The Nuremberg trials of the main war criminals briefly. Nuremberg trials or political trial

The Nuremberg trials (international military tribunal) - the trial of the leaders of Nazi Germany following the results of the Second World War. The process took place from November 20, 1945 to October 1, 1946, 10 months. Within the framework of the international tribunal, the victorious countries (USSR, USA, England and France) accused the leaders of Nazi Germany for war and other crimes committed by the latter from 1939 to 1945.

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Creation of an international tribunal

The International Tribunal for the Trial of German War Criminals was formed on 8 August 1945 in London. Agreements between the USSR, the USA, Great Britain and France were signed there. The agreement was based on the principles of the United Nations (United Nations Organization) and the parties have repeatedly emphasized this, including in the Agreement itself.

1. The Tribunal will be held in Germany.
2. The organization, jurisdiction and functions are separately created for the tribunal.
3. Each of the countries undertakes to present at the tribunal all important war criminals who are in their captivity.
4. The signed agreements do not cancel the Moscow Declaration of 1943. Let me remind you that according to the declaration of 1943, all war criminals were to be returned to those settlements where they committed their atrocities, and there they were tried.
5. Any member of the UN may join the charge.
6. The agreement does not cancel other courts that have already been created or will be created in the future.
7. The agreement comes into force from the moment of signing and valid for 1 year.

It was on this basis that the Nuremberg Trials were created.

Preparing for the process

Before starting the Nuremberg Trials, 2 meetings were held in Berlin, where organizational issues were discussed. The first meeting was held on October 9 in the building of the Control Council in Berlin. Minor issues were raised here - the uniform of judges, the organization of translation into 4 languages, the format of the defense, and so on. The second meeting was held on October 18 in the same building of the Control Council. This meeting, unlike the first, was open.

The International Military Tribunal in Berlin was convened to pass the indictment. This was announced by the chairman of the meeting, Major General of Justice I.T. Nikitchenko. The indictment was directed against the high command of the Wehrmacht, as well as against the organizations controlled by it: the government, the leadership of the party, the guard detachments of the SS party, the security service of the SD party, the Gestapo (secret police), the assault detachments of the SA party, the general staff and the high command of the German army. The charges were brought against the following persons: Göring, Hess, Ribbentrop, Ley, Keitel, Kaltenbrunner, Funk, Schacht, Rosenberg, Frank, Frick, Streicher, Krupp, Bohlen, Halbach, Doenitz, Raeder, Schirach, Sauckel, Jodl, Bormann, Papen, Seiss-Inkwrt, Speer, Neurath and Fritsche.

The accusations of the Nuremberg Tribunal consisted of 4 main points:

1. Conspiracy to seize power in Germany.
2. War crimes.
3. Crimes against humanity.

Each of the charges is extensive, so it must be considered separately.

Conspiracy to seize power

The defendants were charged with the fact that they were all members of the National Socialist Party, participated in a conspiracy to seize power, realizing the consequences to which this would lead.

The party created 4 postulates, which became the basis of the conspiracy. These postulates made it possible to control the entire German public by means of imposing doctrines on them - the superiority of the German race (Aryans), the need for war for justice, the full power of the "Fuhrer", as the only person worthy to rule Germany. Actually, Germany grew up on these doctrines, which kept Europe at war for 6 years.

Further accusations of this paragraph concern the establishment of total control over all spheres of the life of the German state, with the help of which military aggression became possible.

These crimes are related to the unleashing of wars:

• September 1, 1939 - against Poland
• September 3, 1939 - against France and Great Britain
• April 9, 1940 - against Denmark and Norway
• May 10, 1940 - against the Benelux countries
• April 6, 1941 - against Greece and Yugoslavia
• April 22, 1941 - against the USSR
• December 11, 1941 - against the USA

Here's a nuance that draws attention. Above are 7 dates on which the international tribunal accused Germany of starting wars. There are no questions about 5 of them - these days wars really started against these states, but which wars were started on September 3, 1939 and December 11, 1941? On which sector of the front did the German military command (which was tried in Nuremberg) start the war on September 3, 1939 against England and France, and on December 11, 1941 against the USA? Here we are dealing with a substitution of concepts. In fact, Germany unleashed a war with Poland, for which on September 3, 1939, England and France declared war on her. And on December 11, 1941, the United States declares war on Germany after the latter has already fought with a huge number of countries (including the USSR) and after Pearl Harbar, which was committed by the Japanese, not the Germans.

War crimes

The leadership of Nazi Germany was accused of the following war crimes:

• Murder and mistreatment of civilians. It is enough to cite only the figures that, according to the indictment, in the USSR alone, this crime by Germany affected about 3 million people.
• Theft of the civilian population into slavery. The charge refers to 5 million citizens of the USSR, 750 thousand citizens of Czechoslovakia, about 1.5 million French, 500 thousand Dutch, 190 thousand Belgians, 6 thousand Luxembourgers, 5.2 thousand Danes.
• Murder and ill-treatment of prisoners of war.
• Hostage killing. We are talking about thousands of people killed.
• Collective fines. This system was used by Germany in many countries, but not in the USSR. Collective responsibility involved the payment of a fine by the entire population for the actions of individuals. It would seem not the most important article of the charge, but during the war years, collective fines were issued in the amount of more than 1.1 trillion francs.
• Theft of private and public property. The statement of the Nuremberg Tribunal states that as a result of the theft of private and public property, the damage to France amounted to 632 trillion francs, Belgium - 175 billion Belgian francs, the USSR - 679 trillion rubles, Czechoslovakia - 200 trillion Czechoslovak crowns.
• Aimless destruction, not due to military necessity. We are talking about the destruction of cities, villages, settlements and so on.
• Forced recruitment work force. First of all among the civilian population. For example, during the period from 1942 to 1944 in France, 963 thousand people were forcibly turned to work in Germany. Another 637,000 Frenchmen worked for the German army in France. Data for other countries are not specified in the charge. It is only about the huge number of prisoners in the USSR.
• Compulsion to swear allegiance to a foreign state.

Defendants and accusations

The participants were accused of helping the Nazis rise to power, strengthening their order in Germany, preparing for war, war crimes, crimes against humanity, including crimes against individuals. This is what everyone was accused of. There were additional accusations for each. They are presented in the table below.

Defendants at the Nuremberg Trials

Accused	Position	Charge*
Göring Hermann Wilhelm	Party member since 1922, head of the SA troops, SS general, commanders in chief air force
Von Ribbentrop Joachim	Party member since 1932, Minister of Foreign Policy, General of the SS Troops	Active participation in preparation for war and war crimes.
Hess Rudolf	Party member 1921-1941, Deputy Fuhrer, General of the SA and SS troops	Active participation in preparation for war and war crimes. Creation of foreign policy plans.
Kaltenbrunner Ernst	Party member since 1932, police general, head of the Austrian police	Strengthening the power of the Nazis in Austria. Establishment of concentration camps
Rosenberg Alfred	Party member since 1920, party leader for ideology and foreign policy, minister of the Eastern Occupied Territories	Psychological preparation for war. Numerous crimes against individuals.
Frank Hans	Party member since 1932, governor-general of the occupied Polish lands.	Crimes against humanity and war crimes in the occupied territories.
Borman Martin	Party member since 1925, Fuhrer's secretary, head of the party office, member of the Council of Ministers for State Defense.	Charged on all counts.
Frick Wilhelm	Party member since 1922, director of the center for the annexation of the occupied territories, protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.	Charged on all counts.
Lei Robert	Member of the party since 1932, organizer of the inspection to monitor foreign workers.	The criminal use of human labor for aggressive warfare.
Sauckel Fritz	Party member since 1921, governor of Thuringia, organizer of the inspection to monitor foreign workers.	Forcing the inhabitants of the occupied countries to slave labor in Germany.
Speer Albert	Member of the party since 1932, commissioner general for armaments.	Facilitating the exploitation of human labor for warfare.
Funk Walter	Party member since 1932, economic adviser to Hitler, secretary of the propaganda ministry, minister of economics.	Economic exploitation of the occupied territories.
Mine Gelmar	Party member since 1932, Minister of Economics, President of a German bank.	Development economic plans for waging war.
Von Papen Franz	Party member since 1932, Vice-Chancellor under Hitler.	He has not been charged with war crimes or crimes against humanity.
Krupp Gustav	Party member since 1932, member of the Economic Council, President of the Association of German Industrialists.	The use of people from the occupied territories at work to wage war.
Von Neurath Constantine	Party member since 1932, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.	Implementation of foreign policy plans to prepare for war. Active participation in crimes against persons and property in the occupied territories.
Von Schirach Baldur	Party member since 1924, Minister for the Education of Youth, head of the Hitler Youth (Hitler Youth), Gauleiter of Vienna.	Contribute to the psychological and educational preparation of organizations for warfare. Not charged with war crimes.
Seys-Inquart Arthur	Party member since 1932, Minister of Security of Austria, Deputy Governor-General of the Polish territories, Commissioner of the Netherlands.	Consolidation of power over Austria.
Streicher Julius	Party member since 1932, Gauleiter of Franconia, editor of the anti-Semitic newspaper Der Stürme.	Responsibility for the persecution of the Jews. Not charged with war crimes.
Keitel Wilhelm	Member of the party since 1938, head of the high command of the German armed forces.	Cruel treatment of prisoners of war and civilians. He was not blamed for the rise of the Nazis to power.
Jodl Alfred	Member of the party since 1932, head of the department of army operations, chief of staff of the high command of the German armed forces.	Charged on all counts.
Roeder Erich	Party member since 1928, commander-in-chief of the German navy.	War crimes related to naval warfare.
Doenitz Karl	Party member since 1932, Commander-in-Chief of the German Navy, adviser to Hitler.	Crime against persons and property on the high seas. He was not accused of establishing the power of the Nazis.
Fritsche Hans	Party member since 1933, head of the radio service, director of the Propaganda Ministry.	Exploitation of the occupied territories, anti-Jewish measures.

* - In addition to the above.

This is the complete list according to which the Nuremberg trials accused the top of Nazi Germany.

The case of Martin Bormann was considered in absentia. Krupp, who was recognized as ill, could not be taken to the court room, as a result of which the case was suspended. Lei committed suicide on October 26, 1945 - the case was closed due to the death of the suspect.

At the interrogation of the defendants on November 20, 1945, all pleaded not guilty, saying approximately following words"I do not plead guilty in the sense that the charge is brought." A very ambiguous answer ... But the best answer to the question of guilt was Rudolf Hess, who said - I plead guilty before God.

Judges

The Nuremberg trials had the following composition of judges:

• From the USSR - Nikitchenko Ion Timofeevich, his deputy - Volchkov Alexander Fedorovich.
• From the USA - Francis Biddle, his deputy - John Parker.
• From the United Kingdom - Jeffrey Lawrence, his deputy - Norman Birkett.
• From the French Republic - Henri Donnedier de Vabre, his deputy - Robert Falco.

Sentence

The Nuremberg Tribunal ended with a judgment on 1 October 1946. According to the verdict, 11 people will be hanged, 6 will go to prison and 3 will be acquitted.

Judgment of the Nuremberg Tribunal

Sentenced to death by hanging	Sentenced to prison	found not guilty
Göring Hermann Wilhelm	Rudolf Hess	Von Papen Franz
Joachim von Ribbentrop	Speer Albert	Mine Gelmar
Streicher Julius	Doenitz Karl	Fritsche Hans
Keitel Wilhelm	Funk Walter
Rosenberg Alfred	Von Neurath Constantine
Kaltenbrunner Ernst	Roeder Erich
Frank Hans
Frick Wilhelm
Sauckel Fritz
Von Schirach Baldur
Seys-Inquart Arthur
Jodl Alfred

Double standards of process

I propose to turn off emotions (this is hard, but necessary) and think about this - Germany was judged by the USA, the USSR, England and France. The list of accusations was higher in the text. But real problem was that the tribunal used double standarts- what the Allies accused Germany of, they themselves did! Not all, of course, but a lot. Examples of accusations:

• Poor treatment of prisoners of war. But the same France used German captured soldiers for forced labor. France treated the captured Germans so cruelly that the US even took some of the prisoners from them and sent protests.
• Forced deportation of the civilian population. But in 1945, the US and the USSR agreed to deport more than 10 million Germans from eastern and central Europe.
• Planning, unleashing and waging aggressive war. But in 1939 the USSR does the same with respect to Finland.
• Destruction of civilian objects (cities and villages). But on account of England, hundreds of bombings of peaceful cities in Germany with the use of vortex bombs to cause maximum damage to buildings.
• Looting and economic losses. But we all remember well the famous "2 days to plunder" that all allied armies had.

