The Nuremberg trials, its significance for history and the entire world community. Soviet Nuremberg

Faces of Nazism: convicts (58 photos + text)

The international trial of the former leaders of Nazi Germany took place from November 20, 1945 to October 1, 1946 at the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg (Germany). The initial list of defendants included the Nazis in the same order as I have listed in this post. On October 18, 1945, the indictment was handed over to the International Military Tribunal and, through its secretariat, transmitted to each of the accused. A month before the start of the trial, each of them was handed an indictment for German. The accused were asked to write on it their attitude towards the accusation. Roeder and Ley didn't write anything (Ley's response was actually his suicide shortly after the charges were filed), but the rest wrote what I wrote in the line: "Last word."

Even before the start of the trial, after reading the indictment, on November 25, 1945, Robert Ley committed suicide in his cell. Gustav Krupp was recognized medical commission terminally ill, and the case was dismissed pending trial.

Due to the unprecedented gravity of the crimes committed by the defendants, doubts arose whether all democratic norms of legal proceedings would be observed in relation to them. The prosecution in England and the United States proposed not to give the defendants the last word, but the French and Soviet sides insisted on the opposite. These words, which have entered into eternity, I present to you now.

List of accused.

Hermann Wilhelm Goering(German: Hermann Wilhelm Goring),

Reichsmarschall, Commander-in-Chief of the German Air Force. He was the most important defendant. Sentenced to death penalty by hanging. 2 hours before the execution of the sentence, he poisoned himself with potassium cyanide, which was given to him with the assistance of E. von der Bach-Zelewski.

Hitler publicly declared Goering guilty of failing to organize the country's air defense. On April 23, 1945, based on the Law of June 29, 1941, Goering, after a meeting with G. Lammers, F. Bowler, K. Koscher and others, addressed Hitler on the radio, asking for his consent for him - Goering - to assume the functions of head of government . Goering announced that if he did not receive an answer by 22 o'clock, he would consider it an agreement. On the same day, Goering received an order from Hitler prohibiting him from taking the initiative; at the same time, by order of Martin Bormann, Goering was arrested by an SS detachment on charges of treason. Two days later, Goering was replaced as Commander-in-Chief of the Luftwaffe by Field Marshal R. von Greim and stripped of his titles and awards. In his Political Testament, Hitler expelled Goering from the NSDAP on April 29 and officially named Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz as his successor in his place. On the same day he was transferred to a castle near Berchtesgaden. On May 5, the SS detachment handed over Goering's guard to Luftwaffe units, and Goering was immediately released. Arrested on May 8 American troops in Berchtesgaden.

The last word: "The winner is always the judge, and the loser is the accused!".
In his suicide note Goering wrote: Reichsmarshals are not hanged, they leave on their own".

Rudolf Hess(German: Rudolf He?), Hitler's deputy for leadership of the Nazi Party.

During the trial, lawyers declared his insanity, although Hess gave generally adequate testimony. He was sentenced to life imprisonment. The Soviet judge, who expressed a dissenting opinion, insisted on the death penalty. He served a life sentence in Berlin in Spandau prison. After the release of A. Speer in 1965, he remained its only prisoner. Until the end of his days he was devoted to Hitler.

In 1986, for the first time during Hess’ imprisonment, the USSR government considered the possibility of his release on humanitarian grounds. In the fall of 1987, during the period of the Soviet Union's presidency of the Spandau International Prison, it was planned to make a decision on his release, " showing mercy and demonstrating the humanity of the new course"Gorbachev.

On August 17, 1987, 93-year-old Hess was found dead with a wire around his neck. He left behind a testamentary note, handed to his relatives a month later and written on the back of a letter from his relatives:

"A request to the directors to send this home. Written a few minutes before my death. I thank you all, my beloved, for all the dear things you have done for me. Tell Freiburg that I am extremely sorry that since the Nuremberg trial I must was to act as if I did not know her. I had no choice, since otherwise all attempts to gain freedom would have been in vain. I was so looking forward to meeting her. I actually received photos of her and all of you. Your Eldest."

The last word: "I don't regret anything".

Joachim von Ribbentrop(German: Ullrich Friedrich Willy Joachim von Ribbentrop), Minister of Foreign Affairs Nazi Germany. Adviser to Adolf Hitler on foreign policy.

He met Hitler at the end of 1932, when he provided him with his villa for secret negotiations with von Papen. Hitler so impressed Ribbentrop with his refined manners at the table that he soon joined first the NSDAP, and later the SS. On May 30, 1933, Ribbentrop was awarded the title of SS Standartenführer, and Himmler became a frequent guest at his villa.

Hanged by the verdict of the Nuremberg Tribunal. It was he who signed the non-aggression pact between Germany and the Soviet Union, which Nazi Germany violated with incredible ease.

The last word: "The wrong people have been charged".

Robert Ley (German: Robert Ley), head of the Labor Front, by order of which all trade union leaders of the Reich were arrested. Charges were brought against him on three counts - conspiracy to wage aggressive war, war crimes and crimes against humanity. Committed suicide in prison shortly after the indictment was presented before the start of the trial itself, by hanging himself sewer pipe using a towel.

The last word: refused.

(Keitel signs the act of unconditional surrender of Germany)

Wilhelm Keitel(German: Wilhelm Keitel), Chief of Staff of the Supreme High Command of the German Armed Forces. It was he who signed the act of surrender of Germany, which ended the Great Patriotic War and the Second World War in Europe. However, Keitel advised Hitler not to attack France and opposed Plan Barbarossa. Both times he submitted his resignation, but Hitler did not accept it. In 1942 Keitel last time dared to object to the Fuhrer, speaking out in defense of Field Marshal List, defeated on the Eastern Front. The tribunal rejected Keitel's excuse that he was merely following Hitler's orders and found him guilty on all charges. The sentence was carried out on October 16, 1946.

The last word: "An order for a soldier is always an order!"

Ernst Kaltenbrunner(German: Ernst Kaltenbrunner), head of the RSHA - Main Directorate of Reich Security of the SS and State Secretary of the Reich Ministry of the Interior of Germany. For numerous crimes against civilians and prisoners of war, the court sentenced him to death by hanging. On October 16, 1946, the sentence was carried out.

The last word: "I am not responsible for war crimes, I was only fulfilling my duty as the head of the intelligence agencies, and I refuse to serve as some kind of ersatz Himmler".

(on right)

Alfred Rosenberg(German: Alfred Rosenberg), one of the most influential members of the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP), one of the main ideologists of Nazism, Reich Minister for Eastern Territories. Sentenced to death by hanging. Rosenberg was the only one of the 10 executed who refused to say the last word on the scaffold.

Last word in court: "I reject the "conspiracy" charge. Anti-Semitism was only a necessary defensive measure".

(in the center)

Hans Frank(German: Dr. Hans Frank), head of the occupied Polish lands. On October 12, 1939, immediately after the occupation of Poland, Hitler appointed him head of the Office of Population Affairs of the Polish Occupied Territories, and then Governor-General of Occupied Poland. Organized the mass extermination of the civilian population of Poland. Sentenced to death by hanging. The sentence was carried out on October 16, 1946.

The last word: "I view this trial as the highest court pleasing to God, designed to understand the terrible period of Hitler's reign and bring it to an end.".

Wilhelm Frick(German: Wilhelm Frick), Reich Minister of the Interior, Reichsleiter, head of the NSDAP parliamentary group in the Reichstag, lawyer, one of Hitler’s closest friends in the early years of the struggle for power.

The International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg held Frick responsible for bringing Germany under Nazi rule. He was accused of drafting, signing and implementing a number of laws prohibiting political parties and trade unions, in creating the concentration camp system, in encouraging the activities of the Gestapo, in the persecution of Jews and the militarization of the German economy. He was found guilty on counts of crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity. On October 16, 1946, Frick was hanged.

The last word: "The entire charge is based on an allegation of conspiracy.".

Julius Streicher(German: Julius Streicher), Gauleiter, editor-in-chief of the newspaper "Sturmovik" (German: Der Sturmer - Der Sturmer).

He was charged with inciting the murder of Jews, which fell under Charge 4 of the trial - crimes against humanity. In response, Streicher called the trial "a triumph of world Jewry." According to the test results, his IQ was the lowest of all the defendants. During the examination, Streicher once again told psychiatrists about his anti-Semitic beliefs, but he was declared sane and capable of taking responsibility for his actions, although obsessed with an obsession. He believed that the prosecutors and judges were Jews and did not try to repent of what he had done. According to the psychologists who conducted the examination, his fanatical anti-Semitism was more likely the product of a sick psyche, but overall he made an impression adequate person. His authority among the other accused was extremely low, many of them openly shunned such an odious and fanatical figure like him. Hanged by the Nuremberg Tribunal for anti-Semitic propaganda and calls for genocide.

The last word: "This process is the triumph of world Jewry".

Yalmar Shakht(German: Hjalmar Schacht), Reich Minister of Economics before the war, director National Bank Germany, President of the Reichsbank, Reich Minister of Economics, Reich Minister without Portfolio. On January 7, 1939, he sent a letter to Hitler, pointing out that the course pursued by the government would lead to the collapse of the German financial system and hyperinflation, and demanded the transfer of financial control to the hands of the Reich Ministry of Finance and the Reichsbank.

In September 1939 he sharply opposed the invasion of Poland. Schacht had a negative attitude towards the war with the USSR, believing that Germany would lose the war for economic reasons. On November 30, 1941, he sent Hitler a sharp letter criticizing the regime. On January 22, 1942, he resigned as Reich Minister.

Schacht had contacts with conspirators against Hitler's regime, although he himself was not a member of the conspiracy. On July 21, 1944, after the failure of the July Plot against Hitler (July 20, 1944), Schacht was arrested and held in the concentration camps of Ravensbrück, Flossenburg and Dachau.

The last word: "I don't understand why I'm being charged at all.".

This is probably the most difficult case; on October 1, 1946, Schacht was acquitted, then in January 1947, a German denazification court sentenced him to eight years in prison, but on September 2, 1948, he was released from custody.

Later he worked in the German banking sector, founded and headed the banking house "Schacht GmbH" in Düsseldorf. Died on June 3, 1970 in Munich. We can say that he was luckier than all the defendants. Although...

Walter Funk(German: Walther Funk), German journalist, Nazi Minister of Economics after Schacht, President of the Reichsbank. Sentenced to life imprisonment. Released in 1957.

The last word: "Never in my life have I, either consciously or ignorantly, done anything that would give rise to such accusations. If, out of ignorance or as a result of delusions, I committed the acts listed in the indictment, then my guilt should be considered in the light of my personal tragedy, but not as a crime".

(right; left - Hitler)

Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach(German: Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach), head of the Friedrich Krupp concern (Friedrich Krupp AG Hoesch-Krupp). From January 1933 - government press secretary, from November 1937 - Reich Minister of Economics and Commissioner General for War Economic Affairs, and at the same time from January 1939 - President of the Reichsbank.

At the Nuremberg trial he was sentenced to life imprisonment by the International Military Tribunal. Released in 1957.

Karl Doenitz(German: Karl Donitz), Grand Admiral of the Third Reich Fleet, Commander-in-Chief of the German Navy, after Hitler's death and in accordance with his posthumous will, President of Germany.

The Nuremberg Tribunal for war crimes (in particular, waging so-called unrestricted submarine warfare) sentenced him to 10 years in prison. This verdict was disputed by some lawyers, since the same methods of submarine warfare were widely practiced by the victors. Some allied officers expressed their sympathy to Doenitz after the verdict. Doenitz was found guilty on counts 2 (crimes against peace) and 3 (war crimes).

After leaving prison (Spandau in West Berlin), Doenitz wrote his memoirs “10 years and 20 days” (meaning 10 years of command of the fleet and 20 days of presidency).

The last word: "None of the charges have anything to do with me. American inventions!"

Erich Raeder(German: Erich Raeder), Grand Admiral, Commander-in-Chief of the Navy of the Third Reich. On January 6, 1943, Hitler ordered Raeder to disband the surface fleet, after which Raeder demanded his resignation and was replaced by Karl Doenitz on January 30, 1943. Raeder received the honorary position of chief inspector of the fleet, but in fact had no rights or responsibilities.

In May 1945, he was captured by Soviet troops and transported to Moscow. According to the verdict of the Nuremberg trials, he was sentenced to life imprisonment. From 1945 to 1955 in prison. He petitioned to have his imprisonment commuted to execution; The control commission found that it “cannot increase the penalty.” On January 17, 1955, he was released due to health reasons. Wrote a memoir "My Life".

The last word: refused.

Baldur von Schirach(German: Baldur Benedikt von Schirach), leader of the Hitler Youth, then Gauleiter of Vienna. At the Nuremberg trials he was found guilty of crimes against humanity and sentenced to 20 years in prison. He served his entire sentence in the Berlin military prison Spandau. Released September 30, 1966.

The last word: "All troubles come from racial politics".

Fritz Sauckel(German: Fritz Sauckel), head of the forced deportations to the Reich of labor from the occupied territories. Sentenced to death for war crimes and crimes against humanity (mainly for the deportation of foreign workers). Hanged.

The last word: "The gulf between the ideal of a socialist society, nurtured and defended by me, a former sailor and worker, and these terrible events - the concentration camps - deeply shocked me".

Alfred Jodl(German Alfred Jodl), head of the operational department of the Supreme High Command of the Armed Forces, Colonel General. At dawn on October 16, 1946, Colonel General Alfred Jodl was hanged. His body was cremated, and his ashes were secretly taken out and scattered. Jodl took an active part in planning the mass extermination of civilians in the occupied territories. On May 7, 1945, on behalf of Admiral K. Doenitz, he signed the general surrender of the German armed forces to the Western allies in Reims.

As Albert Speer recalled, "Jodl's precise and restrained defense made a strong impression. He seemed to be one of the few who managed to rise above the situation." Jodl argued that a soldier could not be held responsible for the decisions of politicians. He insisted that he honestly performed his duty, obeying the Fuhrer, and considered the war a just cause. The tribunal found him guilty and sentenced him to death. Before his death, he wrote in one of his letters: “Hitler buried himself under the ruins of the Reich and his hopes. Let those who want to curse him for this, but I cannot.” Jodl was completely acquitted when the case was reviewed by a Munich court in 1953 (!) .

The last word: "The mixture of fair accusations and political propaganda is regrettable".

Martin Bormann(German: Martin Bormann), head of the party chancellery, was accused in absentia. Chief of Staff of the Deputy Fuhrer "from July 3, 1933), head of the NSDAP party office" from May 1941) and Hitler's personal secretary (from April 1943). Reichsleiter (1933), Reich Minister without Portfolio, SS Obergruppenführer, SA Obergruppenführer.

There is an interesting story connected with it.

At the end of April 1945, Bormann was with Hitler in Berlin, in the bunker of the Reich Chancellery. After the suicide of Hitler and Goebbels, Bormann disappeared. However, already in 1946, Arthur Axman, the chief of the Hitler Youth, who, together with Martin Bormann, tried to leave Berlin on May 1-2, 1945, said during interrogation that Martin Bormann died (more precisely, committed suicide) before his eyes on May 2, 1945.

He confirmed that he saw Martin Bormann and Hitler's personal physician Ludwig Stumpfegger lying on their backs near the bus station in Berlin, where the battle was taking place. He crawled close to their faces and clearly distinguished the smell of bitter almonds - it was potassium cyanide. The bridge along which Bormann was planning to escape from Berlin was blocked by Soviet tanks. Borman chose to bite through the ampoule.

However, these testimonies were not considered sufficient evidence of Bormann's death. In 1946, the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg tried Bormann in absentia and sentenced him to death. The lawyers insisted that their client was not subject to trial because he was already dead. The court did not consider the arguments convincing, examined the case and passed a verdict, stipulating that Borman, if detained, has the right to submit a request for pardon within the prescribed time frame.

In the 1970s, while building a road in Berlin, workers discovered remains that were later tentatively identified as those of Martin Bormann. His son, Martin Borman Jr., agreed to provide his blood for DNA analysis of the remains.

The analysis confirmed that the remains really belong to Martin Bormann, who actually tried to leave the bunker and get out of Berlin on May 2, 1945, but realizing that this was impossible, he committed suicide by taking poison (traces of an ampoule with potassium cyanide were found in the teeth of the skeleton). Therefore, the “Bormann case” can safely be considered closed.

In the USSR and Russia, Borman is known not only as a historical figure, but also as a character in the film “Seventeen Moments of Spring” (where he was played by Yuri Vizbor) - and, in connection with this, a character in jokes about Stirlitz.

Franz von Papen(German: Franz Joseph Hermann Michael Maria von Papen), Chancellor of Germany before Hitler, then Ambassador to Austria and Turkey. He was acquitted. However, in February 1947, he again appeared before the denazification commission and was sentenced to eight months in prison as a major war criminal.

Von Papen tried unsuccessfully to relaunch his political career in the 1950s. In his later years he lived at Benzenhofen Castle in Upper Swabia and published many books and memoirs attempting to justify his policies of the 1930s, drawing parallels between this period and the beginning of the Cold War. Died on May 2, 1969 in Obersasbach (Baden).

The last word: "The accusation horrified me, firstly, by the awareness of the irresponsibility as a result of which Germany was plunged into this war, which turned into a global catastrophe, and secondly, by the crimes that were committed by some of my compatriots. The latter are inexplicable psychological point vision. It seems to me that the years of godlessness and totalitarianism are to blame for everything. It was they who turned Hitler into a pathological liar".

