Lesley Stahl: Now, you've been at this for 50 years, if not more. Boy, I felt if I'd had a bayonet I woulda jumped over the thing, and put a bayonet right through one ear, and let it come out the other. Speer managed to distinguish himself from other defendants, giving the impression of apologizing, although without assuming personal guilt or naming any victims other than the German people. per adult (price varies by group size) Nuremberg World War 2 Tour. When we first reported on him back in 2017, he was 97 years old, barely 5 feet tall, and he had served as prosecutor of what's been called the biggest murder trial ever. [228][24] The charge of crimes against humanity, the charge of conspiracy, and imposing criminal penalties on individuals for breaches of international law were also novel but attracted little criticism. [105] The American prosecutors were not any more effective when presenting documentary evidence on the conspiracy to commit crimes against humanity, and ended up reaching a "saturation point of horror" by their indiscriminate selection and disorganized presentation of evidence without tying it to specific defendants. Lesley Stahl: What was going on inside of you? Part of an artillery battalion, he landed on the beach at Normandy and fought in the Battle of the Bulge. [3] War losses in the Soviet Union alone included 27 million dead, mostly civilians, which was .mw-parser-output .frac{white-space:nowrap}.mw-parser-output .frac .num,.mw-parser-output .frac .den{font-size:80%;line-height:0;vertical-align:super}.mw-parser-output .frac .den{vertical-align:sub}.mw-parser-output .sr-only{border:0;clip:rect(0,0,0,0);height:1px;margin:-1px;overflow:hidden;padding:0;position:absolute;width:1px}17th of the prewar population. [12] The United States insisted on a fair trial as a means of reforming Germany. Stanford, California 94305. I got on the next plane, flew from Berlin down to Nuremberg, and I said to Taylor, "General, we've gotta put on a new trial.". The trials, conducted at a military tribunal with judges from Allied nations including the Soviet Union, were a seminal milestone in the creation of modern international law in general and the prosecution of crimes against humanity. The trial of 22 Nazi leaders began on Nov. 20, 1945, and the Tribunal pronounced its judgment on Oct. 1, 1946. Another man was sentenced to death in absentia. Hitler's top lieutenants were prosecuted first. I am naive? [88], The charter allowed the admissibility of any evidence deemed to have probative value, including depositions. Only one piece of film is known to exist of the Einsatzgruppen at work. He promoted an intentionalist view of the Nazi state and its overall conspiracy to commit all of the crimes mentioned in the indictment. Lesley Stahl: Going on right this minute in Sudan. And I can't believe you're 97 years old. Lesley Stahl: And you had his name down on a piece of. [240] The IMT is one of the most well-studied trials in history, and it has also been the subject of an abundance of books and scholarly publications, along with motion pictures such as Judgment at Nuremberg (1961) and The Memory of Justice (1976). Nuremberg war crimes trials 70 years on: a complex legacy. The speech was favorably received by the prosecution, the tribunal, the audience, historians, and even the defendants. So the Jewish question was for me solved in Germany, but I believed that another international solution will come, that we should meet with Zionists, listen to their demands, he said on April 26, 1946 at the military tribunal where he stood trial with other Nazi officials for crimes against humanity. One of America's most recognized and experienced broadcast journalists, Lesley Stahl has been a 60 Minutes correspondent since 1991. Nrnberg trials, Nrnberg also spelled Nuremberg, series of trials held in Nrnberg, Germany, in 1945-46, in which former Nazi leaders were indicted and tried as war criminals by the International Military Tribunal. And you know what keeps me going? They all have already tags on 'em. First published on June 27, 2021 / 6:54 PM. Twelve of the defendants were sentenced to death (Gring, Ribbentrop, Keitel, Kaltenbrunner, Rosenberg, Frank, Frick, Streicher, Sauckel, Jodl, Seyss-Inquart, and Bormann). Einsatzgruppen D was the unit of Ferencz's lead defendant Otto Ohlendorf. They could-- like, they're waiting for a bus. QAnon followers believe a second set of Nuremberg-like trials will be held to prosecute those who introduced coronavirus restrictions, on the grounds of "crimes against humanity." Acolytes of the . [65], Some of the most prominent NazisAdolf Hitler, Heinrich Himmler, and Joseph Goebbelshad committed suicide and therefore could not be tried. The trials weren't perfect, but the Allies had wanted