""I hereby indict the following persons for crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity: Hermann Wilhelm Goring. Rudolf Hess. Joachim von Ribbentrop..." Courtroom 600 in Nuremberg's Palace of Justice was filled to capacity as Chief Prosecutor Robert H. Jackson read out a list of names, one after the other. His list was long. The Major War Crimes Trial against 24 high-ranking representatives of the Nazi state began on November 20, 1945, in Nuremberg."
"The choice of Nuremberg as the venue for the trial was not arbitrary. The Bavarian city had previously been the scene of the Nazi party rallies. It was here that the Nazi regime showcased its power, and it was here that the Nuremberg Laws were proclaimed the racist and antisemitic laws that paved the way for the Holocaust. And that is precisely why justice was to be administered here."
"It was the first time ever that leading representatives of a state were held personally accountable for their inhumane deeds. This was something new in the system of international law. There was one thing that those victorious over Germany the US, Britain, France and the Soviet Union agreed on: the crimes of the Third Reich must not go unpunished. Millions of people had fallen victim to the Nazi regime murdered in concentration camps, through war, hunger, enslavement and forced labor."
The Major War Crimes Trial of 24 senior Nazi officials began on November 20, 1945, in Nuremberg and lasted 218 days. Courts heard testimony from over 230 witnesses, reviewed 300,000 statements and produced 16,000 pages of transcripts. Nuremberg was selected because it had hosted Nazi party rallies and the proclamation of the Nuremberg Laws that enabled the Holocaust. The trials marked a legal milestone by holding state leaders personally accountable for inhumane deeds. Allied powers agreed the Third Reich's crimes could not go unpunished, and the proceedings raised the novel legal question of individual guilt versus state responsibility.
Read at www.dw.com
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]