Arthur Seyss-Inquart(German: Dr. Arthur Sey?-Inquart), Chancellor of Austria, then Imperial Commissioner of occupied Poland and Holland. At Nuremberg, Seyss-Inquart was charged with crimes against peace, planning and unleashing an aggressive war, war crimes and crimes against humanity. He was found guilty on all counts, excluding criminal conspiracy. After the verdict was announced, Seyss-Inquart admitted his responsibility in his last speech.

The last word: "Death by hanging - well, I didn’t expect anything less... I hope that this execution is the last act of the tragedy of the Second World War... I believe in Germany".

Albert Speer(German: Albert Speer), Reich Minister of Armaments and War Industry (1943-1945).

In 1927, Speer received an architect's license from the Technical High School of Munich. Due to the depression in the country, there was no work for the young architect. Speer updated the interior of the villa free of charge to the head of the headquarters of the western district - Kreisleiter NSAC Hanke, who, in turn, recommended the architect to Gauleiter Goebbels for rebuilding the meeting room and furnishing the rooms. After this, Speer receives an order - the design of the May Day rally in Berlin. And then the party congress in Nuremberg (1933). He used red banners and the figure of an eagle, which he proposed to make with a wingspan of 30 meters. Leni Riefenstahl captured in her documentary film “Victory of Faith” the grandeur of the procession at the opening of the party congress. This was followed by the reconstruction of the NSDAP headquarters in Munich in the same 1933. Thus began Speer's architectural career. Hitler was looking everywhere for new energetic people on whom he could rely in the near future. Considering himself an expert in painting and architecture, and possessing some abilities in this area, Hitler chose Speer into his inner circle, which, combined with the latter’s strong career aspirations, determined his entire future fate.

The last word: "The process is necessary. Even an authoritarian state does not relieve each individual of responsibility for the terrible crimes committed.".

(left)

Constantin 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.

Neurath was accused in the Nuremberg court of having “assisted in the preparation of war,... participated in the political planning and preparation by the Nazi conspirators for wars of aggression and wars in violation of international treaties,... sanctioned, directed and took part in war crimes... and in crimes against humanity, ...including in particular crimes against persons and property in the occupied territories." Neurath was found guilty on all four counts and sentenced to fifteen years in prison. In 1953, Neurath was released due to poor health, aggravated by a myocardial infarction suffered in prison.

The last word: "I have always been against accusations without a possible defense".

Hans Fritsche(German: Hans Fritzsche), head of the press and broadcasting department at the Ministry of Propaganda.

During the fall of the Nazi regime, Fritsche was in Berlin and capitulated along with the last defenders of the city on May 2, 1945, surrendering to the Red Army. Appeared before the Nuremberg trials, where, together with Julius Streicher (due to the death of Goebbels), he represented Nazi propaganda. Unlike Streicher, who was sentenced to death, Fritsche was acquitted of all three charges: the court found it proven that he did not call for crimes against humanity, did not participate in war crimes or conspiracies to seize power. Like both others acquitted at Nuremberg (Hjalmar Schacht and Franz von Papen), Fritsche, however, was soon convicted of other crimes by the denazification commission. After receiving a 9-year sentence, Fritzsche was released for health reasons in 1950 and died of cancer three years later.

The last word: "This is the worst accusation of all time. Only one thing can be more terrible: the impending accusation that the German people will bring against us for abusing their idealism".

Heinrich Himmler (German: Heinrich Luitpold Himmler), one of the main political and military figures of the Third Reich. Reichsführer SS (1929-1945), Reich Minister of the Interior of Germany (1943-1945), Reichsleiter (1934), Head of the RSHA (1942-1943). Found guilty of numerous war crimes, including genocide. Since 1931, Himmler was creating his own secret service - the SD, at the head of which he put Heydrich.

Since 1943, Himmler became Reich Minister of the Interior, and after the failure of the July Plot (1944) - commander of the Reserve Army. Beginning in the summer of 1943, Himmler, through his proxies, began to make contacts with representatives of Western intelligence services with the aim of concluding separate peace. Hitler, who learned about this, on the eve of the collapse of the Third Reich, expelled Himmler from the NSDAP as a traitor and deprived him of all ranks and positions.

After leaving the Reich Chancellery at the beginning of May 1945, Himmler headed to the Danish border with someone else's passport in the name of Heinrich Hitzinger, who had been shot shortly before and looked a little like Himmler, but on May 21, 1945 he was arrested by the British military authorities and on May 23 committed suicide by taking potassium cyanide .

Himmler's body was cremated and the ashes were scattered in the forest near Lüneburg.

Paul Joseph Goebbels(German: Paul Joseph Goebbels) - Reich Minister of Public Education and Propaganda of Germany (1933-1945), imperial head of propaganda of the NSDAP (since 1929), Reichsleiter (1933), penultimate Chancellor of the Third Reich (April-May 1945).

In his political testament, Hitler appointed Goebbels as his successor as chancellor, but the very next day after the Fuhrer’s suicide, Goebbels and his wife Magda committed suicide, having first poisoned their six young children. “There will be no act of surrender signed by me!” - said the new chancellor when he learned of the Soviet demand for unconditional surrender. On May 1 at 21:00 Goebbels took potassium cyanide. His wife Magda, before committing suicide following her husband, told her young children: “Don’t be alarmed, now the doctor will give you the vaccination that all children and soldiers receive.” When the children, under the influence of morphine, fell into a half-asleep state, she herself put a crushed ampoule of potassium cyanide into the mouth of each child (there were six of them).

It is impossible to imagine what feelings she experienced at that moment.

And of course, the Fuhrer of the Third Reich:

Winners in Paris.

Hitler behind Hermann Goering, Nuremberg, 1928.

Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini in Venice, June 1934.

Hitler, Mannerheim and Ruti in Finland, 1942.

Hitler and Mussolini, Nuremberg, 1940.

Adolf Gitler(German: Adolf Hitler) - the founder and central figure of Nazism, founder of the totalitarian dictatorship of the Third Reich, Fuhrer of the National Socialist German Workers' Party from July 29, 1921, Reich Chancellor of National Socialist Germany from January 31, 1933, Fuhrer and Reich Chancellor of Germany from August 2 1934, Supreme Commander of the German Armed Forces in World War II.

The generally accepted version of Hitler's suicide

On April 30, 1945, in Berlin surrounded by Soviet troops and realizing complete defeat, Hitler and his wife Eva Braun committed suicide, having first killed their beloved dog Blondie.
In Soviet historiography, the point of view has been established that Hitler took poison (potassium cyanide, like most Nazis who committed suicide), however, according to eyewitnesses, he shot himself. There is also a version according to which Hitler and Braun first took both poisons, after which the Fuhrer shot himself in the temple (thus using both instruments of death).

Even the day before, Hitler gave the order to deliver cans of gasoline from the garage (to destroy the bodies). On April 30, after lunch, Hitler said goodbye to people from his inner circle and, shaking their hands, together with Eva Braun, retired to his apartment, from where the sound of a shot was soon heard. Shortly after 15:15, Hitler's servant Heinz Linge, accompanied by his adjutant Otto Günsche, Goebbels, Bormann and Axmann, entered the Fuhrer's apartment. Dead Hitler sat on the sofa; a blood stain was spreading on his temple. Eva Braun lay nearby, with no visible external injuries. Günsche and Linge wrapped Hitler's body in a soldier's blanket and carried it out into the garden of the Reich Chancellery; after him they carried out Eve’s body. The corpses were placed near the entrance to the bunker, doused with gasoline and burned. On May 5, the bodies were found by a piece of blanket sticking out of the ground and fell into the hands of the Soviet SMERSH. The body was identified, in part, with the help of Hitler's dentist, who confirmed the authenticity of the corpse's dentures. In February 1946, Hitler's body, along with the bodies of Eva Braun and the Goebbels family - Joseph, Magda, 6 children, was buried at one of the NKVD bases in Magdeburg. In 1970, when the territory of this base was to be transferred to the GDR, at the proposal of Yu. V. Andropov, approved by the Politburo, the remains of Hitler and others buried with him were dug up, cremated to ashes and then thrown into the Elbe. Only dentures and part of the skull with a bullet entry hole (found separately from the corpse) were preserved. They are kept in Russian archives, as are the side arms of the sofa on which Hitler shot himself, with traces of blood. However, Hitler's biographer Werner Maser expresses doubts that the discovered corpse and part of the skull really belonged to Hitler.

On October 18, 1945, the indictment was handed over to the International Military Tribunal and, through its secretariat, transmitted to each of the accused. A month before the start of the trial, each of them was handed an indictment in German.

Results: international military tribunal sentenced:
To death by hanging: Goering, Ribbentrop, Keitel, Kaltenbrunner, Rosenberg, Frank, Frick, Streicher, Sauckel, Seyss-Inquart, Bormann (in absentia), Jodl (who was posthumously completely acquitted when the case was reviewed by a Munich court in 1953).
To life imprisonment: Hess, Funk, Raeder.
To 20 years in prison: Schirach, Speer.
To 15 years in prison: Neyrata.
To 10 years in prison: Denitsa.
Justified: Fritsche, Papen, Schacht.

Tribunal recognized the criminal organizations of the SS, SD, SA, Gestapo and the leadership of the Nazi Party. The decision to recognize the Supreme Command and the General Staff as criminal was not made, which caused disagreement from a member of the tribunal from the USSR.

A number of convicts filed petitions: Goering, Hess, Ribbentrop, Sauckel, Jodl, Keitel, Seyss-Inquart, Funk, Doenitz and Neurath - for pardon; 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.

The death penalty was carried out on the night of October 16, 1946 in the Nuremberg prison building.

Having convicted the main Nazi criminals, the International Military Tribunal recognized aggression as the gravest crime of an international character. Nuremberg trial sometimes called the "Judgment of History" because it had a significant influence on the final defeat of Nazism. Sentenced to life imprisonment, Funk and Raeder 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.

Organization of the tribunal

In 1942, British Prime Minister Churchill stated that the Nazi leadership should be executed without trial. He expressed this opinion more than once in the future. When Churchill tried to impose his opinion on Stalin, Stalin objected: “Whatever happens, there must be ... an appropriate judicial decision. Otherwise people will say that Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin were simply taking revenge on their political enemies! " Roosevelt, hearing that Stalin was insisting on a trial, in turn declared that the trial procedure should not be "too legalistic."

The demand for the creation of an International Military Tribunal was contained in the statement of the Soviet government of 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. On August 29, the first list of the main war criminals was published, consisting of 24 Nazi politicians, military men, and fascist ideologists.

List of defendants

The defendants were included in the initial list of accused in the following order:

Hermann Wilhelm Goering (German) Hermann Wilhelm Goering), Reichsmarschall, Commander-in-Chief of the German Air Force
Rudolf Hess (German) Rudolf Heß), Hitler's deputy in charge of the Nazi Party.
Joachim von Ribbentrop (German) Ullrich Friedrich Willy Joachim von Ribbentrop ), Minister of Foreign Affairs of Nazi Germany.
Wilhelm Keitel (German) Wilhelm Keitel), Chief of Staff of the Supreme High Command of the German Armed Forces.
Robert Ley (German) Robert Ley), head of the Labor Front
Ernst Kaltenbrunner (German) Ernst Kaltenbrunner), head of the RSHA.
Alfred Rosenberg (German) Alfred Rosenberg), one of the main ideologists of Nazism, Reich Minister for Eastern Affairs.
Hans Frank (German) Dr. Hans Frank), head of the occupied Polish lands.
Wilhelm Frick (German) Wilhelm Frick), Reich Minister of the Interior.
Julius Streicher (German) Julius Streicher), Gauleiter, editor-in-chief of the newspaper "Sturmovik" (German. Der Stürmer - Der Stürmer).
Walter Funk (German) Walther Funk), Minister of Economy after Shakht.
Hjalmar Schacht (German) Hjalmar Schacht), Reich Minister of Economics before the war.
Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach (German) Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach ), head of the Friedrich Krupp concern.
Karl Dönitz (German) Karl Donitz), Grand Admiral of the Navy of the Third Reich, Commander-in-Chief of the German Navy, after the death of Hitler and in accordance with his posthumous will - President of Germany
Erich Raeder (German) Erich Raeder), Commander-in-Chief of the Navy.
Baldur von Schirach (German) Baldur Benedikt von Schirach), head of the Hitler Youth, Gauleiter of Vienna.
Fritz Sauckel (German) Fritz Sauckel), head of the forced deportations to the Reich of labor from the occupied territories.
Alfred Jodl (German) Alfred Jodl), Chief of Staff of the OKW Operations Command
Martin Bormann (German) Martin Bormann), the head of the party chancellery, was accused in absentia.
Franz von Papen (German) Franz Joseph Hermann Michael Maria von Papen ), Chancellor of Germany before Hitler, then Ambassador to Austria and Turkey.
Arthur Seyss-Inquart (German) Dr. Arthur Seyß-Inquart), Chancellor of Austria, then Imperial Commissioner of occupied Holland.
Albert Speer (German) Albert Speer), Reich Minister of Armaments.
Constantin 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.
Hans Fritsche (German) Hans Fritzsche), head of the press and radio broadcasting department at the Ministry of Propaganda.

Remarks to the accusation

The accused were asked to write on it their attitude towards the accusation. Roeder and Ley wrote nothing (Ley's response was actually his suicide shortly after the charges were filed), but the remaining defendants wrote the following:

Hermann Wilhelm Goering: “The winner is always the judge, and the loser is the accused!”
Rudolf Hess: “I have no regrets”
Joachim von Ribbentrop: "The wrong people have been charged"
Wilhelm Keitel: “An order for a soldier is always an order!”
Ernst Kaltenbrunner: “I am not responsible for war crimes, I was only fulfilling my duty as head of the intelligence agencies, and I refuse to serve as some kind of ersatz Himmler”
Alfred Rosenberg: “I reject the charge of 'conspiracy'. Anti-Semitism was only a necessary defensive measure.”
Hans Frank: “I view this trial as a supreme court pleasing to God, designed to understand the terrible period of Hitler’s reign and bring it to an end.”
Wilhelm Frick: "The entire accusation is based on the assumption of participation in a conspiracy"
Julius Streicher: “This trial is the triumph of world Jewry”
Hjalmar Schacht: “I don’t understand at all why I’ve been charged”
Walter Funk: “Never in my life have I, either consciously or out of ignorance, done anything that would give rise to such accusations. If, out of ignorance or as a result of delusions, I committed the acts listed in the indictment, then my guilt should be considered in the light of my personal tragedy, but not as a crime.”
Karl Dönitz: “None of the charges have anything to do with me. American inventions!
Baldur von Schirach: "All troubles come from racial politics"
Fritz Sauckel: “The gulf between the ideal of a socialist society, nurtured and defended by me, a former sailor and worker, and these terrible events - the concentration camps - deeply shocked me”
Alfred Jodl: “The mixture of just accusations and political propaganda is regrettable”
Franz von Papen: “The accusation horrified me, firstly, with the awareness of the irresponsibility as a result of which Germany was plunged into this war, which turned into a world catastrophe, and secondly, with the crimes that were committed by some of my compatriots. The latter are inexplicable from a psychological point of view. It seems to me that the years of godlessness and totalitarianism are to blame for everything. It was they who turned Hitler into a pathological liar."
Arthur Seyss-Inquart: “I would like to hope that this is the last act of the tragedy of the Second World War”
Albert Speer: “The process is necessary. Even an authoritarian state does not relieve each individual of responsibility for the terrible crimes committed.”
Constantin von Neurath: “I have always been against accusations without a possible defense”
Hans Fritsche: “This is the most terrible accusation of all time. Only one thing can be more terrible: the impending accusation that the German people will bring against us for abusing their idealism.”

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

Even before the start of the trial, after reading the indictment, on November 25, 1945, the head of the Labor Front, Robert Ley, committed suicide in his cell. Gustav Krupp was declared terminally ill by a medical commission, and his case was dropped before trial.

The remaining accused were brought to trial.

Progress of the process

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

Tribunal members

from the USA: former Attorney General of the country F. Biddle.
from the USSR: Deputy Chairman of the Supreme Court of the Soviet Union, Major General of Justice I. T. Nikitchenko.
for Great Britain: Chief Justice, Lord Geoffrey Lawrence.
from France: professor of criminal law A. Donnedier de Vabres.

Each of the 4 countries sent their own to the process main accusers, their deputies and assistants:

from the USA: US Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson.
from the USSR: Prosecutor General of the Ukrainian SSR R. A. Rudenko.
from UK: Hartley Shawcross
from 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.

A total of 216 court hearings were held, the chairman of the court was the representative of Great Britain J. Lawrence. Various evidence was presented, among them the so-called for the first time appeared. “secret protocols” to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact (presented by I. Ribbentrop’s lawyer A. Seidl).

Due to the post-war aggravation of relations between the USSR and the West, the process was tense, this gave the accused hope that the process would collapse. The situation became especially tense after Churchill's Fulton speech, when the real possibility of war against the USSR arose. Therefore, the accused behaved boldly, skillfully played for time, hoping that the coming war would put an end to the trial (Goering contributed most to this). At the end of the trial, the USSR prosecution provided a film about the concentration camps of Majdanek, Sachsenhausen, Auschwitz, shot by front-line cameramen of the Soviet army.

