Justice: The Nuremberg Trials

The year is 1945: 6 million people have just been exterminated due to their religion. Countless more have been killed, injured, or emotionally wounded. This act cannot go on unnoticed, this crime cannot go on without justice. Together, four major world powers unify and take course against a genocide felt throughout the world. The four powers come forth with the idea to hold a series of trials. After careful thought, America, France, Russia, and England chose Nuremberg to hold the trials. With a location set and a course of action, the powers now had to build their case in the Nuremberg Trials, a series of thirteen trials held with the purpose of bringing Nazi criminals to justice after WWII. The Nuremberg trials began with a pursuit of
“Of the twenty-two defendants, an even dozen were convicted on all charges and sentenced to death.” (Marcus, 127) In court, the defendants faced four charges including: crimes against peace, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and “a common plan or conspiracy to commit” the criminal acts listed in the first three counts. (Britannica, np) “After 216 court sessions, on October 1, 1946, the verdict on twenty-two of the original twenty-four defendants was handed down. (Robert Ley committed suicide while in prison, and Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach’s mental and physical condition prevented his being tried.) Three of the defendants were acquitted. Four were sentenced to terms of imprisonment ranging from 10 to 20 years. Three were sentenced to life imprisonment. Twelve of the defendants were sentenced to death by hanging. Ten of them—Hans Frank, Wilhelm Frick, Julius Streicher, Alfred Rosenberg, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Fritz Sauckel, Alfred Jodl, Wilhelm Keitel, and Arthur Seyss-Inquart—were hanged on October 16, 1946. Martin Bormann was tried and condemned to death in absentia, and Hermann Göring committed suicide before he could be executed.” (Britannica, np) The Allies had achieved the success of justice for the crimes of
The right of humanitarian intervention to put a stop to Crimes Against Humanity – even by a sovereign against his own citizens – gradually emerged from the Nuremberg principles affirmed by the United Nations.” (The Influence of the Nuremberg Trial on International Criminal Law, np) Though the trials at Nuremberg were not completely justice, there is no such thing as complete justice, however Nuremberg was able to give some measure of it. (Sher, 98) With that measure of justice, the world has since been able to grow and evolve in an attempt to never again allow such horrors as those occurring in