Twenty-four high-ranking Nazis went on trial in Nuremberg, Germany, for atrocities committed during World War Two. Conducted by an international tribunal made up of representatives from the United States, the Soviet Union, France, and Great Britain. the Nuremberg Trials were the first of its kind in history, and the defendants faced charges ranging from crimes against peace, to war crimes, to crimes against humanity. Lord Justice Geoffrey Lawrence, the British member, presided over the proceedings, which lasted ten months and consisted of over two hundred court sessions.
On 1 October 1946, twelve architects of Nazi policy were sentenced to death. Seven others were sentenced to prison terms ranging from ten years to life, and three were acquitted. Of the original two dozen defendants, one, Robert Ley, committed suicide while in prison, and another, Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach, was deemed mentally and physically incompetent to stand trial. Among those condemned to death by hanging were Joachim von Ribbentrop, the Nazi minister of foreign affairs; Hermann Goering (photo), leader of the Gestapo and the Luftwaffe; Alfred Jodl, head of the German general staff; and Wilhelm Frick, minister of the interior.
On 16 October, ten of the architects of Nazi policy were hanged. Goering, who, at sentencing, was called the “leading war aggressor and creator of the oppressive program against the Jews,” committed suicide by poison on the eve of his scheduled execution. Nazi Party leader Martin Bormann was condemned to death in absentia, but is now believed to have died in May of 1945. Trials of lesser German and Axis war criminals continued in Germany into the 1950s, and resulted in the conviction of over five thousand other defendants and the execution of over eight hundred.
Rico says they barely got what they deserved...
History.com has this for 20 November:
No comments:
Post a Comment