Accusations

Nazi Party Plans:
- Using Nazi control for aggression against foreign countries.
- Aggressive actions against Austria and Czechoslovakia.
- Attack on Poland.
- Aggressive war against the whole world (-).
- The German invasion of the territory of the USSR in violation of the non-aggression pact of August 23, 1939.
- Cooperation with Italy and Japan and the war of aggression against the United States (November 1936 - December 1941).
Crimes against peace:
- « All of the accused and various other persons, for a number of years prior to May 8, 1945, participated in the planning, preparation, initiation and conduct of aggressive wars, which were also wars in violation of international treaties, agreements and obligations».
War crimes:
- Killings and ill-treatment of civilians in occupied territories and on the high seas.
- Removal of the civilian population of the occupied territories into slavery and for other purposes.
- Killings and cruel treatment of prisoners of war and military personnel of countries with which Germany was at war, as well as persons sailing on the high seas.
- The aimless destruction of cities and towns and villages, devastation not justified by military necessity.
- Germanization of the occupied territories.
Crimes against humanity:
- The defendants pursued a policy of persecution, repression and extermination of the enemies of the Nazi government. The Nazis imprisoned people without a trial, subjected them to persecution, humiliation, enslavement, torture, and killed them.

Hitler did not take all the responsibility with him to his grave. All the blame is not wrapped in Himmler's shroud. These living have chosen these dead as their accomplices in this grandiose brotherhood of conspirators, and each of them must pay for the crime they committed together.

It can be said that Hitler committed his last crime against the country he ruled. He was a mad messiah who started a war for no reason and continued it senselessly. If he could no longer rule, then he did not care what would happen to Germany...

They stand before this court as blood-stained Gloucester stood before the body of his slain king. He begged the widow as they beg you: “Tell me I didn’t kill them.” And the queen replied: “Then say that they are not killed. But they are dead." If you say that these people are innocent, it is the same as saying that there was no war, no dead, no crime.

From Robert Jackson's indictment

Sentence

International Military Tribunal sentenced:

To death by hanging: Goering, Ribbentrop, Keitel, Kaltenbrunner, Rosenberg, Frank, Frick, Streicher, Sauckel, Seyss-Inquart, Bormann (in absentia), Jodl.
To life imprisonment: Hess, Funk, Raeder.
To 20 years in prison: Schirach, Speer.
To 15 years in prison: Neyrata.
To 10 years in prison: Dönitz.
Justified: Fritsche, Papen, Schacht

Soviet judge I. T. Nikitchenko filed a dissenting opinion, where he objected to the acquittal of Fritzsche, Papen and Schacht, the non-recognition of the German cabinet, the General Staff and the High Command of criminal organizations, as well as life imprisonment (rather than the death penalty) for Rudolf Hess.

Jodl was posthumously completely acquitted when the case was reviewed by a Munich court in 1953, but later, under US pressure, the decision to overturn the verdict of the Nuremberg court was annulled.

The Tribunal recognized the SS, SD, SA, Gestapo and the leadership of the Nazi Party as criminal organizations.

A number of convicts submitted petitions to the Allied Control Commission for Germany: Goering, Hess, Ribbentrop, Sauckel, Jodl, Keitel, Seyss-Inquart, Funk, Doenitz and Neurath - for pardon; 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.

The death penalty was carried out on the night of October 16, 1946 in the gymnasium of Nuremberg prison. Goering poisoned himself in prison shortly before his execution (there is an assumption that his wife gave him a capsule with poison during their last kiss).

Trials of lesser war criminals continued in Nuremberg until the 1950s (see Subsequent Nuremberg Trials), but not in the International Tribunal, but in an American court.

On August 15, 1946, the American Office of Information published a review of surveys conducted, according to which an overwhelming number of Germans (about 80 percent) considered the Nuremberg trials fair and the guilt of the defendants undeniable; about half of those surveyed responded that the defendants should be sentenced to death; only four percent responded negatively to the process.

Execution and cremation of the bodies of convicts

One of the witnesses to the execution, writer Boris Polevoy, published his memories and impressions of the execution. The sentence was carried out by American Sergeant John Wood - “at his own request.”

Going to the gallows most of I tried to seem brave among them. Some behaved defiantly, others resigned themselves to their fate, but there were also those who cried out for God's mercy. All but Rosenberg made short statements at the last minute. And only Julius Streicher mentioned Hitler. In the gym, where American guards were playing basketball just 3 days ago, there were three black gallows, two of which were used. They hanged one at a time, but in order to finish it quickly, the next Nazi was brought into the hall while the previous one was still hanging on the gallows.

The condemned walked up 13 wooden steps to an 8-foot-high platform. Ropes hung from beams supported by two posts. The hanged man fell into the interior of the gallows, the bottom of which was covered with dark curtains on one side and covered with wood on three sides so that no one could see the death throes of the hanged.

After the execution of the last convict (Seys-Inquart), a stretcher with Goering's body was brought into the hall so that he would take a symbolic place under the gallows, and also so that journalists could be convinced of his death.

After the execution, the bodies of the hanged and the corpse of the suicide Goering were laid in a row. “Representatives of all the Allied powers,” wrote one of the Soviet journalists, “examined them and signed the death certificates. Photographs were taken of each body, clothed and naked. Then each corpse was wrapped in a mattress along with the latest clothes, which he was wearing, and the rope on which he was hanged, and laid in the coffin. All coffins were sealed. While the rest of the bodies were being handled, Goering's body was brought on a stretcher, covered with an army blanket... At 4 o'clock in the morning, the coffins were loaded into 2.5-ton trucks waiting in the prison yard, covered with a waterproof tarpaulin and taken away accompanied by a military escort. An American captain was riding in the front car, followed by the French and American generals. Then came the trucks and a jeep guarding them with specially selected soldiers and a machine gun. The convoy drove through Nuremberg and, leaving the city, headed south.

At dawn they approached Munich and immediately headed to the outskirts of the city to the crematorium, the owner of which was warned about the arrival of the corpses of “fourteen American soldiers.” There were actually only eleven corpses, but they said so in order to lull possible suspicions of the crematorium staff. The crematorium was surrounded, and radio contact was established with the soldiers and tank crews of the cordon in case of any alarm. Anyone who entered the crematorium was not allowed to return until the end of the day. The coffins were opened and the bodies were checked by American, British, French and Soviet officers present at the execution to ensure they had not been switched along the way. After this, cremation began immediately and continued throughout the day. When this matter was finished, a car drove up to the crematorium and a container with ashes was placed in it. The ashes were scattered from the plane into the wind.

Conclusion

Having convicted the main Nazi criminals, the International Military Tribunal recognized aggression as the gravest crime of an international character. The Nuremberg trials are sometimes called " By the court of history", since he had a significant influence on the final defeat of Nazism. Sentenced to life imprisonment, Funk and Raeder 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 a gazebo in the prison yard.

The American film “Nuremberg” is dedicated to the Nuremberg trials ( Nuremberg) ().

At the Nuremberg trial I said: “If Hitler had friends, I would be his friend. I owe to him the inspiration and glory of my youth as well as later horror and guilt.”

In the image of Hitler, as he was in relation to me and others, one can discern some sympathetic features. One also gets the impression of a person who is gifted and selfless in many respects. But the longer I wrote, the more I felt that it was about superficial qualities.

Because such impressions are countered by an unforgettable lesson: the Nuremberg trials. I will never forget one photographic document depicting a Jewish family going to death: a man with his wife and his children on the way to death. It still stands before my eyes today.
In Nuremberg I was sentenced to twenty years in prison. The verdict of the military tribunal, no matter how imperfectly the story was portrayed, attempted to articulate guilt. The punishment, always ill-suited to measuring historical responsibility, put an end to my civil existence. And that photograph stripped my life of its foundation. It turned out to last longer than the sentence.

Museum

Currently, the courtroom (“Room 600”), where the Nuremberg trials took place, is the usual working premises of the Nuremberg Regional Court (address: Bärenschanzstraße 72, Nürnberg). However, on weekends there are excursions (from 13 to 16 hours every day). In addition, the documentation center for the history of Nazi congresses in Nuremberg has a special exhibition dedicated to the Nuremberg trials. This new museum (opened November 4) also has audio guides in Russian.

Notes

Literature

Gilbert G. M. Nuremberg Diary. The process through the eyes of a psychologist / trans. with him. A. L. Utkina. - Smolensk: Rusich, 2004. - 608 pp. ISBN 5-8138-0567-2

International Military Tribunal: concept, jurisdiction

The International (Nuremberg) Military Tribunal is a judicial body that prosecutes, tries and sentences major European war criminals who fought for Nazi Germany during the war. The basis of the Nuremberg Tribunal is an agreement that was concluded on August 8, 1945 in London, the capital of Great Britain, between the governments of the Soviet Union, the United States, Great Britain and France. The tribunal itself was located in Berlin, and the trial took place in Nuremberg, a German city located in north-central Bavaria.