This in the best way emphasizes the duality of standards. This is neither good nor bad. There was a war, and terrible things always happen in war. It's just that in Nuremberg there was a situation that completely refuted the system of international law: the winner condemned the vanquished, and the sentences of "guilty" were known in advance. In this case, everything is considered from one side.

Is everyone condemned?

The Nuremberg trial today raises more questions than it answers. One of the main questions - who should be tried for cruelty and war? Before answering this question, I want to recall Keitel's last words at the Nuremberg Trials. He said that he was sorry that he, a soldier, was used for such purposes. Here's what the President of the Court had to say.

A command order, even if given to a soldier, cannot and must not be blindly followed if it requires the commission of such cruel and large-scale crimes without military necessity.

From the speech of the accuser

It turns out that any person who carried out criminal orders should have been brought before an international court. But then it should be German generals, officers and soldiers, concentration camp employees, doctors who conducted inhuman experiments on prisoners, generals of all countries that took part in the war against the USSR on the side of Germany, and others. But no one judged them ... In this regard, there are 2 questions:

• Why were Germany's allies, Italy and Japan, not attached to the court?
• Troops and generals from the following countries took part in the campaign against the USSR: Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Austria, Denmark, Holland, Belgium. Why were the representatives of these countries and the military who took part in the war not convicted?

Undoubtedly, representatives of both categories cannot be convicted of Nazis coming to power in Germany, but they must be convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Indeed, the Nuremberg Trials accused the German army of this, the armies of the countries indicated above were an integral part of it.

What was the process for?

The Nuremberg trial today raises a huge number of questions, the main of which is why this trial was needed at all? Historians answer - for the triumph of justice, so that all those responsible for the world war and those who have blood on their hands are punished. beautiful phrase but it is very easy to disprove it. If the allies were looking for justice, then not only the top of Germany, but also Italy, Japan, the generals of Romania, Austria, Hungary, Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Denmark and other countries that took an active part in the German European war should have been judged in Nuremberg .

I will give an example with Moldova, which was on the border, and the blow to which fell on the first days of the war. The Germans attacked here, but they very quickly began to move inland, followed by the Romanian army. And when they talk about the atrocities of the Germans in Moldova during the war, then 90% of these are the atrocities of the Romanians, who staged the genocide of the Moldovans. Shouldn't these people be held accountable for their crimes?

I see only 2 reasonable explanations why the international tribunal over Germany took place:

1. We needed one country on which to hang all the sins of the war. Burning through Germany was the best fit for this.
2. It was necessary to shift the blame to specific people. These people were found - the leadership of Nazi Germany. It turned out to be a paradox. For a 6-year world war with tens of millions of dead, 10-15 people are to blame. Of course it wasn't...

The Nuremberg trials summed up the Second World War. He identified the perpetrators and the degree of their guilt. On this page of history was turned over, and no one seriously dealt with the questions of how Hitler came to power, how he reached the borders of Poland without firing a shot, and others.

After all, neither before nor after that, a tribunal was never arranged over the vanquished.

France is a winning country

The Nuremberg trials recorded that 4 countries won the war: the USSR, the USA, England and France. It was these 4 countries that judged Germany. If there are no questions about the USSR, the USA and England, then there are questions about France. Can it be called a winner country? If a country wins a war, then it must have victories. The USSR passes from Moscow to Berlin in 4 years, England helps the USSR, fights at sea and bombs the enemy, the USA is known from Normandy, but what about France?

In 1940, Hitler quite easily defeats her army, after which he arranges a famous dance near the Eiffel Tower. After that, the French begin to work for the Wehrmacht, including in military terms. But the most significant is something else. After the end of the war, 2 conferences were held (Crimean and Berlin), at which the winners discussed the post-war life and the fate of Germany. At both conferences there were only 3 countries: the USSR, the USA and England.

History knows many examples of cruelty and inhumanity, bloody crimes of imperialism, but never before have such atrocities and atrocities been committed and on such a scale as the Nazis did. “German fascism,” noted G. Dimitrov, “is not only bourgeois nationalism. This is animal chauvinism. This is a government system of political banditry, a system of provocations and torture against the working class and the revolutionary elements of the peasantry, the petty bourgeoisie and the intelligentsia. This is medieval barbarism and atrocity. This is unbridled aggression against other peoples and countries” (961) . The Nazis tortured, shot, destroyed in gas chambers ah, more than 12 million women, the elderly, children, cold-bloodedly and ruthlessly exterminated prisoners of war. They razed thousands of towns and villages to the ground, drove millions of people from the European countries they occupied to hard labor in Germany.

It is characteristic of German fascism that, simultaneously with the military, economic and propaganda preparations for the next act of aggression, monstrous plans were being prepared for the mass destruction of prisoners of war and civilians. Extermination, torture, plunder were elevated to the rank public policy. “We,” said Hitler, “must develop the technique of depopulation. If you ask me what I mean by depopulation, I will say that I mean the elimination of entire racial units ... to eliminate millions of an inferior race ... "(962)

The department of the Reichsführer SS Himmler, the Supreme High Command of the Armed Forces and the High Command of the Ground Forces were directly involved in the development and implementation of plans for the mass destruction of civilians. They created a sinister "industry of human extermination" from which the German monopolies profited. In order to enslave the survivors, historical monuments and national relics were barbarously destroyed, and the material and spiritual culture of the peoples was destroyed.

Atrocities in Nazi Germany became the norm of behavior, everyday life of its rulers, officials, military personnel. The entire system of fascist institutions, organizations and camps was directed against the vital interests of entire peoples.

That is why fair retribution has become the demand of all honest people, one of the conditions for maintaining lasting peace on earth. Soviet soldiers and soldiers of countries anti-Hitler coalition paved the way for international justice - the Nuremberg trials of the main Nazi war criminals. True, reactionary circles in the USA and Great Britain, under various pretexts, launched a campaign aimed at preventing a trial of the fascist conspirators. American reactionary sociologists, even during the war, tried to convince their readers that war criminals were nothing more or less than mentally ill people who needed to be treated. The press discussed the proposal to deal with Hitler in the same way as in his time with Napoleon, who, as is known, by decision of the victorious states, was exiled for life to St. Helena (963) without trial. The wording was different, but they all pursued the same goal - to punish the main war criminals without investigation or trial. The main argument put forward was that their guilt in the crimes was indisputable, and the collection of forensic evidence would allegedly require a lot of time and effort (964) . According to Truman, already in October 1943 Churchill tried to convince the head of the Soviet government that the main war criminals should be shot without trial (965).

The real reason for such proposals was the fear that in an open trial, unsightly sides in the activities of the governments of Great Britain, the United States and other Western states could emerge: their complicity with Hitler in creating a powerful military machine and encouraging Nazi Germany to attack the Soviet Union. In the ruling circles of the Western powers, fears arose that a public trial of the crimes of German fascism might develop into an accusation of the imperialist system that fostered him and brought him to power.

The bourgeois falsifiers of history are trying to distort the position of the USSR on the question of trying the main war criminals. For example, the West German journalists D. Heidecker and I. Leeb claim that "the Soviet Union was also in favor of putting the Nazis against the wall" (966) . Such a statement has nothing to do with reality. It was the USSR that put forward the idea of ​​a trial of fascist criminals and defended it. The position of the Soviet state was supported by all the freedom-loving peoples of the world.

The Soviet Union consistently and steadfastly sought to ensure that the Nazi leaders were brought before the International Court, and the adopted declarations and international agreements on the punishment of all war criminals were strictly observed, for there is no greater encouragement of crimes than impunity. Moreover, the United Nations program for the defeat of fascism also demanded severe and just punishment for all those who committed grave crimes against humanity.

Already in the notes of the Soviet government of November 25, 1941 "On outrageous atrocities German authorities in relation to Soviet prisoners of war”, January 6, 1942 “On the widespread robberies, ruin of the population and the monstrous atrocities of the German authorities in the Soviet territories they captured”, April 27, 1942 “On the monstrous atrocities, atrocities and violence of the Nazi invaders in the occupied zones and the responsibility of the German government and command for these crimes” (967) pointed out that all responsibility for the crimes committed by the Nazis rests with the fascist rulers and their accomplices. The documents were sent to all countries with which the Soviet Union maintained diplomatic relations and made widely known.

The inevitability of the criminal responsibility of the Nazis for their atrocities found expression in the Declaration of Friendship and Mutual Assistance signed on December 4, 1941 by the governments of the USSR and Poland. It also established an inextricable link between the punishment of fascist criminals and the provision of a lasting and just peace.

On October 14, 1942, the Soviet government, with all decisiveness and inflexibility, reiterated that the criminal Hitlerite government and all its accomplices must and will suffer the well-deserved severe punishment for the atrocities they have committed against Soviet people and all freedom-loving peoples. The government of the USSR stressed the need to immediately bring to trial a special International Tribunal and punish, to the fullest extent of the criminal law, any of the leaders of fascist Germany who, already during the war, found themselves in the hands of the authorities of the states that fought against it (968) . The task of just and severe punishment of the fascist elite became an important element of the foreign policy of the USSR.

The statement of the Soviet government was met with great interest and understanding by the world community, especially by the governments of the countries that had become victims of Hitler's aggression. Thus, the government of Czechoslovakia indicated that it considered this document as an extremely important step towards realizing the unity of all the United Nations in solving the problem of punishment for atrocities committed during the war (969) .

Statements about the responsibility of the Nazis for their monstrous crimes were also made by the governments of the United States and Great Britain as early as October 1941. Roosevelt noted that severe retribution awaited the committed atrocities of the Nazis, and Churchill emphasized that “retaliation for these crimes will henceforth become one of the main purposes of the war" (970) .

The Moscow Declaration, signed by the leaders of the USSR, the USA and Great Britain on October 30, 1943, as well as other international agreements, spoke about the strict punishment of fascist criminals.

In turn, at the Potsdam Conference it was written: "German militarism and Nazism will be eradicated ..." (971) .

Attempts by international reaction to prevent an open trial of the leaders of the Reich failed. The peoples who won the great battle with Nazi Germany perceived the trial of its rulers as a just act of retribution, a natural outcome of the Second World War.

The idea of ​​the International Criminal Court was put into practice by the organization of the trial of the main fascist war criminals, which lasted almost a year - from November 20, 1945 to October 1, 1946, by the activities of the International Military Tribunal, established on the basis of the London Agreement of August 8, 1945. between the governments of the USSR, the USA, Great Britain and France, which was joined by 19 other states. At the same time, the Charter of the Tribunal was adopted, in which, as a basic provision, it was recorded that the International Military Tribunal was established for a fair and speedy trial and punishment of the main war criminals of the European Axis countries (972) .

The Tribunal was international not only because it was organized on the basis of an agreement of 23 states, but, as indicated in the introductory part of this agreement, it was established in the interests of all the United Nations. The fight against German fascism should have become and has become a global concern that united the peoples of both hemispheres, because fascism, its misanthropic ideology and policy have always been and are a direct threat to world peace and social progress. The states of the anti-Hitler coalition managed to achieve a coordinated policy, which included the task of defeating German fascism militarily, as well as providing conditions for a just peace. “Cooperation in the accomplishment of the great military task before us,” Roosevelt pointed out, “should be the threshold to cooperation in the fulfillment of the even greater task of creating world peace (973)

In the USSR, preparations for the trial of the main war criminals were completed in a relatively short time, since as early as 1942, by decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, an Extraordinary State Commission was formed to establish and investigate the atrocities of the Nazi invaders and their accomplices. It included Secretary of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions HM Shvernik, Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks A. A. Zhdanov, writer A. N. Tolstoy, Academicians E. V. Tarle, N. N. Burdenko, B. E. Vedeneev, I. P. Trainin, T. D. Lysenko, pilot V. S. Grizodubova, Metropolitan Nikolai of Kyiv and Galicia (974). More than 7 million workers and collective farmers, engineers and technicians, scientists and public figures (975) took part in the preparation of acts. With the help of documents and by interviewing many thousands of eyewitnesses, the commission established the facts of the monstrous atrocities of the Nazis.

Soon after the signing of the London Agreement, on an equal footing, the International Military Tribunal was formed from representatives of states: from the USSR - Deputy Chairman of the Supreme Court USSR Major General of Justice I. T. Nikitchenko, from the USA - member of the federal supreme court F. Biddle, from Great Britain - Chief Justice Lord D. Lawrence, from France - Professor of Criminal Law D. de Vabre. Deputy members of the Tribunal were appointed: from the USSR - Lieutenant Colonel of Justice A.F. Volchkov, from the USA - a judge from the state of North Carolina J. Parker, from Great Britain - one of the leading lawyers of the country N. Birkett, from France - a member of the Supreme Court of Cassation R. Falco. Lawrence (976) was elected presiding at the first trial.

Prosecution was organized in the same way. The main accusers were: from the USSR - the Prosecutor of the Ukrainian SSR R. A. Rudenko, from the USA - a member of the Federal Supreme Court (former assistant to President Roosevelt) R. Jackson, from Great Britain - the Attorney General and a member of the House of Commons X. Shawcross, from France - the Minister Justice F. de Menthon, who was then replaced by C. de Riebe. In addition to the main prosecutors, the prosecution was supported (provided evidence, interrogated witnesses and defendants) by their deputies and assistants: from the USSR - Deputy Chief Prosecutor Yu. V. Pokrovsky and assistants to the Chief Prosecutor N. D. Zorya, M. Yu. Raginsky, L. N. Smirnov and L. R. Sheinin.

Under the Chief Prosecutor from the USSR, documentary and investigative parts were organized for the preliminary interrogation of the accused and witnesses, as well as for the proper processing of evidence submitted to the Tribunal. The documentary part was led by the assistant to the Chief Prosecutor D. S. Karev, and the investigative part, which included N. A. Orlov, S. K. Piradov and S. Ya. Rosenblit, was headed by G. N. Aleksandrov (977) . A. N. Trainin, Corresponding Member of the USSR Academy of Sciences, was the scientific adviser to the Soviet delegation.

It was decided to hold the first trial of the main war criminals in Nuremberg, a city that had been a stronghold of fascism for many years. It hosted congresses of the National Socialist Party, held parades of assault squads.

The list of defendants to be tried by the International Military Tribunal included: G. Goering, Reichsmarschall, Commander-in-Chief of Aviation, authorized under the so-called "four-year plan", since 1922 the closest accomplice of Hitler; R. Hess, Hitler's deputy for the fascist party, member of the council of ministers for the defense of the empire; I. Ribbentrop, Minister of Foreign Affairs, authorized by the fascist party for foreign policy; R. Ley, head of the so-called labor front, one of the leaders of the fascist party; V. Keitel, Field Marshal, Chief of Staff of the Supreme High Command; E. Kaltenbrunner, SS Obergruppenführer, head of the Reich Security Administration and the Security Police, Himmler's closest accomplice; A. Rosenberg, Hitler's deputy for the ideological training of members of the National Socialist Party, Imperial Minister for the Eastern Occupied Territories; G. Frank, Reichsleiter of the Fascist Party and President of the Academy of German Law, Governor-General of the occupied Polish territories; W. Frick, Minister of the Interior and Reich Plenipotentiary for Military Administration; J. Streicher, Gauleiter of Franconia, ideologist of racism and anti-Semitism, organizer of Jewish pogroms; V. Funk, Minister of Economics, President of the Reichsbank, Member of the Council of Ministers for the Defense of the Empire; G. Mine, the organizer of the rearmament of the Wehrmacht, one of Hitler's closest advisers on economic and financial matters; G. Krupn, head of the largest military-industrial concern, which took an active part in the preparation and implementation of the aggressive plans of German militarism, responsible for the deaths of many thousands of people driven to hard labor in Nazi Germany; K. Doenitz, Grand Admiral, Commander submarine fleet, and from 1943 by the navy, Hitler's successor as head of state; E. Reder, Grand Admiral, until 1943 Commander-in-Chief of the Naval Forces; B. Shirakh, organizer and leader of the fascist youth organizations in Germany, Hitler's governor in Vienna; F. Sauckel, SS-Obergruppenführer, Plenipotentiary General for the Use of Manpower; A. Jodl, Colonel General, Chief of Staff of the Operational Command of the High Command of the Armed Forces; F. Papen, one of the organizers of the seizure of power in Germany by the Nazis, Hitler's closest accomplice in the "annexation" of Austria; A. Seyss-Inquart, leader of the fascist party of Austria, deputy governor-general of Poland, Hitler's governor in the Netherlands; A. Speer, Hitler's closest adviser and friend, Reich Minister for Armaments and Ammunition, one of the leaders of the Central Planning Committee; K. Neurath, former Minister of Foreign Affairs, member of the Imperial Council of Defense, and after the capture of Czechoslovakia, protector of Bohemia and Moravia; G. Fritsche, the closest collaborator of Goebbels, head of the internal press department of the Ministry of Propaganda and head of the radio broadcasting department; M. Bormann, since 1941, Hitler's deputy for the fascist party, head of the party office, Hitler's closest accomplice.

They were accused of unleashing an aggressive war in order to establish the world domination of German imperialism, that is, of crimes against peace, of killing and torturing prisoners of war and civilians of the occupied countries, deporting the civilian population to Germany for forced labor, killing hostages, robbing public and private property, the aimless destruction of towns and villages, innumerable ruins not justified by military necessity, that is, in war crimes, in extermination, enslavement, exile and other cruelties committed against the civilian population for political, racial or religious reasons, that is, in crimes against humanity.

On October 18, 1945, the International Military Tribunal accepted the indictment signed by the chief prosecutors from the USSR, the USA, Great Britain and France, which on the same day, that is, more than a month before the start of the trial, was served on all the defendants in order to give them the opportunity to advance prepare for the defense” Thus, in the interests of a fair trial, from the very beginning, a course was taken for the strictest observance of the rights of the defendants. The world press, commenting on the indictment, noted that this document speaks on behalf of the offended conscience of mankind, that this is not an act of revenge, but a triumph of justice, and not only the leaders of Nazi Germany, but the entire system of fascism will appear before the court (978) .

Almost the entire fascist elite was in the dock, with the exception of Hitler, Goebbels and Himmler, who committed suicide, the paralyzed Krupn, whose case was singled out and suspended, the disappeared Bormann (he was convicted in absentia) and Ley, who, having familiarized himself with the indictment, hanged himself in a cell at Nuremberg prison.

The defendants were given a wide opportunity to defend themselves against the charges, they all had German lawyers (some even two), enjoyed such rights for defense that the accused were deprived not only in the courts of fascist Germany, but also in many Western countries. The prosecutors handed over copies of all documentary evidence in German to the defense, assisted the lawyers in searching for and obtaining documents, delivering witnesses whom the defense wanted to call (979) .

The Nuremberg trial attracted the attention of millions of people around the world. As presiding Lawrence emphasized on behalf of the Tribunal, "the process which must now begin is the only one of its kind in the history of world jurisprudence, and it is of the greatest public importance for millions of people throughout the globe" (980) . Supporters of peace and democracy saw it as a continuation of the post-war international cooperation in the fight against fascism and aggression. It was clear to all honest people of the world that a condescending attitude towards those who criminally violated the universally recognized norms of international law, committed atrocities against the world and humanity, was a great danger. Never before has a lawsuit united all the progressive elements of the world in such a unanimous desire to end aggression, racism and obscurantism. The Nuremberg trials reflected the anger and indignation of mankind at the atrocities, the perpetrators of which must be punished so that such a thing never happens again. Appeared before the court fascist organizations and institutions, misanthropic "theories" and "ideas", criminals who took possession of the whole state and made the state itself an instrument of monstrous atrocities.

The Hitler regime in Germany was incompatible with the elementary concept of law; terror became its law. Organized by Hitler and his closest accomplices, an unheard of provocation - the burning of the Reichstag - served as a signal for the start of the most severe repressions against the progressive forces of Germany. The streets and squares were lit with bonfires from the works of German and foreign writers, which all mankind is rightly proud of. The Nazis created the first concentration camps in Germany. Many thousands of patriots were killed and tortured to death by stormtroopers and SS executioners. How political system German fascism represented a system of organized banditry. A wide network of organizations endowed with enormous power operated in the country, which carried out terror, violence, and atrocities.

The Tribunal considered the issue of recognizing the criminal organizations of German fascism - the SS, SA, Gestapo, SD, the government, the general staff and high command of the German armed forces, as well as the leadership of the National Socialist Party. The recognition of the criminal nature of the organizations was necessary in order to give national courts the right to prosecute individuals for belonging to organizations recognized as criminal. Consequently, the principle of "criminal responsibility is subject to specific individuals" was retained. The question of the guilt of individuals in their affiliation with criminal organizations, as well as the question of responsibility for such affiliation, remained within the jurisdiction of the national courts, which were supposed to decide on the issue of punishment in accordance with the deed. There was only one limitation: the criminality of an organization recognized as such by the Tribunal could not be reviewed by the courts of individual countries.

The Nuremberg trials were a public process in the very broad sense this word. None of the 403 court hearings were closed (981) . More than 60 thousand passes were issued to the courtroom, some of them were received by the Germans. Everything that was said in court was carefully transcribed. The transcripts of the process amounted to almost 40 volumes, containing more than 20 thousand pages. The process was conducted simultaneously in four languages, including German. The press and radio were represented by about 250 correspondents who broadcast reports on the progress of the process to all corners of the globe.

The process was dominated by an atmosphere of the strictest legality. There was not a single case where the rights of the defendants were somehow infringed. In the speeches of the prosecutors, along with an analysis of the facts, the legal problems of the process were analyzed, the jurisdiction of the Tribunal was substantiated, a legal analysis of the corpus delicti was given, and the unfounded arguments of the defense of the defendants were refuted (982) . Thus, the Chief Prosecutor from the USSR in his opening speech proved that the legal regime of international relations, including those that find their expression in the coordinated fight against crime, rests on other legal foundations. The source of law and the only legislative act in the international sphere is a treaty, an agreement between states (983). London Agreement and component- The Charter of the International Tribunal - based on the principles and norms of international law, long established and confirmed by the Hague Convention of 1907, the Geneva Convention of 1929 and a number of other conventions and pacts. The Charter of the Tribunal has clothed in legal forms those international principles and ideas that have been put forward for many years in defense of legality and justice in the field of international relations. For a long time, the peoples interested in strengthening peace put forward and supported the idea of ​​the criminal nature of aggression, and this was officially recognized in a number of international acts and documents.

As for the USSR, as is known, the first foreign policy act of the Soviet government was the Decree on Peace signed by V. I. Lenin, adopted the day after the victory October revolution- November 8, 1917, which declared aggression the greatest crime against humanity and put forward a position on the peaceful coexistence of states with different social systems. The Soviet Union is doing everything to make this most important principle of its foreign policy a law of international relations. The special chapter of the Constitution of the USSR of 1977 consolidates the peaceful nature of the foreign policy of the Soviet Union. The entire historical path of the USSR is a purposeful struggle for peace and the security of peoples. “Not a single people, - F. Castro noted at the First Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba, - did not want peace and did not defend it as much as Soviet people... History also proves that socialism, unlike capitalism, does not need to impose its will on other countries through wars and aggressions” (984) .

The fascist aggressors, who found themselves in the dock, knew that by carrying out perfidious attacks on other states, they were thereby committing the gravest crimes against peace, they knew and therefore tried to disguise their criminal actions with false conjectures about defense. They counted on the fact, emphasized the Chief Prosecutor from the USSR R. A. Rudenko, that “total war, having ensured victory, would bring impunity. Victory did not come in the footsteps of atrocities. Complete unconditional surrender of Germany came. The hour has come for a severe answer for all the atrocities committed ”(985) .

The Nuremberg trials were exceptional in terms of the impeccability and strength of the prosecution's evidence. The testimony of numerous witnesses, including former prisoners of Auschwitz, Dachau and other Nazi concentration camps - eyewitnesses of fascist atrocities, as well as material evidence and documentaries appeared as evidence. But the decisive role belonged to the official documents signed by those who were placed in the dock. In total, 116 witnesses were heard in court, 33 of them in individual cases were called by the prosecutors and 61 by the defense lawyers, and more than 4 thousand documentary evidence was presented. compiled by themselves, the authenticity of which has not been disputed, except in one or two cases” (986) .

Thousands of documents from the archives of the Hitlerite General Staff and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the personal archives of Ribbentrop, Rosenberg, Goering and Frank, the correspondence of the banker K. Schroeder, etc., which revealed the preparation and unleashing of aggressive wars, lay on the table of the International Military Tribunal and spoke so convincingly language, that the defendants could not oppose them with a single serious argument. They were sure that documents marked "Top Secret" would never be made public, but history judged otherwise. Broad publicity and impeccable legal validity were the most important features of the Nuremberg Trials. January 3, 1946 the leader of one of task forces who carried out the mass extermination of the civilian population, O. Ohlendorf testified: only his group during the year in the south of Ukraine destroyed 90 thousand men, women and children. The extermination of civilians was carried out on the basis of an agreement between the high command of the armed forces, the general staff of the ground forces and Himmler's department (987) .

From the orders of Keitel, Goering, Doenitz, Jodl, Reichenau and Manstein, as well as many other Nazi generals, noted the Chief Prosecutor from the USSR, a bloody trail was laid to numerous atrocities committed in the occupied territories (988) . On January 7, SS Obergruppenführer, a member of the National Socialist Party since 1930, E. Bach-Zelewski, testified at the trial. He spoke about the meeting that took place at the beginning of 1941, at which Himmler stated that one of the goals of the campaign against the USSR "was the extermination of the Slavic population up to 30 million ...". And to the question of the lawyer A.Thoma, what explained such a goal setting, the SS Obergruppenführer replied: “... this was a logical consequence of our entire National Socialist worldview ... If for decades they have been preaching that the Slavs are an inferior race, that Jews are not at all people, - such a result is inevitable ... ”(989) . Far from wanting this, Bach-Zelewski contributed to the exposure of the misanthropic essence of fascism.

The National Socialist Party, like its leaders, was nurtured by monopoly capital and militarist circles, and fascism was called into being by the greedy goals of German imperialism. It is no coincidence that during the putsch in Munich in 1923, the ideologist of the Prussian military, E. Ludendorff, marched next to Hitler and his closest accomplice R. Hess. Nor is it accidental that such influential representatives of finance capital as G. Schacht, E. Staus, and F. Papen joined the fascist party. The latter wrote in The Road to Power that the Reichswehr was a decisive factor in the struggle for power, "not only a certain group of generals was responsible for the events leading up to January 30, 1933, but also the officer corps as a whole" (990) .

Having ensured the establishment of a fascist regime, the monopolies and militarists began to prepare the country for an aggressive war. Already at the first meeting of Hitler with the generals, which took place on February 3, 1933, the task of future aggression was set: the development of new markets, the capture of new living space in the East and its merciless Germanization (991) .

During the trial, the criminal methods of transferring the German economy to a military footing, the implementation of the sinister slogan “guns instead of butter”, the militarization of the entire country and the decisive role in this of the owners of monopolies, who occupied key positions in the military-economic apparatus, were revealed. The German monopolies willingly financed not only the general predatory plans of the Nazis, but also the "special events" of H. Himmler.

The defendants tried to convince the Tribunal that only Himmler and his subordinate professional assassins from the SS were to blame for all the atrocities. However, it was irrefutably proven that the massacres and other atrocities were conceived and planned not only by Himmler's department, but also by the supreme high command, and the extermination of the civilian population and prisoners of war was carried out by the SS and Gestapo executioners in close cooperation with the generals. So, the former commandant of the concentration camp R. Hess, under oath, stated that among the gassed and burned were Soviet prisoners of war, who were brought to Auschwitz by officers and soldiers of the regular German army (992), and Bach-Zelewski said that the extermination of the civilian population (under the guise of fight against partisans), he regularly informed G. Kluge, G. Krebs, M. Weichs, E. Bush and others (993) . Field Marshal G. Rundstedt, speaking in 1943 to the students of the military academy in Berlin, taught: “The destruction of neighboring peoples and their wealth is absolutely necessary for our victory. One of the serious mistakes of 1918 was that we spared the lives of the civilian population of enemy countries ... we are obliged to destroy at least a third of their inhabitants ... "(994)

The Deputy Chief Prosecutor T. Taylor, on the basis of the evidence presented by him about the criminality of the Hitlerite General Staff and the Supreme High Command, concluded that they had come out of the war tainted with crimes. Expressing the opinion of all the accusers, he spoke convincingly about the danger of militarism in general, and German militarism in particular. German militarism, Taylor noted, “if it comes out again, it will not necessarily do so under the auspices of Nazism. The German militarists will link their fate with the fate of any person or any party who stakes on the restoration of German military power ”(995) . That is why it is necessary to uproot militarism with all its roots.

With regard to the Hitlerite generals, the International Military Tribunal wrote in the Judgment: they are responsible to a large extent for the misfortunes and suffering that befell millions of men, women and children; they dishonored the honorable profession of a warrior; without their military leadership, the aggressive aspirations of Hitler and his accomplices would have been abstract and fruitless. “Modern German militarism,” the Sentence emphasized, “flourished on a short time with the assistance of its last ally, National Socialism, just as or even better than in the history of past generations” (996) .

In recent years, a particularly large amount of revanchist literature has appeared in West Germany, in which an attempt is made to whitewash the Nazi criminals, to prove the unprovable - the innocence of the Nazi generals. The materials of the Nuremberg trials completely expose such falsification. He revealed the true role of the generals and the monopolies in the crimes of German fascism, and this is its enduring historical significance.

The Nuremberg Trials helped lift the veil on the origins of the Second World War. He convincingly showed that militarism was the breeding ground in which fascism developed so rapidly. R. Kempner, an assistant to the American prosecutor, in his speech emphasized that one of the causes of the world catastrophe was the fiction about the "communist danger." This danger, he declared, "was a fiction which, among other things, led in the end to the Second World War" (997) .

Trying to disguise their goals, the Hitlerite clique, as usual, yelled about the alleged danger from the USSR, declaring a predatory war against the Soviet Union "preventive". However, the "defensive" masquerade of the defendants and their defenders was exposed with the utmost clarity at the trial, and the falsehood of Hitler's propaganda about the "preventive" nature of the attack on the Land of Soviets was proved to the whole world.

On the basis of numerous documentary evidence, testimonies, including those of Field Marshal F. Paulus, and the confessions of the defendants themselves, the Tribunal recorded in the Judgment that the attack on the Soviet Union was carried out “without a shadow of legal justification. It was clear aggression” (998) . This decision has not lost its significance even today. It is an important argument in the struggle of progressive forces against the falsifiers of the history of the outbreak of the Second World War, who are trying to justify Hitler's aggression against the USSR for the purpose of revanchism directed against the socialist countries.

The Nuremberg trials went down in history as an anti-fascist trial. The misanthropic essence of fascism, its ideology, in particular racism, which is ideological basis for the preparation and unleashing of aggressive wars and mass extermination of people. With the help of the Nuremberg trials, fascism appeared for what it is - a conspiracy of bandits against freedom and humanity. Fascism is a war, it is rampant terror and arbitrariness, it is a denial of the human dignity of non-Aryan races. And this is inherent in all the successors of German fascism in any form. At the trial, the entire danger of the revival of fascism for the destinies of the world was clearly and convincingly shown. The last word of the Defendant Ribbentrop once again confirmed the close connection that existed between the rulers of Germany and those circles of political reaction which, as soon as the bloodiest war in the history of mankind had just ended, set about provoking new wars in order to establish their domination over the world. The materials of the trial call: we must not allow the crimes of fascism to be downplayed, to inspire the new generation with a completely false and blasphemous version in its nature, that there was no Auschwitz and Majdanek, Buchenwald and Ravensbrück, that gas chambers and gas chambers never existed. The trial has acquired special significance also because the fact of condemning the aggressors is a very serious warning for the future.

On July 30, 1946, the speeches of the main prosecutors ended. In his final speech, delivered on July 29-30, the Chief Prosecutor from the USSR R. A. Rudenko, summing up the results of the judicial investigation against the main war criminals, noted that “the Court judges, created by peace-loving and freedom-loving countries, expressing the will and protecting the interests of all progressive humanity, which does not want a repetition of disasters, which will not allow a gang of criminals to prepare with impunity the enslavement of peoples and the extermination of people ... Humanity calls criminals to account, and on its behalf we, the accusers, accuse in this process. And how pitiful are the attempts to challenge the right of mankind to judge the enemies of mankind, how untenable are the attempts to deprive peoples of the right to punish those. who made it their goal to enslave and exterminate peoples, and for many years in a row carried out this criminal goal by criminal means” (999) .

September 30 - October 1, 1946 The verdict was announced. Tribunal: sentenced Göring, Ribbentrop, Keitel, Kaltenbrunner, Rosenberg, Frank, Frick, Streicher, Sauckel, Jodl, Seyss-Inquart, and Bormann (in absentia) to death by hanging, Hess, Funk, etc. Redera - to life imprisonment, Schirach and Speer - to 20, Neurath - to 15 and Doenitz - to 10 years in prison. Fritsche, Papen and Schacht were acquitted. The Tribunal declared the leadership of the National Socialist Party, the SS, the SD and the Gestapo to be criminal organizations. The member of the Tribunal from the USSR in the Special Opinion declared his disagreement with the decision to acquit Fritsche, Papen and Schacht and not to recognize the General Staff and members of the government cabinet as criminal organizations, since the Tribunal had enough evidence of their guilt. After the Control Council rejected the applications of those sentenced to death for pardon, the sentence was carried out on the night of October 16, 1946.

“... We share the views of the Soviet judge,” Pravda wrote in an editorial. - But even in the presence of a dissenting opinion of the Soviet judge, it cannot be emphasized that the verdict passed in Nuremberg on the Nazi murderers will be appreciated by all honest people all over the world positively, because he justly and deservedly punished the worst criminals against the peace and good of the peoples. The Judgment of History is over...” (1000)

The attitude of the German population towards the process is characteristic. August 15, 1946 American management information published another review of the surveys: the vast majority of Germans (about 80 percent) considered the Nuremberg trials fair, and the guilt of the defendants was undeniable; about half of the respondents answered that the defendants should be sentenced to death; only four percent responded negatively to the process.

According to the Statute of the International Military Tribunal, subsequent trials must take place "in places determined by the Tribunal" (Article 22). For a number of reasons, such as, for example, the withdrawal of the Western powers from the Potsdam and other agreements adopted during the war and immediately after it, the activities of the Tribunal were limited to the Nuremberg Trials. Nevertheless, the activities of the International Military Tribunal and the significance of its Judgment are of enduring importance. The historical role of the Nuremberg trials is that for the first time in the history of international relations, it put an end to the impunity of aggression and aggressors in the criminal law aspect.

The International Military Tribunal recognized aggression as the gravest crime of an international character. For the first time in history, leaders of the state guilty of preparing, initiating and waging an aggressive war were punished as criminals, the principle of "position as head of state or a leading official of government departments, as well as the fact that they acted on the orders of the government or carried out a criminal order is not a basis for exemption from liability. The Judgment notes: “It was argued that international law only considers the actions of sovereign states, without establishing punishment for individuals”, that if an illegal act is committed by a state, then “the persons who practically carried out this do not bear personal responsibility, but stand under the protection of the doctrine on the sovereignty of the state" (1001) . In the opinion of the Tribunal, both of these provisions should be rejected. It has long been recognized that international law imposes certain obligations on individuals as well as on the state.

In addition, the Tribunal stated: “Crimes against international law are committed by individuals and not by abstract categories, and only by punishing individuals who commit such crimes can the provisions of international law be observed ... The principle of international law, which, under certain circumstances, protects the representative of the state , cannot be applied to acts that are condemned as criminal under international law” (1002) .

The principles of the Charter and the Judgment of the Tribunal, confirmed by the resolutions of the UN General Assembly, were a significant contribution to the current international law, became its universally recognized norms. Such definitions of concepts as an international conspiracy, planning, preparation and waging of an aggressive war, propaganda of war were introduced into the everyday life of the current international law and the modern legal consciousness of peoples, they were recognized as criminal and, therefore, criminally punishable.

The materials of the trial and the Judgment of the Tribunal serve the cause of peace on earth, being at the same time a formidable warning to the aggressive forces that have not yet abandoned their adventurous plans. The results of the Nuremberg trials call for the vigilance of all those who do not want a repetition of the bloody tragedy of the past war, who are fighting for the preservation of peace.

Today the situation is completely different than at the time of the emergence of Hitler's fascism. But also in modern conditions constant and high vigilance, an active struggle against fascism in all its manifestations is necessary. And here the lessons of the Nuremberg trials are of great importance.