to shoot the defendants, so at least the . At this stage of the project, users will be able to explore digital surrogates of trial records, including transcripts of the court hearings in English, French, German and Russian; case files; trial briefs; evidentiary exhibits filed by the prosecution and the defense; opening and closing statements; final pleas; procedural rules, orders, judgments, dissenting opinions and sentences. Benjamin Ferencz: And I'm still in there fighting. Vaillant Couturier later became a French politician. The defense lawyers saw themselves as acting on behalf of their clients, but also the German nation;[78] they prioritized the Wehrmacht's reputation over the lives of the generals on trial. By Cnaan Liphshiz January 15, 2021 11:48 am. and Chris Smith (R-N.J.) would . [95] None of the defendants tried to assert that the Nazis' crimes had not occurred; instead, they attempted to divert blame from their own actions. 1/6. [185] Twelve military trials were convened solely by the United States in the same courtroom that had hosted the International Military Tribunal. [44] As the numerically strongest delegation, it would take on the bulk of the prosecutorial effort. All wars, and all decent people. Top ways to experience Nuremburg Trial Courthouse and nearby attractions. A team of over 1,000 lawyers and over 10,000 medical experts lead by Dr. Reiner Fullmich have begun legal proceedings over the CDC, WHO, the Davos Group for crimes against humanity. Benjamin Ferencz: He's not a savage. So he finished at Harvard then enlisted as a private in the Army. You're not getting very far. 2023 jewish telegraphic agency all rights reserved. Nearly 75 years ago, the Nuremberg Trial came to a close when on Oct. 1, 1946, a group of convicted Nazi leaders was sentenced by the International Military Tribunal (IMT) for crimes against peace . For the subsequent trials held by the United States, see, "International Military Tribunal" redirects here. [46] The British chief prosecutor was Hartley Shawcross, assisted by David Maxwell Fyfe, who had been the attorney general in Churchill's government. Included in the archive are firsthand accounts from the few who survived the Nazi concentration camps, including for example Marie-Claude Vaillant Couturier, a member of the French Resistance who was imprisoned at Auschwitz and Ravensbrck. [87] Over the course of the trial, Western judges allowed the defendants additional leeway to denounce the Soviet Union, which was ultimately revealed to be a co-conspirator in the outbreak of World War II. [79] Initially, the Americans had planned to try fourteen organizations and their leaders, but this was narrowed to six: the Reich Cabinet, the Leadership Corps of the Nazi Party, the Gestapo, the SA, the SS and the SD, and the General Staff and High Command of the Wehrmacht. That is the current system. After they had been made to give up their clothing and valuables, all of them were killed, which took several days." The United States delegation outlined the overall Nazi conspiracy and criminality of Nazi organizations. Stanford Libraries is working with the Registry of the International Court of Justice to build a complete digital corpus of this historic archive. In 1954, the USS Nautilus, the world's first nuclear submarine, was . [179], The exact sentences to be given each defendant were debated at length by the judges. The claim has circulated widely online, including in this November 24, 2021 article (archived here) published by biotechexpressmag.com titled "Team of 1,000 lawyers and 10,000 Medical Experts Start Nuremberg 2 Trial against World Leaders for Crimes Against Humanity." It opened: Benjamin Ferencz: And I start screaming. $211.69. 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Nearly 75 years ago, the Nuremberg Trial came to a close when on Oct. 1, 1946, a group of convicted Nazi leaders was sentenced by the International Military Tribunal (IMT) for crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during World War II and the Holocaust. 27-year-old Ben Ferencz became the chief prosecutor of 22 Einsatzgruppen commanders at Nuremberg. His equivocations, standing in sharp contrast to his genocidal editorial line reflected in slogans like Germany will live as long as it sees the Jews as the mortal enemy of mankind, are now available online for the first time along with hundreds of additional hours of audio and video recordings from the trials of 24 Nazis that ended 1946, nearly 75 years ago. And that's just the beginning. The Doctors' Trial was one of 13 proceedings. A new tool for designing and managing irrigation for farms advances the implementation of smart agriculture, an approach that leverages data and modern technologies to boost crop yields while