Judgment at Nuremberg and Tokyo

Nuremberg, 1934

In the 1920s and 1930s, the German city of Nuremberg was host to massive and lavish rallies for the Nazi Party.

Nuremberg, 1946

At the end of World War II, more than three-quarters of the city of Nuremberg, Germany, lay in rubble. The Palace of Justice was selected by the Allied powers as the location for the International Military Tribunal (IMT) because it was the only undamaged facility extensive enough to accommodate a major trial.

Background: Victor's Justice

The Nuremberg Trials were the sets of trials of officials involved in World War II and the Holocaust during the Nazi regime. The trials were held in the city of Nuremberg, Germany, from 1945 to 1949, at the Nuremberg Palace of Justice. The first and more famous of these trials was the Trial of the Major War Criminals before the International Military Tribunal (IMT), which tried 24 of the most important captured leaders of Nazi Germany. It was held from November 20, 1945 to October 1, 1946. Eleven countries came together to form the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE), convened on April 29, 1946 to try the leaders of Japan for joint conspiracy to start and wage war. Each defendent would be charged with multiple crimes, which can generally be summed up by the following:

I. CRIMES AGAINST THE PEACE

Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of crime against peace, which consists of planning, initiating or waging a war of aggression against the territorial integrity, political independence or sovereignty of a state, or in violation of international treaties, agreements or (legally binding) assurances.

II. WAR CRIMES

These are violations against the international rules of war such as mistreatment or murder of war prisoners, deportation of civilians to slave labor, attacks on defenseless civilians or civilian sailors, killing of hostages, plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, or devastation not justified by military necessity, etc…

III. CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY

This charge refers to acts of murderous persecution (e.g., extermination, enslavement, deportations) against a body of people (genocide) on political, racial, or religious grounds, as being the criminal offence above all others. International relations scholars have broadly defined "crimes against humanity" as acts so grave, on a scale so large, that their very execution diminishes the human race as a whole.

Instructions

Specialized Individualized Assignment for each Group. Each person will click on their assigned group number and fill out his/her own Google Form.

"You are the Jury" - The Defendants

Read through the background for each of the alleged war criminals being put on trial below. Then determine which charge (I, II, or III) this person is guilty of and determine the punishment each individual should receive.

1. Hermann Goering

Commander of the German Air Force; Second-in-Command to Hitler

2. Hans Frank

Governor of Nazi-Occupied Poland

6. Adolf Hitler*

Fuhrer of Germany

7. Heinrich Himmler*

Head of the Schutzstaffel (SS)

8. Albert Speer

Architect and Armaments Minister of Germany

9. General Masaharu Homma

Commander of the Japanese Invasion of the Philippines

10. Emperor Hirohito

The Spiritual Head and the Japanese Chief of State

11. General Shiro Ishii

Commander of Unit 731

12. Hideki Tojo

Prime Minister of Japan

*Committed suicide before the trial began; not actually tried

Actual Verdicts - Complete all verdicts before viewing the text below; use the following to complete the Verdict Reflection at the end of the activity

Goering: Guilty of I, II, III, IV; Death sentence (but committed suicide in his cell prior to execution)
Frank: Guilty of III, IV; Death sentence (and actually expressed remorse for what he had done)
Jodl: Guilty of I, II, III, IV; Death sentence (but later exonerated by a Germany de-Nazification court in 1953 for just "following orders")
Doenitz: Guilty of II, III; 10 years and served all 10 years
Ribbontrop: Guilty of I, II, III, IV; Death sentence (he initially flattered that his role was important enough to be tried in court with the other Nazi leaders, but it cost him his life with the guilty verdicts)
Hitler: Committed suicide in Berlin before the end of the war
Himmler: Committed suicide after being tracked down by the Allies
Speer: Guilty of III, IV; 20 years and served 20 years, though he might have been executed had he not given the Allies a wealth of information following his capture. He was still relatively popular with the German people and many people called for a reduction in his sentence.
Homma: Arrested by the Americans and sent back to Manila to face trial as a war criminal. Homma was sentenced by an American military commission to death and died by firing squad for his responsibility for the Bataan Death March.
Hirohito: Granted immunity from prosecution with his cooperation with the Allied Governments; he was seen as a symbol of Japanese unity and conservatism
Ishii: Ishii faked his own death in late 1945 and went into hiding. When he was found, he struck a deal with American forces to give details of his program in exchange for immunity from war crime prosecution. He died of cancer in 1959.
Tojo: Shot himself in an unsuccessful suicide attempt, tried at the International Military Tribunal for the Far East and was found guilty of various counts of waging wars of aggression in violation of international law and of ordering inhumane treatment of prisoners of war and others.