It is widely known that for a number of years in the West, in order to rehabilitate fascist war criminals, mass amnesty was applied to them with reference to the norms on general criminal prescription, voices are heard about early release convicts. But the Nuremberg trials convincingly revealed the fact that fascist war criminals and their crimes against peace are by their very nature international crimes and for this reason ordinary criminal prescription is inapplicable to them, that such political adventurers did not stop at any atrocities to achieve their criminal goals, from which the earth was filled with groaning and anger. Can "prescription" erase from the memory of the peoples Oradour sur Glan and Lidice, the ruins of Coventry and Smolensk, Khatyn and Pirchupis, and much, much more, which has become an expression of fascist cruelty and vandalism? Is it possible to forget the cellars of the Reichsbank, in which W. Funk and E. Poole kept chests filled with gold crowns, dentures and spectacle frames that were received from the death camps, and then turned into ingots, sent to Basel, to the Bank of International calculations?

It is known that civilization and humanity, peace and humanity are inseparable. But it is necessary to resolutely reject a humanism that is benevolent towards the executioners and indifferent to their victims. And when the words “no one is forgotten and nothing is forgotten” are uttered, we are guided not by a sense of revenge, but by a sense of justice and concern for the future of peoples. The liberation from Hitler's slavery went to the peoples of the world at too high a price, so that they could allow the neo-fascists to cross out the results of the Second World War. “We urge,” said L. I. Brezhnev, “to overcome the bloody past of Europe, not in order to forget it, but so that it never happens again” (1003) .

The verdict of the Tribunal, as an act of international justice, is a constant warning to all those who in various parts of the world are trying to pursue a misanthropic policy, a policy of imperialist seizures and aggression, inciting military hysteria, creating a threat to the peace and security of peoples.

The lessons of the Nuremberg trials show that, despite the differences on individual points, the Tribunal's verdict expresses the unanimous opinion of the representatives of the four countries in condemning the top of the Nazi gang and such criminal organizations of German fascism as the leadership of the National Socialist Party, the SS, SD and Gestapo. The hopes of the world reaction that a gap between the judges is inevitable and the process will not be brought to an end have not been justified.

The power of the Soviet Union, the leading role it played in the defeat of Nazi Germany, led to an unprecedented growth of its international prestige. It became impossible to solve international problems without the USSR. The Soviet Union fought to ensure that a peaceful settlement in Europe be based on the principles of democracy and progress, consistent with the interests of the popular masses of the entire continent. This was clearly manifested in the decisions of the Potsdam Conference aimed at eradicating fascism and militarism in Germany and at creating conditions for the post-war revival of Germany as a democratic and peace-loving state.

The merit of the Soviet Union is also great in that it prevented the possibility of exporting counter-revolution to the countries of Central and South-Eastern Europe, which had embarked on the path of free and democratic development.

In connection with the transition from war to peace, one of the most important problems was the creation of an international organization designed to ensure the preservation of peace and security. And Soviet diplomacy did a lot to make the United Nations correspond to these lofty goals.

The lessons of the Second World War testify to the great significance that the joint actions of the great powers had in the struggle against their common enemy, fascist Germany. The lessons of the Nuremberg Trials also convince us of this. The verdict of the Tribunal expressed the common opinion of the representatives of the four countries in condemning war criminals and criminal organizations of German fascism. The Nuremberg trials proved that the will to cooperate is capable of ensuring unity of action to achieve the noble goal of excluding unjust wars from the life of mankind.

Faithful to the Leninist principles of peace and peaceful coexistence of states, regardless of their social order The Soviet government is deeply interested in seeing that the cooperation established during the war between the states of the anti-Hitler coalition should continue after it has ended.

2015 is the year of the 70th anniversary of the Nuremberg Trials. It took place in the city of Nuremberg (Germany) from November 20, 1945 to October 1, 1946 at the International Military Tribunal.

The first trial of major war criminals was held in Nuremberg because for many years this city was a stronghold and a symbol of fascism. It hosted congresses of the National Socialist Party, held parades of assault squads. There were other reasons for this, including a purely technical one.

The International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg is the first international court in history. Its result was the recognition of Hitler's aggression as the gravest criminal offense, the condemnation of crimes on a national scale, the ruling regime of Hitler, his punitive institutions, and the highest political and military figures of Nazi Germany. It is often referred to as the "Court of History".

It was one of the largest lawsuits in human history. He played an important role in the development of international law in general and the development of relations between states around the world after the Second World War.

This historic trial legally sealed the final defeat of fascism and went down in history as an anti-fascist trial. The whole world was exposed to the essence of fascism, its ideology, especially racism, which is the ideological basis for the preparation and unleashing of aggressive wars and the mass extermination of people. At the trial, the whole danger of the revival of fascism for the destinies of the whole world was clearly and convincingly shown.

Second World War brought enormous material and human losses to mankind. 26 million 600 thousand of our compatriots died in this bloody massacre. And more than half of them - 15 million 400 thousand - were civilians. The atrocities of the Nazis cannot be taken calmly and remain indifferent to them. The world has never seen such cruelty in the relationship of man to man. Mass looting of vast territories, mass executions, the creation of "death factories", torture, experiments on people, the destruction of entire nations, inhuman treatment of prisoners of war ... All these are crimes, a long list of which can be listed endlessly.

Long before the end of the Second World War, representatives of the Allied governments repeatedly spoke out about the need to bring to justice and punish the war criminals who unleashed the war, started mass terror and murders that proclaimed ideas of racial superiority and genocide. This idea of ​​the responsibility of the Nazis for their monstrous crimes against peace and humanity was reflected in many international documents.

Including the requirement to create an International Military Tribunal was contained in the statement of the Soviet government as early as October 14, 1942 "On the responsibility of the Nazi invaders and their accomplices for the atrocities committed by them in the occupied countries of Europe."

The agreement on the establishment of the International Military Tribunal and its charter were developed by the USSR, the USA, Great Britain and France during the London conference, which took place from June 26 to August 8, 1945. The jointly developed document reflected the coordinated position of all 23 countries participating in the conference, the principles of the charter were approved by the UN General Assembly as universally recognized in the fight against crimes against humanity.

The Nuremberg trials had specific features previously unknown to the practice of legal proceedings. This is explained by the fact that the commission of monstrous atrocities by the fascists and Nazis were made public and required appropriate legal qualifications and condemnation.

Thus, the statute stated that groups and organizations could be the subjects of the accusation, the judges had the right to independently determine the course of the process. It was also an innovation that the court was the court of final instance, its main purpose was to specify and qualify the degree of guilt of the accused - the main war criminals, hence the name - the military tribunal.

The first list of accused, which was agreed on August 8, 1945 in London, did not include Hitler, his closest subordinates Himmler and Goebbels, because. at that time, their death was reliably established.

At the same time, Bormann, who was allegedly killed on the streets of Berlin, was on the list and was charged in absentia.

In total, 24 war criminals who were members of the top leadership of Nazi Germany were brought to trial.

The initial list of defendants included:

1. Hermann Wilhelm Göring (German: Hermann Wilhelm Göring), Reichsmarschall, Commander-in-Chief of the German Air Force
2. Rudolf Hess (German Rudolf Heß), Hitler's deputy in charge of the Nazi Party.
3. Joachim von Ribbentrop (German: Ullrich Friedrich Willy Joachim von Ribbentrop), Foreign Minister of Nazi Germany.
4. Robert Ley (German: Robert Ley), head of the Labor Front
5. Wilhelm Keitel (German: Wilhelm Keitel), Chief of Staff Supreme High Command armed forces of Germany.
6. Ernst Kaltenbrunner (German Ernst Kaltenbrunner), head of the RSHA.
7. Alfred Rosenberg (German: Alfred Rosenberg), one of the main ideologists of Nazism, Reich Minister for the Eastern Territories.
8. Hans Frank (German Dr. Hans Frank), head of the occupied Polish lands.
9. Wilhelm Frick (German Wilhelm Frick), Minister of the Interior of the Reich.
10. Julius Streicher (German: Julius Streicher), Gauleiter, editor-in-chief of the anti-Semitic newspaper Sturmovik (German: Der Stürmer - Der Stürmer).
11. Hjalmar Schacht (German Hjalmar Schacht), Reich Minister of Economics before the war.
12. Walther Funk (German Walther Funk), Minister of Economics after Mine.
13. Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach (German: Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach), head of the Friedrich Krupp concern.
14. Karl Doenitz (German: Karl Dönitz), Admiral of the Third Reich Fleet.
15. Erich Raeder (German Erich Raeder), Commander-in-Chief of the Navy.
16. Baldur von Schirach (German: Baldur Benedikt von Schirach), head of the Hitler Youth, Gauleiter of Vienna.
17. Fritz Sauckel (German: Fritz Sauckel), head of forced deportations to the Reich of labor from the occupied territories.
18. Alfred Jodl (German Alfred Jodl), Chief of Staff of the Operational Command of the OKW
19. Franz von Papen (German: Franz Joseph Hermann Michael Maria von Papen), Chancellor of Germany before Hitler, then Ambassador to Austria and Turkey.
20. Arthur Seyss-Inquart (German Dr. Arthur Seyß-Inquart), chancellor of Austria, then imperial commissioner of the occupied Holland.
21. Albert Speer (German: Albert Speer), Reich Minister for Armaments
22. Konstantin von Neurath (German Konstantin Freiherr von Neurath), in the early years of Hitler's reign, Minister of Foreign Affairs, then Viceroy in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.
23. Hans Fritsche (German: Hans Fritzsche), Head of the Press and Broadcasting Department in the Ministry of Propaganda.

Groups or organizations to which the defendants belonged were also accused.

They were accused of unleashing an aggressive war in order to establish the world domination of German imperialism, that is, of crimes against peace, of killing and torturing prisoners of war and civilians of the occupied countries, deporting the civilian population to Germany for forced labor, killing hostages, robbing public and private property, the aimless destruction of towns and villages, innumerable ruins not justified by military necessity, that is, in war crimes, in extermination, enslavement, exile committed against the civilian population for political, racial or religious reasons, that is, in crimes against humanity.

The International Military Tribunal was formed on an equal basis from representatives of the four powers in accordance with the London Agreement:

From the USSR: Deputy Chairman of the Supreme Court of the Soviet Union Major General of Justice I. T. Nikitchenko; Colonel of Justice A. F. Volchkov;

From the United States: Former Attorney General F Biddle; John Parker (English);

From the UK: Chief Justice Geoffrey Lawrence; Norman Birket (English);

From France: Henri Donnedier de Vabre, Professor of Criminal Law; Robert Falco (German).

From each country, the main prosecutors, their deputies and assistants were sent to the process.

The main accusers were:

From the USSR - the prosecutor of the Ukrainian SSR Roman Andreyevich Rudenko (deputy: Yu.V. Pokrovsky, assistants: N.D. Zorya, D.S. Karev, L.N. Smirnov, L.R. Sheinin);

For the United States, Federal Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson;

From Great Britain - Attorney General and member of the House of Commons Hartley Shawcross;

From France - Minister of Justice Francois de Menthon, who was then replaced by Champetier de Ribes.

The chief prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials from the USSR, Roman Rudenko, speaks at the Palace of Justice. November 20, 1945, Germany

On October 18, 1945, the International Military Tribunal accepted the indictment signed by the chief prosecutors from the USSR, the USA, Great Britain and France, which on the same day, that is, more than a month before the start of the trial, was served on all the defendants in order to give them the opportunity to advance prepare for defense.

Thus, in the interests of a fair trial, a course was taken from the very beginning for the strictest observance of the rights of the defendants.

Thus, the defendants were given a wide opportunity for defense, they all had German lawyers (some even two), enjoyed such rights that the accused were deprived not only in the courts of Nazi Germany, but also in many Western countries. The prosecutors handed over copies of all documentary evidence in German to the defense, assisted the lawyers in searching for and obtaining documents, and bringing in witnesses whom the defense lawyers wished to call.

Thus, despite the crimes against humanity and peace committed by the defendants, the basic principles of criminal proceedings were respected, namely:

legality;

Execution of justice only by the court; equality of all participants in the trial before the law and the court;

Independence of judges and their subordination only to the law;

Providing proof of guilt; competitiveness of the parties and freedom in providing the court with their evidence and in proving their persuasiveness before the court;

Maintenance of public prosecution in court by the prosecutor;

Providing the accused with the right to defense; publicity of the trial and its complete fixation by technical means;

Obligation of the judgment of the court; inevitability of punishment.