conserving natural resources. She describes in great detail what she and many others had to endure: starvation, slave labor, beatings, epidemics and extreme cold as well the daily trauma of witnessing thousands sent to gas chambers, never to return, among many other cruelties. The Palace of Justice was relatively intact but needed to be renovated for the trial due to bomb damage; it had an attached prison where the defendants could be held. [133], Inspired by the films shown by the American prosecution, the Soviet Union commissioned three films for the trial: The German Fascist Destruction of the Cultural Treasures of the Peoples of the USSR, Atrocities Committed by the German Fascist Invaders in the USSR, and The German Fascist Destruction of Soviet Cities, using footage from Soviet filmmakers as well as shots from German newsreels. [168], The judgment found that there was a premeditated conspiracy to commit crimes against peace, the goals of the conspiracy being "the disruption of the European order as it had existed since the Treaty of Versailles" and "the creation of a Greater Germany beyond the frontiers of 1914". 10 issued by the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The Nuremberg trials were a series of 13 trials carried out between 1945 and 1949, the Trial of Major War Criminals being held from November 20, 1945 to October 1, 1946. . Testimony is ultimately human narratives, and it means a lot to help keep those voices alive through time and space so that we can learn from history and hopefully better understand the implications of atrocities carried out in different cultural and historical contexts, said Penelope Van Tuyl, associate director of the Center for Human Rights and International Justice, who has also contributed to the preservation efforts and development of the Virtual Tribunals exhibit platform. [186] These trials were held under Law No. He delivered the closing argument in the court's first case. [77] Gring, the most famous surviving Nazi, headlined the trial. If we believe that understanding whats happened in the past is important for understanding the present and thinking about the future, then these testimonies are important.. Posted Wed 11 Aug 2021 at 8:00pm Wednesday 11 Aug 2021 at 8:00pm Wed 11 Aug 2021 at 8:00pm. Lesley Stahl: Had you prosecuted trials before? It was the first time that international tribunals . [102] Jackson's focus was on the aggressive war charge, which he described as the root of the crimes against humanity and of war crimes. Benjamin Ferencz: --recall if I'd ever been in a courtroom actually. There are also transcripts of eyewitness accounts, including that of Hermann Grbe, a construction manager who described the horrors of a mass execution he saw in Dubno, Ukraine. Produced by Shari Finkelstein and Nieves Zuberbhler. [69][37], The defendants, who were largely unrepentant,[70] included former cabinet ministers: Franz von Papen (who had brought Hitler to power); Joachim von Ribbentrop (foreign minister), Wilhelm Frick (interior minister), and Alfred Rosenberg, minister for the occupied eastern territories. He was carrying out his government's instructions. [174] The judges interpreted crimes against humanity narrowly; they determined that crimes against German Jews before 1939 were not under the court's jurisdiction because the prosecution had not proven a connection to aggressive war. [49][48] The French government tried to appoint staff who were not tainted by collaboration with the Vichy regime; some appointments were of those who had been in the French resistance. And you're very wise. Benjamin Ferencz: Going on right this minute, yes. I know I'm right. That's insane. [194] Luftwaffe general Erhard Milch was tried for using slave labor and deporting civilians. Lesley Stahl: Did you meet a lot of people who perpetrated war crimes who would otherwise in your opinion have been just a normal, upstanding citizen? Judge: How do you plead to this indictment, guilty or not guilty? [81] Senior American officials believed that convicting organizations was a good way of showing that not just the top German leaders were responsible for crimes, without condemning the entire German people. [100], On 21 November, Jackson gave the opening speech for the prosecution. [32] The trial was held under modified common law. It is not often you get the chance to meet a man who holds a place in history like Ben Ferencz. And that's how 27-year-old Ben Ferencz became the chief prosecutor of 22 Einsatzgruppen commanders at trial number 9 at Nuremberg. (the covid vaccines are still experimental as of August 8, 2021), that is called duress, overreaching, and coercion, which is a clear . And the stories he heard in those camps. [189], One set of trials focused on the