The exclusive competence of the Nuremberg Tribunal was a requirement of the time. Jurisdiction extended to the following crimes:

Crimes against peace. This means planning, preparing, waging a war that violates international peace agreements or assurances, participating in any conspiracy, a general plan that involved the implementation of any of the above actions.
War crimes. That is, a violation of the laws of war. This clause includes torture, slavery, torture, labor or other duties imposed on the civilian population of the occupied territory, military personnel, and hostages. They are also tried for the looting of private or public property, the wanton destruction of infrastructure, and destruction that is not justified by military necessity.
Crimes against humanity. These include murder, exile, enslavement, extermination and other cruel acts committed against civilians, persecution on political, racial, religious or other grounds for the further implementation of any crime within the jurisdiction of the tribunal. It does not matter whether such acts are criminal under the domestic law of the country in which they were committed or not.

These crimes committed by the leaders of Hitler's Germany are the exclusive competence of the Nuremberg Tribunal. This composition of criminal acts is established by the sixth article of the Charter. A more detailed discussion of the provisions will be presented below.

Crimes against humanity, peace, and military cases were considered by a panel of eight people. The trial was conducted by one judge and deputy from each of the parties to the agreement signed in London on August 8, 1945.

London Conference on 8 August 1945: adoption of the Charter

The London Conference was a meeting of the leaders of the four victorious states in the war, which took place in London from June 26 to August 8, 1945. The USSR side was represented at the conference by Deputy Chairman of the Supreme Court I. T. Nikitchenko and Professor A. N. Trainin, criminologist and international specialist. No official minutes of the meeting were drawn up. The conference was held with the doors to the hall closed.

On the last day of the conference, an Agreement was signed between the leaderships of the USSR, Great Britain, France and the USA on the prosecution and judicial punishment of the main criminals of the Axis countries, that is, the Third Reich, Italy and the Japanese Empire. The International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg was given the power to try and punish people who committed criminal acts against the world order and humanity. The agreement was signed by: from the USSR - I. T. Nikitchenko and A. N. Trainin, from the USA - Robert H. Jackson, member of the Supreme Court, from France - Robert Falco, member of the Supreme Court, from Great Britain - Chancellor William Allen Jowitt.

At the same time, the charter of the Nuremberg Tribunal was adopted, defining the order of its organization, jurisdiction and general principles of work, guarantees for defendants during the trial, as well as rights. These issues will be discussed in detail below.

Charter of the military tribunal in Nuremberg: history of drafting

The Charter of the Nuremberg Tribunal was an annex to the Agreement adopted at the London Conference on August 8, 1945. The document is usually called the London or Nuremberg Charter. The document was developed on the basis of the Moscow Declaration, adopted at the 1943 conference in Moscow by the foreign ministers of the USSR, Great Britain and the USA. The Declaration determined the conditions under which states would cooperate. Important topics were the disarmament of German troops and the trial of war criminals. The document provided for the occupation of Germany by Allied forces until the complete destruction of the Nazi regime.

The text of the Charter of the Nuremberg Military Tribunal was drawn up immediately after the surrender of Germany, on May 8, 1945, in London. Compilation was carried out by Robert Falco, Jonah Nikitchenko and Robert Jackson. The text was published on August 8, 1945. As mentioned earlier, the agreement between the USSR, Great Britain, the USA and France on the prosecution and sentencing of major Axis war criminals was officially signed at the London Conference in early August 1945. Subsequently, the Charter was ratified by 19 other participants in the anti-Hitler coalition.

Basic provisions of the Charter of the Nuremberg Tribunal

Part I of the Charter concerns the organization of an international military tribunal. It is indicated that it was created for a fair trial and punishment of war criminals (Article 1). The composition of the tribunal is established in the amount of four judges and their deputies, with each party appointing one judge and one deputy (Article 2). A judge can only be replaced by a deputy, and none of the accused, defense counsel or prosecutors can be removed from the tribunal, its members or alternates (Article 3). In addition, the possibility of establishing additional courts if necessary was provided for (Article 7).

Part II of the Statute concerns the jurisdiction and general principles work. Particularly noteworthy in this part is the article, which reveals what actions entail responsibility. Art. 6 of the Charter of the Nuremberg Tribunal describes what is meant by the concepts by which the main criminals of Nazi Germany were accused. It is stated that the position of the defendants as head of state or official is not considered as a basis for mitigation of punishment or release from liability (Article 7). The fact that the convicted person acted on the orders of the government or command also does not exempt from responsibility, but may mitigate the punishment (Article 8). The tribunal has the right to consider the cases of persons convicted of crimes against peace even in the absence of the accused themselves at the hearing (Article 12).

Part III concerns the War Crimes Committee, and IV defines guarantees for defendants and establishes fair trial procedures (Article 16). Part V (Articles 17-25) describes the rights of the tribunal, VI considers the procedure for passing a sentence, and Part VII concerns costs. In the last two parts of the Charter we can highlight Art. 27, which gives the tribunal the right to sentence the defendant to death if this decision is considered fair. As for the costs, they were covered by the parties from the funds of the German Control Council.

Nuremberg Principles of International Law

The principles of the Nuremberg Tribunal were formulated in 1950 by a special Commission commissioned by the UN to subsequently create a Criminal Code of international significance. The members of the commission summarized the activities of the Nuremberg Tribunal and formulated the main principles that were expressed in the decision of the judges. Subsequently, these provisions were recognized by the international community. There are seven principles in total:

Any person who has committed a criminal act bears responsibility for it and is subject to fair punishment.
If some action is not a crime under the domestic law of a country, but is under international law, then the person is still liable.
Heads of state and members of government are not exempt from responsibility.
Persons who acted on orders from the government or command are not exempt from liability if the choice was actually possible.
Every accused person has the right to a fair trial based on the facts and principles of law.
Crimes against peace, war, and humanity are punished as international crimes.
Complicity in the above acts is equivalent to an international crime.

The main trial against the leaders of the Nazi regime

The first meeting of the Nuremberg Tribunal for the main leaders of the regime took place on November 20, 1945. From the USSR, the Nazis were tried by: I. Nikitchenko (Major General of Justice) and A. Volchkov (Colonel of Justice) as an assistant. The defendants were defended by German lawyers, the hearing was guarded and persons under investigation were escorted to the cells by US Army personnel.

The Bavarian city of Nuremberg was chosen as the venue for the tribunal. This decision was symbolic. It was here that the horrific racial legislation of Nazi Germany was signed, in this place the Nazis loved to hold party congresses, and the Palace of Justice suffered relatively little damage from bombs dropped by Allied aircraft, and housed sufficient quantity man and was connected to the cells where the accused were kept by an underground passage.

There were 23 war criminals in the dock (among them were F. Sauckel, head of deportations from the occupied territory, G. Fritsche, head of one of the departments of the Ministry of Propaganda, G. W. Goering, Reichsmarshal, head of the air force, R. Hess, Hitler’s deputy , J. von Ribbentropp, Foreign Minister, A. Rosenberg, one of the main ideological leaders, and others) and accused in absentia. Absent from the meetings were Adolf Hitler, the chief SS man G. Himmler, and the Minister of Propaganda J. Goebbels, who committed suicide, afraid of responsibility for crimes committed.

The defendants were accused of crimes against the world order, starting a war, pursuing a policy of anti-Semitism and racism, murder and cruel treatment of prisoners of war. The Nuremberg Tribunal especially carefully considered crimes against children, who often became victims of the Nazis. The most difficult points were supported by a significant evidence base. Dozens of witnesses to brutal crimes came forward. Unexpected for those who were in the dock was the speech of Friedrich Paulus, who was captured in Stalingrad. It was he who developed the plan, code-named “Barbarossa”.

Prominent figures of Hitler's Germany recorded all their crimes with German clarity, resorting to the help of stenographers and keeping diaries. They did this feeling like absolute winners, certainly not expecting that these documents would become the strongest evidence in the prosecution. The Nuremberg Tribunal condemned not only the main ideologists, military and political figures, but also recognized as criminal all organizations that carried out the instructions of the Nazis, that is, the Gestapo, SS, SD and the like.

The defendants were given hope by the fact that after Churchill's Fulton speech, relations between the USSR and Great Britain and the USA were very strained, this could bury the trial. But the truly dark day for the Nazi leaders was when the former commandant of the Auschwitz death camp spoke before the judges and deputies. The executioner said that two and a half million prisoners were killed in the camp. He almost proudly talked about the fact that in each of the cells two thousand people were killed at once, while in the other camp only two hundred unfortunates could be exterminated at a time. The executioner was hanged by court in Poland in April 1947.

Court decision in the case of the leaders of Hitler's Germany

The verdict began to be announced on September 30, 1945, but the list of charges was so long that it took the whole day. It all ended only on the first of October. During the announcement of the verdict, the defendants tried to pretend that they didn’t care, but in fact, excitement was visible. frantically drew something on scraps of paper, Hermann Goering tried to smile tightly, Alfred Rosenberg cowered, defiantly crossed his arms, and Hans Frank just shook his head.