It should be especially noted that the Nuremberg Trials were a public process in the broadest sense of the word.

Of the 403 court hearings, not a single one was closed. More than 60 thousand passes were issued to the courtroom, some of them were received by the Germans. Everything that was said in court was carefully transcribed. The process was conducted simultaneously in four languages, including German. The press and radio were represented by about 250 correspondents who broadcast reports on the process to all countries.

In the speeches of the prosecutors, along with an analysis of the facts, the legal problems of the process were analyzed, the jurisdiction of the Tribunal was substantiated, a legal analysis of the corpus delicti was given, and the unfounded arguments of the defense lawyers of the defendants were refuted.

The Nuremberg trials were exceptional in terms of the impeccability and strength of the prosecution's evidence. The testimony of numerous witnesses, including former prisoners of Auschwitz, Dachau and other Nazi concentration camps - eyewitnesses of fascist atrocities, as well as material evidence and documentaries appeared as evidence.

Of course, the decisive role belonged to official documents signed by those who were put on trial.

In total, 116 witnesses were heard in court, of which 33 were summoned by prosecutors in individual cases and 61 by defense lawyers, and more than 4,000 documentary evidence was presented.

At the same time, the defendants behaved boldly and impudently, skillfully playing for time, hoping that the post-war aggravation of relations between the USSR and the West and rumors about the impending danger of an impending war would put an end to the trial.

The court hearings were tense. In such a difficult situation, the tough and professional actions of the Soviet prosecution played a key role. The film about concentration camps, filmed by front-line cameramen, finally turned the course of the process. The terrible pictures of Majdanek, Sachsenhausen, Auschwitz completely removed the doubts of the tribunal.

In his closing speech, delivered on July 29 - 30, the Chief Prosecutor from the USSR R.A. Rudenko, summing up the results of the judicial investigation against the main war criminals, noted that “it is judged by the Court, created by peace-loving and freedom-loving countries, expressing the will and protecting the interests of all progressive mankind, which does not want a repetition of disasters, which will not allow a gang of criminals to prepare enslavement with impunity peoples and the extermination of people... Mankind calls criminals to account, and on behalf of it we, the accusers, accuse in this process. And how pitiful are the attempts to challenge the right of mankind to judge the enemies of mankind, how untenable are the attempts to deprive peoples of the right to punish those who have made it their goal to enslave and exterminate peoples and have been carrying out this criminal goal for many years in a row by criminal means.

The International Military Tribunal sentenced:

To death by hanging: Goering, Ribbentrop, Keitel, Kaltenbrunner, Rosenberg, Frank, Frick, Streicher, Sauckel, Seyss-Inquart, Bormann (in absentia), Jodl (was posthumously acquitted during a retrial by a Munich court in 1953);

To life imprisonment: Hess, Funk, Reder;

By 20 years in prison: Schirach, Speer;

By 15 years in prison: Neurata;

By 10 years in prison: Doenica;

Exonerated: Fritsche, Papen, Shakht.

The Tribunal recognized as criminal the organizations of German fascism - the SS, SA, Gestapo, SD, as well as the leadership of the National Socialist Party.

The Nuremberg Trials became a precedent in international law. One of his main merits was the implementation of the principle of equality before the law for all and the inevitability of punishment.

Today we are witnessing a picture when fascism is reborn again. Under these conditions, those who wish to rethink the results of the Great Victory in their own way, level the leading role of the Soviet Union in the defeat of fascism, and put an equal sign between Germany, the USSR and the aggressor country, become more active.

Against this background, there is a mass of various publications, films, television programs that distort historical facts and events.

In public speeches by many extremists, and even a number of politicians, the leaders of the Third Reich and their accomplices are glorified, while Soviet military leaders, on the contrary, are vilified. In their interpretation, the Nuremberg trials are just an act of revenge on the vanquished by the victors. At the same time, they characterize well-known fascists as ordinary and rather nice people, and not as executioners and sadists.

However, it should be emphasized that the verdict of the Nuremberg Trials has entered into legal force, no one challenged it, no one canceled it, and the attempts of certain radical forces to interpret it in their own way do not have any legal grounds, and moral right in general.

Distortion of historical truth, denigration of the Soviet past, fascistization of an ideology elevated to the rank of state in a number of former Soviet republics leads to manifestations of racism, nationalism in the most extreme and extremist forms. And this must be fought.

Our the main task to try to prevent this “rethinking”, to preserve reliable information about it and pass it on from generation to generation unchanged.

The interests of caring for the Great Victory, for the memory of those who gave their lives in the name of deliverance from fascism, are incompatible with the facts of falsifying the history of the war, with the facts of desecration of the monuments to the soldiers-liberators, the facts when discord is artificially planted among the fraternal peoples who fought together against fascism.

From the accusatory speech of the chief prosecutor from the USSR R.A. Rudenko:

Lord Judge! In order to carry out the atrocities conceived by them, the leaders of the fascist conspiracy created a system of criminal organizations, to which my speech was devoted. Today, those who have set themselves the goal of establishing dominion over the world and the extermination of peoples are waiting with trepidation for the coming verdict of the court. This verdict must overtake not only the authors of the bloody fascist "ideas" put on trial, the main organizers of the crimes of Hitlerism. Your verdict must condemn the entire criminal system of German fascism, that complex, widely ramified network of party, government, SS, military organizations that directly put into practice the villainous plans of the main conspirators. On the battlefields, mankind has already pronounced its verdict on the criminal German fascism. In the fire of the greatest heroic battles in the history of mankind Soviet Army and the valiant troops of the allies not only defeated the Nazi hordes, but approved the high and noble principles of international cooperation, human morality, humane rules of human society. The Prosecution has fulfilled its duty to the High Court, to the blessed memory of the innocent victims, to the conscience of the nations, to its own conscience. May the judgment of the peoples be carried out over the fascist executioners - just and severe.

Websites were used in the preparation of information.

Basic concepts Ideology History Personalities Organizations Nazi parties and movements Related concepts

The demand for the creation of an International Military Tribunal was contained in the statement of the Soviet government of October 14, "On the responsibility of the Nazi invaders and their accomplices for the atrocities committed by them in the occupied countries of Europe."

The agreement on the establishment of the International Military Tribunal and its charter were developed by the USSR, the USA, Great Britain and France during the London Conference, which took place from June 26 to August 8, 1945. The jointly developed document reflected the coordinated position of all 23 countries participating in the conference, the principles of the charter were approved by the UN General Assembly as universally recognized in the fight against crimes against humanity. On August 29, even before the trial, the first list of the main war criminals was published, consisting of 24 Nazi politicians, military men, fascist ideologists.

Preparing for the process

The unleashing of an aggressive war by Germany, used as a state ideology of genocide, the technology of mass extermination of people in “death factories”, developed and put on stream, the inhuman treatment of prisoners of war and their murder, became widely known to the world community and required appropriate legal qualification and condemnation.

All this determined the unprecedented scale and procedure of the court. This can also explain the specific features that were previously unknown to the practice of legal proceedings. Thus, in paragraphs 6 and 9 of the statute of the tribunal, it was established that certain groups and organizations may also become subjects of the charge. In article 13, the court was recognized as competent to independently determine the course of the process.

One of the charges brought at Nuremberg was the consideration of the question of war crimes ("Kriegsverbrechen"). This term had already been used in the trial in Leipzig against Wilhelm II and his generals, and therefore there was a legal precedent (despite the fact that the trial in Leipzig was not international).

A significant innovation was the provision that both the accusing party and the defense were given the opportunity to question the competence of the court, which was recognized by the court of final instance.

A fundamental but not detailed decision on the unconditional guilt of the German side was agreed between the allies and made public after a meeting in Moscow in October. praesumptio innocentiae).

The fact that the trial would end with the guilty acknowledgment of the accused did not raise any doubts, it was agreed not only global community, but also the majority of the German population even before the judicial review of the actions of the accused party. The question was to specify and qualify the degree of guilt of the accused. As a result, the process was called the trial of the main war criminals (Hauptkriegsverbrecher), and the court was given the status of a military tribunal.

The first list of defendants was agreed upon at a conference in London on 8 August. It did not include Hitler, nor his closest subordinates Himmler and Goebbels, whose death was firmly established, but Bormann, who was allegedly killed on the streets of Berlin, was accused in absentia (lat. in contumaciam).

The rules of conduct for Soviet representatives at the trial were established by the "Commission for the management of the work of Soviet representatives at the International Tribunal at Nuremberg." It was headed by the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the USSR Andrey Vyshinsky. In London, where the winners prepared the charter of the Nuremberg Trials, a delegation from Moscow brought a list of undesirable questions approved in November 1945. It had nine items. The first item was the secret protocol to the Soviet-German non-aggression pact and everything connected with it. The last point concerned Western Ukraine and Western Belarus and the problem of Soviet-Polish relations. As a result, an agreement was reached in advance between the representatives of the USSR and the allies on the issues to be discussed, and a list of topics that should not have been raised during the trial was agreed upon.

As it is now documented (materials on this issue are in the TsSAOR and were discovered by N. S. Lebedeva and Yu. N. Zorya), at the time of the constitution of the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg, a special list of issues was drawn up, the discussion of which was considered unacceptable. It is fair to say that the initiative to compile the list did not belong to the Soviet side, but it was immediately taken up by Molotov and Vyshinsky (of course, with Stalin's approval). One of the points was the Soviet-German non-aggression pact.

- Lev Bezymensky. Preface to the book: Fleischhauer I. Pakt. Hitler, Stalin and the initiative of German diplomacy. 1938-1939. -M.: Progress, 1990.

Also the point about the removal of the civilian population of the occupied territories into slavery and for other purposes was in no way compared with the use of forced labor of the German civilian population in the USSR.

The basis for the trial at Nuremberg was laid down in paragraph VI of the minutes drawn up at Potsdam on 2 August.

One of the initiators of the process and its key figure was the US prosecutor, Robert Jackson. He drew up a script for the process, on the course of which he had a significant influence. He considered himself a representative of the new legal thinking and tried in every possible way to approve it.

Members of the tribunal

The International Military Tribunal was formed on an equal basis from representatives of the four great powers in accordance with the London Agreement. Each of the 4 countries sent its chief accusers, their deputies and assistants.

Chief Prosecutors and Deputies:

• from the USSR: Deputy Chairman of the Supreme Court Soviet Union Major General of Justice I. T. Nikitchenko;

Colonel of Justice A. F. Volchkov;

• from the USA: former Attorney General F. Biddle;

4th Circuit Judge John Parker;

• for the United Kingdom: Judge Geoffrey Lawrence of the Court of Appeal for England and Wales;

Judge of the High Court of England Norman Birket (English);

• for France: Henri Donnedier de Vabre, Professor of Criminal Law;

Robert Falco, former judge of the Paris Court of Appeal.

Helpers:

accusations

1. Nazi party plans:
   • The use of Nazi control for aggression against foreign countries.
   • Aggressive actions against Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland
   • Aggressive war against the whole world (-).
   • German invasion of the USSR in violation of the non-aggression pact of August 23, 1939.
   • Cooperation with Italy and Japan and aggressive war against the USA (November 1936 - December 1941).
2. Crimes against the world:
   • « All the accused and various other persons participated in the planning, preparation, initiation and conduct of aggressive wars for a number of years up to May 8, 1945, which were also wars in violation of international treaties, agreements and obligations.».
3. Military crimes:
   • Killings and ill-treatment of the civilian population in the occupied territories and on the high seas.
   • Withdrawal of the civilian population of the occupied territories into slavery and for other purposes.
   • Murder and ill-treatment of prisoners of war and military personnel of countries with which Germany was at war, as well as with persons who were sailing on the high seas.
   • Aimless destruction of cities and towns and villages, devastation not justified by military necessity.
   • Germanization of the occupied territories.
4. :
   • The accused pursued a policy of persecution, repression and extermination of opponents of the Nazi government. The Nazis threw people into prison without a trial, subjected them to persecution, humiliation, enslavement, torture, and killed them.

From Robert Jackson's indictment:

Hitler did not take all responsibility with him to the grave. All guilt is not wrapped in Himmler's shroud. These living have chosen these dead to be their accomplices in this grandiose brotherhood of conspirators, and each of them must pay for the crime they committed together.

