15 years in prison: Neurata;

To 10 years in prison: Denitsa;

Acquitted: Fritsche, Papen, Schacht.

The Tribunal recognized the organizations of German fascism as criminal - the SS, SA, Gestapo, SD, as well as the leadership of the National Socialist Party.

The Nuremberg trials became a precedent for international law. One of his main achievements was the implementation of the principle of equality before the law for all and the inevitability of punishment.

Today we are seeing a picture of fascism being revived again. Under these conditions, those who want to rethink the results of the Great Victory in their own way, level out the leading role of the Soviet Union in the defeat of fascism, and equate Germany, the USSR and the aggressor country are becoming more active.

Against this background, a lot of different publications, films, and television programs appear that distort historical facts and events.

IN public speaking Many extremists, and a number of politicians, glorify the leaders of the Third Reich and their accomplices; on the contrary, Soviet military leaders are denigrated. In their interpretation, the Nuremberg trials are just an act of revenge by the victors on the vanquished. At the same time, they characterize famous fascists as ordinary and rather nice people, and not executioners and sadists.

However, it should be emphasized that the verdict of the Nuremberg trials entered into legal force, no one challenged it or canceled it, and attempts by individual radical forces to interpret it in their own way do not have any legal basis, or moral right in general.

Distortion of historical truth, denigration of the Soviet past, fascism of ideology elevated to the rank of state ideology in a number of former Soviet republics leads to manifestations of racism and nationalism in the most extreme and extremist forms. And we need to fight this.

Our main task is to try to prevent this “reinterpretation”, preserve reliable information about it and pass it on from generation to generation unchanged.

The interests of caring for the Great Victory, for the memory of those who gave their lives in the name of getting rid of fascism, are incompatible with the facts of falsification of the history of the war, with the facts of desecration of monuments to liberating soldiers, with facts when discord is artificially instilled among fraternal peoples who fought together against fascism.

From the indictment speech of the chief prosecutor from the USSR R.A. Rudenko:

Gentlemen Judges! To carry out the atrocities they had planned, the leaders of the fascist conspiracy created a system of criminal organizations, to which my speech was devoted. Now those who set out to establish domination over the world and exterminate nations are awaiting the coming verdict with trepidation. This sentence should reach not only the authors of bloody fascist “ideas”, the main organizers of the crimes of Hitlerism, who were put in the dock. Your verdict must condemn the entire criminal system of German fascism, that complex, widely branched network of party, government, SS, and military organizations that directly carried out the villainous plans of the main conspirators. On the battlefields, humanity has already pronounced its verdict on criminal German fascism. In the fire of the greatest heroic battles in the history of mankind Soviet Army and the valiant troops of the Allies not only defeated Hitler’s hordes, but also established high and noble principles international cooperation, human morality, humane rules of human coexistence. The prosecution fulfilled its duty to the high court, to the blessed memory of the innocent victims, to the conscience of the people, to its own conscience. May the judgment of the peoples be carried out on the fascist executioners - fair and severe.

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