The decision of the Nuremberg Tribunal was as follows:

12 people were sentenced to death, of whom Bormann was convicted in absentia, Jodl was posthumously acquitted during a review in 1953, and Goering committed suicide a few hours before his execution;
3 people were sentenced to life imprisonment: Funk, Reder, Hess;
to 20 years in prison: Speer, Schirach;
to 15 years in prison: Neurath;
to 10 years in prison: Denitsa;
Three people were acquitted: Papen (German Ambassador to Austria and Turkey), Fritsche (head of the press and radio broadcasting), Schacht (Minister of Economics, who held this position before the war).

Subsequent (Small) Nuremberg Trials

After the main trial of the top leaders of the Third Reich, twelve more subsequent ones were carried out, later called small ones. The main difference was that cases were conducted exclusively by American judges. Nazi doctors, judges, generals of the south-eastern front, persons guilty of racial crimes, and the German military command came under investigation. Separately, Alfried Krupp, Friedrich Flick, IG Farben (German industrialists), (Field Marshal of the Luftwaffe) were convicted. In total, 183 accused of various crimes appeared before twelve trials. Twenty-four people were sentenced to death (eleven of them were pardoned), twenty were sentenced to life imprisonment, 98 were sentenced to various terms, and 35 were acquitted. The remaining accused were not sentenced for various reasons. Some of them were declared insane, others died before trial. In 1951, many of the convicts were released under an amnesty, and some of the convicts had their sentences reduced.

Nuremberg International Tribunal and Bandera (OUN/UPA)

Stepan Bandera and the OUN/UPA were personally condemned by the Nuremberg Tribunal, but they were not brought before the International Military Court. There are no official convictions against them. The decision of the Nuremberg Tribunal on the Banderaites was not made, but this does not mean that their crimes are not classified as those committed against peace or humanity, military ones.

None of the tribunal's materials contain any mention of recognizing Stepan Bandera as a war criminal, although, according to the principles of international law, that is exactly what he is. Not a single mention of Bandera in the 42 tone of the case can be directly interpreted against him.

Some researchers prefer to make reference to the materials of the interrogation of E. Stolze, who during the conversation mentioned the order to Bandera’s supporters to organize demonstrations in Ukraine during the German attack on the USSR in order to tear apart the rear of the armies and convince the public of the possible collapse of the rear. Based on the results of the consideration of the case, Erwin Stolze’s organization was not recognized as criminal, so cooperation with him cannot be interpreted as a crime for which the person is liable before the Nuremberg Tribunal.

The significance of the Nuremberg trials and the tribunal for world history

The Nuremberg Military Tribunal and its significance in history is a topic for a separate article, since the process created a precedent for the trial of high officials and refuted the principle “Kings are subject to the jurisdiction of God alone.” The principles that were enshrined in the Charter are recognized by the UN as generally accepted for international law. The Nuremberg trials are often called the “trial of history,” since it had a very significant influence on the final victory over Nazism in the minds and hearts of people. An atmosphere of the strictest legality was observed; there was no case where the crimes of the defendants were mitigated at any stage of the case. To this day, the Nuremberg trials are a benchmark for conducting an international case of war crimes.

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 of a Political Figure of 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 year 2015 goes down in history - the seventieth year since the end of World War II. Rodina published hundreds of articles, documents, and photographs dedicated to the holy anniversary this year. And we decided to devote the December issue of our “Scientific Library” to some of the results and long-term consequences of the Second World War.
Of course, this does not mean that the military theme will disappear from the pages of Rodina along with the anniversary year. The June issue is already being planned, which will be dedicated to the 75th anniversary of the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, in the editorial portfolio there are analytical materials of prominent Russian and foreign scientists waiting in the wings, letters about native front-line soldiers continue to arrive for the column ""...
Write to us, dear readers. In our " Scientific library"There are still a lot of unfilled shelves.

Editorial "Motherland"

Public trials of the Nazis

The history of World War II is an endless list of war crimes of Nazi Germany and its allies. For this, humanity openly tried the main war criminals in their lair - Nuremberg (1945-1946) and Tokyo (1946-1948). Due to its political-legal significance and cultural imprint, the Nuremberg Tribunal has become a symbol of justice. In its shadow remained other show trials of European countries against the Nazis and their accomplices and, first of all, open trials held on the territory of the Soviet Union.

For the most brutal war crimes in 1943-1949, trials took place in 21 affected cities of five Soviet republics: Krasnodar, Krasnodon, Kharkov, Smolensk, Bryansk, Leningrad, Nikolaev, Minsk, Kiev, Velikiye Luki, Riga, Stalino (Donetsk), Bobruisk, Sevastopol, Chernigov, Poltava, Vitebsk, Chisinau, Novgorod, Gomel, Khabarovsk. They publicly convicted 252 war criminals from Germany, Austria, Hungary, Romania, Japan and several of their accomplices from the USSR. Open trials in the USSR of war criminals carried not only a legal meaning of punishing the perpetrators, but also a political and anti-fascist one. So films were made about the meetings, books were published, reports were written - for millions of people around the world. Judging by the reports of the MGB, almost the entire population supported the accusation and wanted the most severe punishment for the defendants.

At the show trials of 1943-1949. The best investigators, qualified translators, authoritative experts, professional lawyers, and talented journalists worked. About 300-500 spectators came to the meetings (the halls could no longer accommodate), thousands more stood on the street and listened to radio broadcasts, millions read reports and brochures, tens of millions watched newsreels. Under the weight of evidence, almost all the suspects admitted to their crime. In addition, in the dock there were only those whose guilt was repeatedly confirmed by evidence and witnesses. The verdicts of these courts can be considered justified even by modern standards, so none of the convicts were rehabilitated. But despite the importance of open processes, modern researchers know too little about them. The main problem is the inaccessibility of sources. The materials of each process amounted to up to fifty extensive volumes, but they were almost never published 1 because they are stored in archives former departments KGB and are still not completely declassified. There is also a lack of culture of memory. Opened in Nuremberg in 2010 big museum, which organizes exhibitions and methodically examines the Nuremberg Tribunal (and the 12 subsequent Nuremberg trials). But in the post-Soviet space there are no such museums about local processes. Therefore, in the summer of 2015, the author of these lines created a kind of virtual museum “Soviet Nuremberg” 2 for the Russian Military Historical Society. This website, which caused a great stir in the media, contains information and rare materials about 21 open courts in the USSR in 1943-1949.

Justice in time of war

Before 1943, no one in the world had experience of trying the Nazis and their collaborators. There were no analogues of such cruelty in world history, there were no atrocities of such a temporal and geographical scale, therefore there were no legal norms for retribution - neither in international conventions nor in national criminal codes. In addition, for justice it was still necessary to free the crime scenes and witnesses, and capture the criminals themselves. I was the first to do all this Soviet Union, but also not right away.

From 1941 until the end of the occupation, open trials were held in partisan detachments and brigades - over traitors, spies, looters. Their spectators were the partisans themselves and later residents of neighboring villages. At the front, traitors and Nazi executioners were punished by military tribunals until the issuance of Decree N39 of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on April 19, 1943, “On punitive measures for Nazi villains guilty of murder and torture of the Soviet civilian population and captured Red Army soldiers, for spies, traitors to the motherland from among Soviet citizens and for their accomplices." According to the Decree, cases of murder of prisoners of war and civilians were submitted to military courts attached to divisions and corps. Many of their meetings, on the recommendation of the command, were open, with the participation of the local population. In military tribunals, partisan, people's and military courts, the accused defended themselves, without lawyers. A common sentence was public hanging.

Decree N39 became the legal basis for systemic responsibility for thousands of crimes. The evidence base was provided by detailed reports on the scale of atrocities and destruction in the liberated territories; for this purpose, by decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Council of November 2, 1942, the “Emergency State Commission to establish and investigate the atrocities of the Nazi invaders and their accomplices and the damage they caused to citizens, collective farms, public organizations, state enterprises and institutions of the USSR" (ChGK). At the same time, investigators interrogated millions of prisoners of war in the camps.

The open trials of 1943 in Krasnodar and Kharkov became widely known. These were the world's first full-fledged trials of the Nazis and their collaborators. The Soviet Union tried to ensure a worldwide resonance: the meetings were covered by foreign journalists and the best writers of the USSR (A. Tolstoy, K. Simonov, I. Ehrenburg, L. Leonov), and filmed by cameramen and photographers. The entire Soviet Union followed the processes - reports of the meetings were published in the central and local press, and readers' reactions were also posted there. Brochures were published about the processes different languages, they were read aloud in the army and behind the lines. Almost immediately, the documentaries “The Verdict of the People” and “The Trial is Coming” were released and were shown in Soviet and foreign cinemas. And in 1945-1946, documents from the Krasnodar trial on “gas chambers” (“gassenwagens”) were used by the international tribunal in Nuremberg.

