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  • October 2016 marks 70 years since Nazi war criminals were prosecuted in what has been

  • called the biggest murder trial in history.

  • These 13 trials held in the German town of Nuremberg sparked a new era of international

  • human rights law.

  • So what were the Nuremberg Trials?

  • Well, during World War Two, Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime systematically murdered an estimated

  • 11 million people, more than half of whom were European Jews.

  • Throughout the war, the Allied powers, which included the United States, Great Britain

  • and the Soviet Union, issued regular warnings to the German government, promising to punish

  • its massing killing and other heinous war crimes.

  •  But with the war over in 1945, Allied leaders were not sure how to do this, as there was

  • no precedent for trying international crimes of this proportion.

  • Joseph Stalin suggested summarily killing as many as 100,000 officers without trial,

  • and even Winston Churchill considered doing so just for high-ranking members.

  • But US leaders persuaded the Allies to prosecute them in an actual trial.

  • From 1945 to 1949, Nazi party officials and military officers, as well as German industrialists,

  • doctors and lawyers were tried at Nuremberg.

  • The first and most infamous trial involved 24 major war criminals as well as six Nazi

  • Organizations, including its secret police, theGestapo’.

  • Notably absent was Hitler and his two of his highest ranking associates, as they had committed

  • suicide just months earlier.

  • Since this was the first time that different countries were simultaneously prosecuting

  • one trial, and instead of a single judge or jury, the cases were decided by an international

  • tribunal.

  • And despite the horrific nature of their crimes, US and British law dictated that the defendants

  • could choose their own attorneys.

  • Many of the Nazis admitted to their crimes, but argued that they werejust following

  • orders’, which has famously become known as theNuremberg defense”.

  • Another common claim was that other soldiers had committed the same acts, or worse, and

  • yet were not being held to the same standard of punishment.

  •  

  • In the end, nearly all were found guilty.

  • About half were sentenced to death, and the rest received prison terms ranging from ten

  • years to life.

  • Ten Nazis were hanged in just one day.

  • Interestingly, Hitler’s right hand man, Hermann Goering, was supposed to be executed

  • but committed suicide the night before.

  • After the Trial of Major War Criminals, twelve more trials were held at Nuremberg, however

  • they were judged by US military officials rather than an international tribunal.

  • Of the 185 Nazi doctors, lawyers, judges and businessmen that were tried, twelve were given

  • death sentences and 84 were put behind bars.

  • However, a majority of those involved in perpetrating the Holocaust did not see trial..

  • Today, the Nuremberg trials are considered a major milestone in the creation of international

  • law.

  • The event led to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the UN’s establishment

  • of international war crimes and crimes against humanity.

  • However some have argued that although Nuremberg rectified some of the war’s atrocities,

  • it didn’t achieve its larger goal, that is, creating a precedent so that similar crimes

  • don’t occur.

  • In the last half century, millions of people have died as a result of genocides in countries

  • like Rwanda, Cambodia and former Yugoslavia, with few perpetrators being brought to justice.

  • And still, even today, war crimes and crimes against humanity continue around

  • the world.

October 2016 marks 70 years since Nazi war criminals were prosecuted in what has been

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