It can be said that Hitler committed his last crime against the country he ruled. He was a mad messiah who started a war for no reason and continued it pointlessly. If he could no longer rule, then he did not care what would happen to Germany ...

They stand before this court, as blood-stained Gloucester stood before the body of his slain king. He begged the widow, as they beg you: "Say that I didn't kill them." And the queen answered: “Then say that they are not killed. But they are dead." If you say that these people are innocent, it's like saying that there was no war, no dead, no crime.

From the accusatory speech of the chief prosecutor from the USSR R. A. Rudenko:

Lord Judge!

In order to carry out the atrocities conceived by them, the leaders of the fascist conspiracy created a system of criminal organizations, to which my speech was devoted. Today, those who have set themselves the goal of establishing dominion over the world and the extermination of peoples are waiting with trepidation for the coming verdict of the court. This verdict must overtake not only the authors of the bloody fascist "ideas" put on trial, the main organizers of the crimes of Hitlerism. Your verdict must condemn the entire criminal system of German fascism, that complex, widely ramified network of party, government, SS, military organizations that directly put into practice the villainous plans of the main conspirators. On the battlefields, mankind has already pronounced its verdict on the criminal German fascism. In the fire of the greatest battles in the history of mankind, the heroic Soviet Army and the valiant troops of the allies not only defeated the Nazi hordes, but approved the lofty and noble principles of international cooperation, human morality, and the humane rules of human community. The Prosecution has fulfilled its duty to the High Court, to the blessed memory of the innocent victims, to the conscience of the nations, to its own conscience.

May the judgment of the peoples be carried out over the fascist executioners - just and severe.

Process progress

Due to the post-war aggravation of relations between the USSR and the West, the process was tense, this gave the accused hope for the collapse of the process. The situation escalated especially after Churchill's Fulton speech. Therefore, the defendants behaved boldly, skillfully playing for time, hoping that the coming war would put an end to the process (Goering contributed most of all to this). At the end of the process, the Soviet prosecution provided a film about the concentration camps Majdanek, Sachsenhausen, Auschwitz, filmed by front-line cameramen of the Red Army.

Sentence

International Military Tribunal sentenced:

• To death by hanging: Herman Goring, Joachima von Ribbentrop, Wilhelm Kaitel, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Alfred Rosenberg, Hans Frank, Wilhelma Frca, Julius Strajer, Fritz Zaukiel, Arthur Zeis Inquart, Martin Borman (in absentia) and Alfred Yojl.
• To life imprisonment: Rudolf Hess, Walther Funk and Erich Roeder.
• By 20 years in prison: Baldur von Schirach and Albert Speer.
• By 15 years in prison: Constantine von Neurath.
• By 10 years in prison: Karl Dönitz.
• Justified: Hans Fritsche, Franz von Papen and Hjalmar Schacht.

The Tribunal declared the organizations SS, SD, Gestapo and the leadership of the Nazi Party to be criminal.

None of the convicts admitted their guilt and did not repent of their deeds.

Soviet judge I. T. Nikitchenko filed a dissenting opinion, where he objected to the acquittal of Fritsche, Papen and Schacht, the non-recognition of the German cabinet of ministers, the General Staff and the OKW as criminal organizations, as well as life imprisonment (not the death penalty) for Rudolf Hess.

Jodl was fully acquitted posthumously in a retrial by a Munich court in 1953, but later, under pressure from the United States, this decision was annulled.

A number of convicts petitioned the Allied Control Commission for Germany: Goering, Hess, Ribbentrop, Sauckel, Jodl, Keitel, Seyss-Inquart, Funk, Doenitz and Neurath - for pardon; Raeder - on the replacement of life imprisonment with the death penalty; Goering, Jodl and Keitel - about replacing hanging with execution if the request for pardon is not granted. All of these applications were denied.

On August 15, 1946, the American Information Administration published a review of polls conducted, according to which the vast majority of Germans (about 80%) considered the Nuremberg trials fair, and the guilt of the defendants was undeniable; about half of the respondents answered that the defendants should be sentenced to death; only 4% responded negatively to the process.

Execution and cremation of the bodies of those sentenced to death

The death sentences were carried out on the night of October 16, 1946, in the gymnasium of the Nuremberg prison. Goering poisoned himself in prison shortly before his execution (there are several suggestions how he received the poison capsule, including that it was passed by his wife during the last kiss). The sentence was carried out by American soldiers - professional executioner John Woods and volunteer Joseph Malta. One of the witnesses to the execution, the writer Boris Polevoy, published his memoirs of the execution.

Going to the gallows, most of them kept their presence of mind. Some behaved defiantly, others resigned themselves to their fate, but there were those who appealed to God's grace. All but Rosenberg made brief last-minute announcements. And only Julius Streicher mentioned Hitler. In the gym, where 3 days ago the American guards played basketball, there were three black gallows, of which two were used. They hung one by one, but in order to finish sooner, the next Nazi was brought into the hall when the previous one was still hanging on the gallows.

The condemned climbed 13 wooden steps to an 8-foot-high platform. Ropes hung from beams supported by two poles. The hanged man fell into the interior of the gallows, the bottom of which on one side was hung with dark curtains, and on three sides it was lined with wood so that no one could see the death throes of the hanged.

After the execution of the last convict (Seiss-Inquart), a stretcher with the body of Goering was brought into the hall so that he would take a symbolic place under the gallows, and also so that journalists would be convinced of his death.

After the execution, the bodies of the hanged and the corpse of the suicide Goering were placed in a row. “Representatives of all the allied powers,” wrote one of the Soviet journalists, “examined them and signed on the death certificates. Photographs were taken of each body, dressed and naked. Then each corpse was wrapped in a mattress along with the last clothes that he was wearing, and rope, on which he was hanged, and put in a coffin. All the coffins were sealed. While they were handling the rest of the bodies, Goering's body was brought on a stretcher, covered with an army blanket ... At 4 o'clock in the morning, the coffins were loaded into 2.5-ton trucks, waiting in the prison yard, covered with a waterproof tarpaulin and driven off, accompanied by a military escort. An American captain rode in the front car, followed by French and American generals. Then followed trucks and a jeep guarding them with specially selected soldiers and a machine gun. The convoy drove through Nuremberg and , leaving the city, took the direction to the south.

At dawn, they drove up to Munich and immediately headed to the outskirts of the city to the crematorium, the owner of which had been warned of the arrival of the corpses of "fourteen American soldiers". In fact, there were only eleven corpses, but they said so in order to lull the possible suspicions of the crematorium personnel. The crematorium was surrounded, radio contact was established with the soldiers and tankers of the cordon in case of any alarm. Anyone who entered the crematorium was not allowed to go back until the end of the day. The coffins were opened, and the bodies checked by the American, British, French, and Soviet officers present at the execution to make sure they hadn't been switched along the way. After that, the cremation began immediately, which continued all day. When this matter was also finished, a car drove up to the crematorium, and a container with ashes was placed in it. The ashes were scattered from the plane into the wind.

The fate of other prisoners

Other Nuremberg Trials

After the main trial (Main War Criminal Trial), a number of more private trials followed with a different composition of prosecutors and judges:

Meaning

Having passed a guilty verdict on the main Nazi criminals, the International Military Tribunal recognized aggression as the gravest crime of an international character. The Nuremberg Trials are sometimes referred to as " By the court of history"because he provided significant influence to the final defeat of Nazism.

At the trial in Nuremberg, I said: “If Hitler had friends, I would be his friend. I owe him the inspiration and glory of my youth, as well as later horror and guilt.

In the image of Hitler, as he was in relation to me and others, you can catch some pretty features. There is also the impression of a person who is in many ways gifted and selfless. But the longer I wrote, the more I felt that it was about superficial qualities.

Because such impressions are countered by an unforgettable lesson: the Nuremberg Trials. I will never forget one photographic document depicting a Jewish family going to their death: a man with his wife and his children on their way to death. He still stands before my eyes today.

In Nuremberg I was sentenced to twenty years in prison. The verdict of the military tribunal, however imperfectly portrayed history, tried to formulate guilt. Punishment, always ill-suited to measure historical responsibility, put an end to my civil existence. And that photo took my life from the ground. It turned out to be more durable than the sentence.

The main Nuremberg trials are devoted to:

Trials of war criminals of lesser importance continued in Nuremberg until the 1950s (see the subsequent Nuremberg Trials), but not in the International Tribunal, but in an American court. One of them is dedicated to:

• American Feature Film"Nuremberg trial" ()

Criticism of the process

Doubts were expressed in the German press about the moral right of a number of accusers and judges to accuse and try the Nazis, since these accusers and judges were themselves involved in political repression. So the Soviet accuser Rudenko was involved in the mass Stalinist repressions in Ukraine, his British colleague Dean was known for his participation in the extradition of Soviet citizens accused of collaborationism to the USSR (many of them were accused without justification), US judges Clark (Clark) and Beadle organized concentration camps for Japanese residents USA . Soviet judge I. T. Nikitchenko was involved in pronouncing hundreds of sentences for innocent people during the Great Terror.

German lawyers criticized the following features of the process:

• The legal proceedings were conducted on behalf of the allies, that is, the injured party, which did not correspond to the centuries-old legal practice, according to which the mandatory requirement for the legality of the verdict was the independence and neutrality of the judges, who should in no way be interested in making this or that decision.
• Two new paragraphs, previously unknown to the tradition of legal proceedings, were introduced into the formulation of the process, namely: “ Preparing a military attack" (Vorbereitung des Angriffskrieges) and " Crimes against the world» (Verschwörung gegen den Frieden). Thus, the principle Nulla poena sine lege, according to which no one can be charged without a previously formulated definition of the corpus delicti and the corresponding degree of punishment.
• The most controversial, according to German lawyers, was the clause " Crimes against humanity”(Verbrechen gegen Menschlichkeit), since, within the framework of the legislation known to the court, it could equally be applied both to the accused (the bombing of Coventry, Rotterdam, etc.) and to the accusers (the bombing of Dresden, the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, etc.). e.)

The validity of the use of such a clause would be legally justified in two cases: either on the assumption that they are possible in a military situation and were also committed by the accusing party, therefore, become legally null and void, or on the recognition that the commission of crimes similar to the crimes of the Third Reich is subject to condemnation in any case, even if they were also committed by the victorious countries.

The Catholic Church expressed its regrets about the lack of humanism shown by the court. Representatives of the Catholic clergy who gathered in Fulda for a conference, not objecting to the need for trial and condemnation, noted that the “special form of law” applied during the process led to multiple manifestations of injustice in the process of subsequent denazification and negatively affected the morality of the nation. This opinion was communicated to the representative of the American military administration by Cardinal Josef Frings of Cologne on August 26, 1948.

Leading Researcher Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Yuri Zhukov, argued that during the trial, the Soviet delegation concluded a gentleman's agreement with the delegations to forget the Molotov-Ribentrop Pact and the Munich Agreement.

Consideration of the Katyn case in Nuremberg

Participants in the process from neutral countries - Sweden and Switzerland - raised the issue of taking into account mutual guilt in violation of a person's right to life, including during massacres.

This issue became especially acute in connection with the presentation of materials on Katyn to the court, since at that time the Soviet government categorically ruled out its responsibility for the murder of 4,143 Polish officers captured and the disappearance of another 10,000 officers on its territory. On the morning of February 14, unexpectedly for everyone, one of the Soviet prosecutors (Pokrovsky), in the context of accusations of crimes against Czechoslovak, Polish and Yugoslav prisoners, began to talk about the crime of the Germans in Katyn, reading out the conclusions from the report of the Soviet commission Burdenko. As the documents show, the Soviet prosecution was firmly convinced that, in accordance with Article 21 of the Charter of the Tribunal, the court would accept the conclusions of the official commission of the ally country as a proven fact. However, to the indignation of the Soviet delegation, the court agreed to the demand of Goering's defender, Dr. Stammer, to hold special hearings on this issue, however, limiting the number of witnesses (3 on each side).

Hearings on the Katyn case took place on July 1-2, 1946. The witnesses for the prosecution were the former deputy mayor of Smolensk, professor-astronomer B. V. Bazilevsky, professor V. I. Prozorovsky (as a medical expert) and the Bulgarian expert M. A. Markov. Markov, after his arrest, radically changed his views on Katyn; his role in the process was to compromise the conclusions of the international commission. Bazilevsky at the trial repeated the testimony given to the NKVD-NKGB commission and then to foreign journalists in the Burdenko commission; in particular, stating that the burgomaster B. G. Menshagin informed him about the execution of the Poles by the Germans; Menshagin himself in his memoirs calls this a lie.