According to the principle of “collective guilt”

The most thorough investigation was carried out as part of ensuring open trials of war criminals in late 1945 - early 1946. in the eight most affected cities of the USSR. According to the directives of the government, special operational investigative groups of the Ministry of Internal Affairs-NKGB were created on the ground; they studied archives, acts of the ChGK, photographic documents, interrogated thousands of witnesses from different regions and hundreds of prisoners of war. The first seven such trials (Bryansk, Smolensk, Leningrad, Velikie Luki, Minsk, Riga, Kyiv, Nikolaev) sentenced 84 war criminals (most of them were hanged). Thus, in Kyiv, the hanging of twelve Nazis on Kalinin Square (now Maidan Nezalezhnosti) was seen and approved by more than 200,000 citizens.

Since these trials coincided with the beginning of the Nuremberg Tribunal, they were compared not only by newspapers, but also by the prosecution and defense. Thus, in Smolensk, state prosecutor L.N. Smirnov built a chain of crimes from the Nazi leaders accused at Nuremberg to the specific 10 executioners in the dock: “Both of them are participants in the same accomplice.” Lawyer Kaznacheev (by the way, he also worked at the Kharkov trial) also spoke about the connection between the criminals of Nuremberg and Smolensk, but with a different conclusion: “The sign of equality cannot be placed between all these persons” 3 .

Eight Soviet trials of 1945-1946 ended, and the Nuremberg Tribunal also ended. But among the millions of prisoners of war there were still thousands of war criminals. Therefore, in the spring of 1947, by agreement between the Minister of Internal Affairs S. Kruglov and the Minister of Foreign Affairs V. Molotov, preparations began for the second wave of show trials against German military personnel. The next nine trials in Stalino (Donetsk), Sevastopol, Bobruisk, Chernigov, Poltava, Vitebsk, Novgorod, Chisinau and Gomel, held by resolution of the Council of Ministers of September 10, 1947, sentenced 137 people to prison terms in the Vorkutlag.

The last open trial of foreign war criminals was the Khabarovsk trial of 1949 against Japanese developers of biological weapons, who tested them on Soviet and Chinese citizens (more on this on page 116 - Ed.). These crimes were not investigated at the International Tribunal in Tokyo because some potential defendants received immunity from the United States in exchange for experimental data.

Since 1947, instead of individual open trials, the Soviet Union began to conduct closed ones en masse. Already on November 24, 1947, the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs, the USSR Ministry of Justice, the USSR Prosecutor's Office N 739/18/15/311 issued an order, which ordered that the cases of those accused of committing war crimes be considered at closed sessions of the military tribunals of the Ministry of Internal Affairs troops at the place of detention of the defendants (that is, practically without calling witnesses) without the participation of the parties and sentence the perpetrators to imprisonment for a period of 25 years in forced labor camps.

The reasons for the curtailment of open processes are not entirely clear; no arguments have yet been found in the declassified documents. However, several versions can be put forward. Presumably, the open trials carried out were quite enough to satisfy society; propaganda switched to new tasks. In addition, conducting open trials required highly qualified investigators; there were not enough of them locally due to the post-war personnel shortage. It is worth taking into account the material support of open processes (the estimate for one process was about 55 thousand rubles); for the post-war economy these were significant amounts. Closed courts made it possible to quickly and en masse consider cases, sentence defendants to a predetermined period of imprisonment and, finally, corresponded to the traditions of Stalinist jurisprudence. In closed trials, prisoners of war were often tried on the principle of “collective guilt”, without concrete evidence of personal participation. Therefore, in the 1990s, the Russian authorities rehabilitated 13,035 foreigners convicted under Decree N39 for war crimes (in total, during 1943-1952, at least 81,780 people were convicted under the Decree, including 24,069 foreign prisoners of war) 4.

Statute of limitations: protests and controversy

After Stalin's death, all foreigners convicted in closed and open trials were handed over to the authorities of their countries in 1955-1956. This was not advertised in the USSR - residents of the affected cities, who well remembered the speeches of the prosecutors, clearly would not have understood such political agreements.

Only a few who came from Vorkuta were imprisoned in foreign prisons (this was the case in the GDR and Hungary, for example), because the USSR did not send investigative files with them. She was walking cold war", Soviet and West German justice authorities cooperated little in the 1950s. And those who returned to Germany often said that they were slandered, and confessions of guilt in open trials were extracted by torture. Most of those convicted of war crimes by the Soviet court were allowed to return to civilian professions, and some then even enter the political and military elite.

At the same time, part of West German society (primarily young people who themselves did not experience the war) sought to seriously overcome the Nazi past. Under public pressure, open trials of war criminals took place in Germany in the late 1950s. They determined the creation in 1958 of the Central Department of Justice of the Federal Republic of Germany for the prosecution of Nazi crimes. The main goals of his activities were to investigate crimes and identify persons involved in crimes who could still be prosecuted. When the perpetrators have been identified and it has been established which prosecutor's office they fall under, the Central Office completes its preliminary investigation and transfers the case to the prosecutor's office.

Nevertheless, even identified criminals could be acquitted by a West German court. According to the post-war German Criminal Code, the statute of limitations would have expired for most World War II crimes in the mid-1960s. Moreover, the twenty-year statute of limitations applied only to murders committed with extreme cruelty. In the first post-war decade, a number of amendments were made to the Code, according to which those guilty of war crimes who were not directly involved in their execution could be acquitted.

In June 1964, a “conference of democratic lawyers” meeting in Warsaw heatedly protested against the application of a statute of limitations to Nazi crimes. On December 24, 1964, a similar declaration was made by soviet government. The note dated January 16, 1965 accused the Federal Republic of Germany of seeking to completely abandon the prosecution of Nazi executioners. Articles published in Soviet publications on the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of the Nuremberg Tribunal spoke about the same thing.

The situation seems to have been changed by the resolution of the 28th session of the UN General Assembly of December 3, 1973, “Principles of international cooperation regarding the detection, arrest, extradition and punishment of persons guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity.” According to its text, all war criminals were subject to search, arrest, and extradition to the countries where they committed their atrocities, regardless of time. But even after the resolution foreign countries were extremely reluctant to hand over their citizens to Soviet justice. Motivating that the USSR's evidence was sometimes shaky, because many years had passed.

In general, due to political obstacles, the USSR in the 1960-1980s tried not foreign war criminals, but their accomplices, in open trials. For political reasons, the names of the punishers were almost never heard at the open trials of their foreign masters in 1945-1947. Even the trial of Vlasov was held behind closed doors. Because of this secrecy, many traitors with blood on their hands were missed. After all, the orders of the Nazi organizers of executions were willingly carried out by ordinary traitors from the Ostbattalions, Jagdkommandos, and nationalist formations. Thus, at the Novgorod trial of 1947, Colonel V. Findeisen 6, the coordinator of punitive forces from the Shelon battalion, was tried. In December 1942, the battalion drove all the residents of the villages of Bychkovo and Pochinok onto the ice of the Polist River and shot them. The punishers hid their guilt, and the investigation was unable to link the cases of hundreds of executioners from “Shelon” with the case of V. Findeisen. Without understanding, they were given the same sentences for traitors and, together with everyone else, were amnestied in 1955. The punishers disappeared somewhere, and only then was the personal guilt of each gradually investigated from 1960 to 1982 in a series of open trials 7 . It was not possible to catch everyone, but punishment could have overtaken them back in 1947.

There are fewer and fewer witnesses left, and the already unlikely chance of a full investigation into the atrocities of the occupiers and holding open trials is decreasing every year. However, such crimes have no statute of limitations, so historians and lawyers need to search for evidence and bring to justice all suspects still alive.

Notes
1. One of the exceptions is the publication of materials of the Riga trial from the Central Archive of the FSB of Russia (ASD NH-18313, vol. 2. LL. 6-333) in the book by Yu.Z. Kantor. Baltics: war without rules (1939-1945). St. Petersburg, 2011.
2. For more details, see the project “Soviet Nuremberg” on the website of the Russian Military Historical Society http://histrf.ru/ru/biblioteka/Soviet-Nuremberg.
3. Trial in the case of Nazi atrocities in the city of Smolensk and the Smolensk region, meeting on December 19 // News of the Soviets of Workers' Deputies of the USSR, N 297 (8907) dated December 20, 1945, p. 2.
4. Epifanov A.E. Responsibility for war crimes committed on the territory of the USSR during the Great Patriotic War. 1941 - 1956 Volgograd, 2005. P. 3.
5. Voisin V. ""Au nom des vivants", de Leon Mazroukho: une rencontre entre discours officiel et hommage personnel" // Kinojudaica. Les representations des Juifs dans le cinema russe et sovietique / dans V. Pozner, N. Laurent (dir.). Paris, Nouveau Monde editions, 2012, R. 375.
6. For more details, see Astashkin D. Open trial of Nazi criminals in Novgorod (1947) // Novgorod historical collection. V. Novgorod, 2014. Issue. 14(24). pp. 320-350.
7. Archive of the FSB department for the Novgorod region. D. 1/12236, D. 7/56, D. 1/13364, D. 1/13378.