actions of German professionals: the Doctors' trial focused on human experimentation and euthanasia murders, the Judges' trial on the role of the judiciary in Nazi crimes, and the Ministries trial on the culpability of bureaucrats of German government ministries, especially the Foreign Office. Ralf Bosen. You're the sunniest man I've ever met. [203], In all, 249 journalists were accredited to cover the IMT[40] and 61,854 visitor tickets were issued. But during his first semester, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, and he, like many classmates, raced to enlist. This photograph was taken in Kyiv, Ukraine, not Nuremberg . [10][11], Of all the Allies, the Soviet Union lobbied most intensely for trying the defeated German leaders for aggression in addition to war crimes. [163] Contrary to the prosecution, the verdict dated the planning of aggression to the 1937 Hossbach Memorandum and not to the founding of the Nazi Party. One of these-- my defendants said-- He gets up, and he says, "[GERMAN]," which is, "What? Taylor told Ferencz adding another trial was impossible. Preserving records from the Nuremberg Trial as well as materials from the subsequent tribunals and truth and reconciliation commissions it inspired is crucial to protecting the historic and judicial legacies of the war and acknowledging the consequences of mass atrocities, said David Cohen, director of the Stanford Center for Human Rights and International Justice and professor of classics in the School of Humanities and Sciences. [80][81] The aim was to have these organizations declared criminal, so that their members could be tried expeditiously for membership in a criminal organization. [73] Also on trial were propagandists Julius Streicher and Hans Fritzsche; Rudolf Hess, Hitler's deputy who had flown to Britain in 1941; Hans Frank, governor-general of the General Governorate of Poland; Hitler Youth leader Baldur von Schirach; Arthur Seyss-Inquart, Reich Commissioner for the Netherlands; and Ernst Kaltenbrunner, the leader of Himmler's Reich Main Security Office. The International Military Tribunal, more commonly known at the Nuremberg trials, began this week 75 years ago in Nuremberg, Germany.The trials were a series of military tribunals held to convict major Nazi German leaders on charges of crimes against peace, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and conspiracy to commit each of these crimes. I was 27 years old. He also recalls how, for a time, he followed in his fathers footsteps to become a school principal before he became politically radicalized and joined Adolf Hitlers Nazi Party, which he said he believed offered the best path to recovering Germanys ailing economy and improving its international status after its devastating defeat in World War I. [10] The declaration also stated that those high-ranking Nazis who had committed crimes in several countries would be dealt with jointly. Benjamin Ferencz: Never in my life. All 22 defendants were found guilty, and four of them, including Ohlendorf, were hanged. [205] Where the prosecution was disappointed by some of the verdicts, the defense could take satisfaction. [60] The American prosecution became derailed during attempts to provide evidence of the German annexation of Austria. You know? By submitting the above I agree to the privacy policy and terms of use of JTA.org. [138], From March to July 1946, the defense presented its counterarguments. Marie-Claude Valliant Couturier revealed the conditions under which French women existed while interned; 49 of the 230 French women sent to Auschwitz survived. It was one of the biggest trials in post-war Germany dealing with Nazi-era war crimes. [135] The Soviet Union also called two Holocaust survivors as witnesses, Samuel Rajzmana Treblinka survivorand poet Abraham Sutzkever, who eloquently described the murder of tens of thousands of Jews from Vilna, although their testimony did not directly incriminate any of the defendants. On December 9, 1946, an American military tribunal opened criminal proceedings against 23 leading German physicians and administrators for their willing participation in war crimes and crimes against humanity. But that didn't last long. Benjamin Ferencz: We're marching forward. The bill was introduced by Reps. Lois Frankel (D-Fla.), Joe Wilson (R-S.C.), Ted Deutch (D-Fla.), Gus Bilirakis (R-Fla.), Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) [182] Nikichenko released a dissent approved by Moscow that rejected all the acquittals, called for a death sentence for Hess, and convicted all the organizations. This footage came to light years later. The British government was still opposed, unable to see the benefit of such a trial and preferring the summary execution of Nazi leaders. Google trends show a notable increase in people searching for "Nuremberg trials" since the onset of the pandemic, as well as a dramatic recent increase in searches for "Nuremberg trials 2021". [207][208] In a 1946 poll, 78 percent of Germans assessed the trial as fair, but four years later that had fallen to 38 percent, with 30 percent considering it unfair. [192] Members of the SS were tried in the Pohl trial, which focused on members of the SS Main Economic and Administrative Office that oversaw SS economic activity, including the Nazi concentration camps;[193] the RuSHA trial of Nazi racial policies; and the Einsatzgruppen trial, in which members of the mobile killing squads were tried for the murder of more than one million people behind the Eastern Front. Now I will tell you something very profound, which I have learned after many years. A bust of Ferencz was just installed outside that Nuremberg courtroom where he argued almost three-quarters of a century ago. [158][136] In contrast to the opening prosecution statements, all eight closing statements highlighted the Holocaust; and the French and British prosecutors made this the main charge, as opposed to that of aggression. [157] Over the course of the trial, crimes against humanity and especially against Jews (who were mentioned as victims of Nazi atrocities far more than any other group) came to upstage the aggressive war charge. more_horiz. This first international military tribunal was monumental: Not only did it bring perpetrators of mass atrocities to justice, it was also the first time international law was used to prosecute individuals, including heads of state, for war crimes. This additional collection, to be known as the Taube Archive of the International Military Tribunal of Nuremberg, will allow the public to easily browse and discover the contents of over 5,000 trial records including 250,000 pages of digitized paper documents showing in meticulous detail the efforts of the IMT, a group of representatives from four Allied countries the U.S., the U.K., the Soviet Union and France who were tasked with prosecuting former officials of the Third Reich and holding them accountable for the horrific acts inflicted during World War II and the Holocaust. [30] Article 7 prevented the defendants from claiming immunity for their actions under the act of state doctrine,[31] and the plea of acting under superior orders was left for the judges to decide. Benjamin Ferencz: He gave me a bunch of binders, four binders. For the scholars, what makes the Nuremberg archives particularly captivating is the variety of human narratives that emerges from the variety of documents and transcripts stories that are now easier to find thanks to Stanfords preservation efforts. He's an intelligent, patriotic human being. [13] Planners in the United States Department of War were drawing up plans for an international tribunal in late 1944 and early 1945. View of Nuremberg in 1945. Lesley Stahl: Did anybody ever say that you're naive? #. Benjamin Ferencz: Same thing, not guilty. The most optimistic. (The U.S. He wanted to be a pilot, but the Army Air Corps wouldn't take him. [132] The inclusion of Katyn in the charges undermined the credibility of Soviet evidence in general. HumansAreFree@HumansAreFree. Language links are at the top of the page across from the title. In the Hostages case, several generals were tried for executing thousands of hostages and prisoners of war, looting, using forced labor, and deporting civilians in the Balkans. [60] Conspiracy charges were especially central to the cases against propagandists and industrialists; the former were charged with providing the ideological justification for war and other crimes, while the latter were accused of economic mobilization without which no war would have been possible. Our aim is to create a resource that enables users to draw on that experience and knowledge in ways that can assist governments, institutions and experts in improving how we achieve accountability for mass atrocity crimes, said Cohen. Benjamin Ferencz: Of course, is my answer. [230] The selectivity in trying Germans but not the Allies has garnered the most persistent criticism. [160] On 2 September, the court recessed; and the judges retreated into seclusion to decide the verdict and sentences, which had been under discussion since June. [132][169] Through a compromise among the judges, the charge of conspiracy was narrowed to a conspiracy to wage aggressive war. [18], At the London Conference, held from 26 June to 2 August 1945, representatives of France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States negotiated the exact form that the trial would take. The indictment lodged against them contained four counts: (1) crimes against peace (i.e., the planning, initiating, and waging of wars of aggression in violation of . [212], The German churches, both Catholic and Protestant, were vociferous proponents of amnesty,[213] which had cross-party support in West Germany, which was established in 1949. [146][148] Six defendants were charged with the German invasion of Norway, and their lawyers argued that this invasion was undertaken to prevent a British invasion; a cover-up prevented the defense from capitalizing on this argument. [22][23] War crimes already existed in international law as criminal violations of the laws and customs of war. At the time, Ferencz just had the documents, and he started adding up the numbers. Three were acquitted and the rest given long prison sentences. [104] On 29 November, the prosecution was unprepared to continue presenting on the invasion of Czechoslovakia, and instead screened Nazi Concentration and Prison Camps. [76] Of the 24 men indicted, Martin Bormann was tried in absentia, as the Allies were unaware of his death; Krupp was too ill to stand trial; and Robert Ley committed suicide. He was proud of that. Benjamin Ferencz: When I reached over a million people murdered that way, over a million people, that's more people than you've ever seen in your life, I took a sample. By early 1946, Western prosecutors were uneasy about the Katyn charge, although they never publicly rejected it for fear of casting the entire proceedings into question. The IMT focused on the crime of aggressionplotting and waging aggressive war, which the verdict declared "the supreme international crime" because "it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole". [5] Soviet jurist Aron Trainin developed the concept of crimes against peace (waging aggressive war) which would later be central to the proceedings at Nuremberg. [1] Most of the defendants were also charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity. He never stops pushing his message and he's donating his life savings to a Genocide Prevention Initiative at the Holocaust Museum. [146][147] Defense lawyer Alfred Seidl[de] repeatedly tried to disclose the secret protocols of the GermanSoviet pact. [154] The United States controlled the prison where the defendants and some of the witnesses were held, and tried its best to shut the Soviets out of the proceedings. [146] The Nuremberg Laws were compared to discriminatory laws in the United States. Holocaust Memorial Museum). Nazi . Launching Oct. 1 is an expanded repository of digital records, preserved in cooperation with the ICJ in the Stanford Digital Repository (SDR). The British worked on putting together the aggressive war charge; the French and Soviet delegations were assigned the task of covering crimes against humanity and war crimes committed on the Western Front and the Eastern Front, respectively. Well, see here, this-- they rounded 'em up. [92], The International Military Tribunal began trial on 20 November 1945,[93] after postponement requests from the Soviet prosecution, who wanted more time to prepare its case, were rejected. Benjamin Ferencz: Defendants' face were blank, all the time. [21] At the conference, it was debated whether wars of aggression were prohibited in existing international customary law; regardless, before the charter was adopted there was no law providing for criminal responsibility for aggression. Benjamin Ferencz: And I've got-- I've got his reports of how many he killed. For the past seven years, Stanford Libraries has been working with the Registry of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague to obtain a complete digital corpus of the Nuremberg Trial in support of the Virtual Tribunal of the Stanford Center for Human Rights and International Justice. [200] The case law of the trials fleshed out the skeleton provided by the Nuremberg charter and the IMT verdict. [130] The defense presented evidence of Soviet responsibility,[131] and Katyn was not mentioned in the verdict. Not guilty. Benjamin Ferencz: He was not ashamed of that. Benjamin Ferencz: Of course. [87], Initially, it was planned to hold a second international tribunal for German industrialists, but this was never held because of differences between the Allies. [222] By the late 1950s, the West German consensus on release began to erode, due to greater openness in political culture and new revelations of Nazi criminality, including the first trials of Nazi perpetrators in West German courts. He didn't deny the killings -- he had the gall to claim they were done in self-defense. [33], The negotiators decided that the tribunal's permanent seat would be in Berlin, while the trial would be held at the Palace of Justice in Nuremberg.
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nuremberg trials 2021