What was international military tribunal
Answers
Beginning in the winter of 1942, the governments of the Allied powers announced their intent to punish Nazi war criminals.
On December 17, 1942, the leaders of the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union issued the first joint declaration officially noting the mass murder of European Jewry and resolving to prosecute those responsible for violence against civilian populations. Though some political leaders advocated summary executions instead of trials, eventually the Allies decided to hold an International Military Tribunal. In the words of Cordell Hull, “a condemnation after such a proceeding will meet the judgment of history, so that the Germans will not be able to claim that an admission of war guilt was extracted from them under duress.”
In October 1943, US president Franklin D. Roosevelt, British prime minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet leader Josef Stalin signed the Moscow Declaration. The declaration stated that at the time of an armistice, persons deemed responsible for war crimes would be sent back to those countries in which the crimes had been committed and would be judged according to the laws of the nation concerned. Major war criminals, whose crimes could be assigned no particular geographic location, would be punished by joint decisions of the Allied governments.
THE INTERNATIONAL MILITARY TRIBUNAL
The trials of leading German officials before the International Military Tribunal (IMT), the best known of the postwar war crimes trials, formally opened in Nuremberg, Germany, on November 20, 1945, just six and a half months after Germany surrendered. On October 18, 1945, the chief prosecutors of the IMT had read the indictments against 24 leading Nazi officials. The four charges brought against these officials were:
1. Conspiracy to commit crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity
2. Crimes against peace
3. War crimes
4. Crimes against humanity
Each of the four Allied nations—the United States, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and France—supplied a judge and a prosecution team. Lord Justice Geoffrey Lawrence of Great Britain served as the court's presiding judge. The trial's rules were the result of delicate reconciliations of the Continental and Anglo-American judicial systems.
A team of translators provided simultaneous translations of all proceedings in four languages: English, French, German, and Russian.
THE DEFENDANTS
After much debate, 24 defendants were chosen to represent a cross-section of Nazi diplomatic, economic, political, and military leadership.
Adolf Hitler, Heinrich Himmler, and Joseph Goebbels never stood trial, having committed suicide before the end of the war. The IMT decided not to try them posthumously so as not to create the impression that they might still be alive.
In fact, only 21 defendants appeared in court. German industrialist Gustav Krupp was included in the original indictment, but he was elderly and in failing health. It was decided in preliminary hearings to exclude him from the proceedings. Nazi party secretary Martin Bormann was tried and convicted in absentia. Head of the German Labor Front Robert Ley committed suicide on the eve of the trial.
THE CHARGES
The IMT had indicted the defendants on charges of crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. The IMT defined crimes against humanity as "murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation...or persecutions on political, racial, or religious grounds."
A fourth charge of conspiracy was added (1) to cover crimes committed under domestic Nazi law before the start of World War II and (2) so that subsequent tribunals would have jurisdiction to prosecute any individual belonging to a proven criminal organization. Therefore the IMT also indicted several Nazi organizations deemed to be criminal, namely: the Reich Cabinet, the Leadership Corps of the Nazi Party, the Elite Guard (SS), the Security Service (SD), the Secret State Police (Gestapo), the Stormtroopers (SA), and the General Staff and High Command of the German Armed Forces.
The defendants were entitled to a legal counsel of their choosing.
THE VERDICT
American chief prosecutor Robert Jackson decided to argue his case primarily on the basis of mounds of documents written by the Nazis themselves rather than eyewitness testimony so that the trial could not be accused of relying on biased or tainted testimony. Testimony presented at Nuremberg revealed much of what we know about the Holocaust including the details of the Auschwitz death machinery, the destruction of the Warsaw ghetto, and the estimate of six million Jewish victims.
Answer:
The International Military Tribunal was trial court set up at Nuremberg to prosecute Nazi war criminals for crimes against peace and for War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity.