Nummerberg Trials-Unjust

A detailed Summary of Nummerberg Trials-Unjust

After World War II, the victorious Allies decided to hold a trial for the defeated Nazis. These trials lasted from November 20, 1945 till October 1, 1946. Although the victors claimed that they would give the accused a fair trial, upon closer inspection we can see that in reality, these trials were biased and were a "victor's justice."

After the war, each of the Allies leaders had their own idea for how they should deal with the Nazi's. Stalin suggested that they should have trials, but here everyone is guilty and afterwards is shot. What then would be the point of having a trial then? It would just appear as a 'play' before they would perform their actual intentions. He may have suggested this also so that he could say that they were fair because they gave them a trial-but what sort of trial? Churchill even said that they should just be lined up and shot. If the leaders of the Allies were saying such things, how could we even expect the trials to be unbiased then? Each allied country had its own persecutors. All the judges at the trials came from the victorious countries as well. Most of the judges were American or Russian.

During the trials, the Americans put American justice over In

www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/imt/pohl/indict4.htm

The Allies also said that they would keep away the "hand of vengeance" and give a fair trial, but in reality they didn't follow this. Several rules were established for the Nuremberg trials, but the Allies didn't even bother to follow some of these rules, or perform them fairly. For example, rule 2 (Notice to Defendants and Right to Assistance of Counsel) said that "Each individual defendant in custody shall receive not less than 30 days before a trial a copy, translated into a language which he understands...3) of any other documents lodged with the Indictment." However, during the actual trials, the defendants and their counsel sometimes didn't receive any documents, or when they did, they were often given the evening before the proceedings in English instead of German. This has been pointed out by Dr. Laternser and Dr. Fritz Sauter during the proceedings. Dr. Laternser told the President that he "would like to point out the decision of the Tribunal, that every defendant's counsel should receive sufficiently in advance, a copy of all documents which are to be submitted as evidence in the course of the proceedings, has not been complied with...therefore [it is] difficult for the Defense to follow the proceedings because the documents submitted have not been distributed..." Dr. Sauter also told the President that they did not receive documents in German, and they were often not received the evening of the proceedings. This thus gave them inadequate time to prepare themselves. The defense were sometimes not even given a copy of the documents, while newspapermen were given 250 copies of every document. This was pointed out also by Dr. Laternser.

The Nuremberg trials also brought raised some legal doubts. For example, the Krupp family had major factories in Germany. The Allies wanted to convict Alfred Krupp, who was controlling these factories, but instead brought his elderly innocent father to trial. They believed that this was justifiable because he should want to defend his son, but they did not think that perhaps an old man would not want to be placed in the shoes of a criminal.

The Russians also accused the Germans of committing crimes such as the burning of churches, bu

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Approximate Word count = 1513
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: History