The main witness for the defense was the former commander of the 537th communications regiment, Colonel Friedrich Ahrens, who was declared by the commissions of the “organs” and Burdenko to be the main organizer of the executions as Oberst Lieutenant (lieutenant colonel) Ahrens, commander of the “537th construction battalion”. Lawyers without much difficulty proved to the court that he appeared in Katyn only in November 1941 and, by the nature of his activity (communication), could not have anything to do with mass executions, after which Ahrens became a witness for the defense, along with his colleagues, Lieutenant R. von Eichborn and General E. Oberheuser. A member of the international commission, Dr. François Naville (Switzerland), also volunteered to act as a defense witness, but the court did not call him. On July 1-3, 1946, the court heard the witnesses. As a result, the Katyn episode did not appear in the verdict. Soviet propaganda tried to pass off the fact that this episode was present in the “materials of the trial” (that is, in the prosecution materials) as recognition by the tribunal of German guilt for Katyn, but outside the USSR they unambiguously perceived the outcome of the hearings on Katyn as proof of the innocence of the German side and, therefore , Soviet guilt.

The strange death of Nikolai Zori

At first, it was decided that 38-year-old Nikolai Zorya, appointed to the post of Deputy Prosecutor of the USSR, would be the prosecutor from the Soviet side. On February 11, he interrogated Field Marshal Paulus. All the newspapers wrote about the interrogation the next day, but at the moment when Zorya announced that now “materials and testimonies of people who have reliable information about how the preparations for the attack on the Soviet Union actually took place” would be presented, the booths of Soviet translators were turned off . Stalin ordered that Paulus be further interrogated by the chief Soviet prosecutor, Roman Rudenko.

Zorya was ordered to prevent Ribbentrop's testimony about the existence of a "secret" protocol to the Soviet-German non-aggression pact. Ribbentrop and his deputy Weizsäcker revealed its contents under oath. This happened on May 22, 1946. The next day, Zorya was found dead at 22 Güntermüllerstrasse in Nuremberg in his bed with a pistol neatly lying next to him. It was announced in the Soviet press and on the radio that he handled personal weapons carelessly, although relatives were informed of suicide. Zorya's son Yuri, who later devoted himself to the study of the Katyn case, connected the death of his father with this particular case. According to him, Zorya, who was preparing for the Katyn meetings, came to the conclusion that the Soviet accusation was false and he could not support it. On the eve of his death, Zorya asked immediate supervisor- Attorney General Gorshenin - urgently organize a trip to Moscow for him to report to Vyshinsky about the doubts that arose in him when studying the Katyn documents, since he cannot speak with these documents. The next morning Zorya was found dead. Rumors circulated among the Soviet delegation that Stalin said: “bury like a dog!” .

Museum

In 2010, in the room where court hearings, the Museum of the History of the Nuremberg trials was opened.

More than 4 million euros were spent on the creation of the museum.

Photo

The defendants in their box. First row, from left to right: Herman Goering, Rudolf Hess, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Wilhelm Keitel; second row, from left to right: Karl Doenitz, Erich Roeder, Baldur von Shirach, Fritz Sauckel	Booth of simultaneous interpretation	The inner hall of the prison. Around the clock, the guards vigilantly monitored the behavior of the defendants in the cells.	In the foreground, the assistant to the chief prosecutor from the USSR, L. R. Sheinin	Friedrich Paulus Testifies at the Nuremberg Trials

see also

• List of accused and defendants of the Nuremberg trials
• The Nuremberg Trials is a feature film by Stanley Kramer (1961).
• Nuremberg is a 2000 American TV movie.
• "Counterplay" - Russian television series of 2011.
• The Nuremberg Alarm is a 2008 two-part documentary film based on the book by Alexander Zvyagintsev.
• "Nuremberg epilogue" / Nirnberski epilog (Yugoslav film, 1971)
• "Nuremberg epilogue" / Epilog norymberski (Polish film, 1971)
• "Process" - a performance by the Leningrad State Theater named after. Leninist Komsomol based on the script by Abby Mann for the feature film "

Göring in the dock at the Nuremberg Trials

On October 1, 1946, the verdict of the International Military Tribunal was proclaimed in Nuremberg, condemning the main war criminals. It is often referred to as the "Court of History". It was not only one of the largest trials in the history of mankind, but also a milestone in the development of international law. The Nuremberg trials legally sealed the final defeat of fascism.

On the dock:

For the first time, criminals who made a whole state criminal appeared and suffered severe punishment. The initial list of defendants included:

1. Hermann Wilhelm Göring (German: Hermann Wilhelm Göring), Reichsmarschall, Commander-in-Chief of the German Air Force
2. Rudolf Hess (German Rudolf Heß), Hitler's deputy in charge of the Nazi Party.
3. Joachim von Ribbentrop (German: Ullrich Friedrich Willy Joachim von Ribbentrop), Foreign Minister of Nazi Germany.
4. Robert Ley (German: Robert Ley), head of the Labor Front
5. Wilhelm Keitel (German Wilhelm Keitel), Chief of Staff of the Supreme Command of the German Armed Forces.
6. Ernst Kaltenbrunner (German Ernst Kaltenbrunner), head of the RSHA.
7. Alfred Rosenberg (German: Alfred Rosenberg), one of the main ideologists of Nazism, Reich Minister for the Eastern Territories.
8. Hans Frank (German Dr. Hans Frank), head of the occupied Polish lands.
9. Wilhelm Frick (German Wilhelm Frick), Minister of the Interior of the Reich.
10. Julius Streicher (German: Julius Streicher), Gauleiter, editor-in-chief of the anti-Semitic newspaper Sturmovik (German: Der Stürmer - Der Stürmer).
11. Hjalmar Schacht (German Hjalmar Schacht), Reich Minister of Economics before the war.
12. Walther Funk (German Walther Funk), Minister of Economics after Mine.
13. Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach (German: Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach), head of the Friedrich Krupp concern.
14. Karl Doenitz (German: Karl Dönitz), Admiral of the Third Reich Fleet.
15. Erich Raeder (German Erich Raeder), Commander-in-Chief of the Navy.
16. Baldur von Schirach (German: Baldur Benedikt von Schirach), head of the Hitler Youth, Gauleiter of Vienna.
17. Fritz Sauckel (German: Fritz Sauckel), head of forced deportations to the Reich of labor from the occupied territories.
18. Alfred Jodl (German Alfred Jodl), Chief of Staff of the Operational Command of the OKW
19. Franz von Papen (German: Franz Joseph Hermann Michael Maria von Papen), Chancellor of Germany before Hitler, then Ambassador to Austria and Turkey.
20. Arthur Seyss-Inquart (German Dr. Arthur Seyß-Inquart), chancellor of Austria, then imperial commissioner of the occupied Holland.
21. Albert Speer (German: Albert Speer), Reich Minister for Armaments
22. Konstantin von Neurath (German Konstantin Freiherr von Neurath), in the early years of Hitler's reign, Minister of Foreign Affairs, then Viceroy in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.
23. Hans Fritsche (German: Hans Fritzsche), Head of the Press and Broadcasting Department in the Ministry of Propaganda.

Twenty-fourth - Martin Bormann (German Martin Bormann), head of the party office, was charged in absentia. Groups or organizations to which the defendants belonged were also accused.

Investigation and charges

Shortly after the end of the war, the victorious countries of the USSR, the USA, Great Britain and France, during the London conference, approved the Agreement on the Establishment of the International Military Tribunal and its Charter, the principles of which the UN General Assembly approved as universally recognized in the fight against crimes against humanity. On August 29, 1945, a list of top war criminals was published, which included 24 prominent Nazis. The charges brought against them included the following:

Nazi party plans

• -The use of Nazi control for aggression against foreign states.
• - Aggressive actions against Austria and Czechoslovakia.
• - Attack on Poland.
• - Aggressive war against the whole world (1939-1941).
• -The invasion of Germany into the territory of the USSR in violation of the non-aggression pact of August 23, 1939.
• -Cooperation with Italy and Japan and aggressive war against the USA (November 1936 - December 1941).

Crimes against the world

"All the accused and various other persons, for a number of years up to May 8, 1945, participated in the planning, preparation, initiation and conduct of aggressive wars, which were also wars in violation of international treaties, agreements and obligations."

War crimes

• -Killing and ill-treatment of the civilian population in the occupied territories and on the high seas.

• - Withdrawal of the civilian population of the occupied territories into slavery and for other purposes.
• -Murder and ill-treatment of prisoners of war and military personnel of countries with which Germany was at war, as well as with persons who were sailing on the high seas.
• - Aimless destruction of cities and towns and villages, devastation not justified by military necessity.
• -Germanization of the occupied territories.

Crimes against humanity

• -The accused pursued a policy of persecution, repression and extermination of enemies of the Nazi government. The Nazis threw people into prison without a trial, subjected them to persecution, humiliation, enslavement, torture, and killed them.

On October 18, 1945, the indictment was submitted to the International Military Tribunal and, a month before the start of the trial, it was handed over to each of the accused in German. On November 25, 1945, after reading the indictment, Robert Ley committed suicide, and Gustav Krupp was declared terminally ill by the medical commission, and the case against him was dismissed before the trial.

The rest of the accused were put on trial.

Court

In accordance with the London Agreement, the International Military Tribunal was formed on an equal basis from representatives of four countries. The representative of Great Britain, Lord J. Lawrence, was appointed Chief Justice. From other countries, the members of the tribunal approved:

• - from the USSR: Deputy Chairman of the Supreme Court of the Soviet Union, Major General of Justice I. T. Nikitchenko.
• -from the USA: former Attorney General of the country F. Biddle.
• -from France: Professor of Criminal Law A. Donnedier de Vabre.

Each of the 4 countries sent its main prosecutors, their deputies and assistants to the trial:

• - from the USSR: Prosecutor General of the Ukrainian SSR R. A. Rudenko.
• -from the United States: Federal Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson.
• -from UK: Hartley Shawcross
• -from France: François de Menthon, who was absent during the first days of the process, and was replaced by Charles Dubost, and then Champentier de Ribe was appointed instead of de Menthon.

The process lasted ten months in Nuremberg. A total of 216 court hearings were held. Each side presented evidence of crimes committed by Nazi criminals.

Due to the unprecedented gravity of the crimes committed by the defendants, doubts arose whether to observe democratic norms of justice in relation to them. For example, representatives of the prosecution from England and the United States proposed not to give the defendants last word. However, the French and Soviet sides insisted on the opposite.

The process was tense, not only because of the unusual nature of the tribunal itself and the charges brought against the defendants.

The post-war aggravation of relations between the USSR and the West after Churchill's famous Fulton speech also had an effect, and the defendants, feeling the current political situation, skillfully played for time and hoped to escape the deserved punishment. In such a difficult situation, the tough and professional actions of the Soviet prosecution played a key role. The film about concentration camps, filmed by front-line cameramen, finally turned the course of the process. The terrible pictures of Majdanek, Sachsenhausen, Auschwitz completely removed the doubts of the tribunal.

Court verdict

The International Military Tribunal sentenced:

• -To death by hanging: Goering, Ribbentrop, Keitel, Kaltenbrunner, Rosenberg, Frank, Frick, Streicher, Sauckel, Seyss-Inquart, Bormann (in absentia), Jodl (was posthumously acquitted during the retrial by the Munich court in 1953).
• -To life imprisonment: Hess, Funk, Raeder.
• -To 20 years in prison: Schirach, Speer.
• -To 15 years in prison: Neurata.
• -To 10 years in prison: Doenica.
• - Justified: Fritsche, Papen, Shakht.

The Soviet side protested in connection with the acquittal of Papen, Fritsche, Schacht and the non-application of the death penalty to Hess.
The Tribunal recognized as criminal the organizations of the SS, SD, SA, Gestapo and the leadership of the Nazi Party. The decision to recognize the Supreme Command and the General Staff as criminal was not made, which caused the disagreement of the member of the tribunal from the USSR.

Most of the convicts filed petitions for clemency; Raeder - on the replacement of life imprisonment with the death penalty; Goering, Jodl and Keitel - about replacing hanging with execution if the request for pardon is not granted. All of these applications were denied.
The death penalty was carried out on the night of October 16, 1946 in the building of the Nuremberg prison. Göring poisoned himself in prison shortly before his execution.

The sentence was carried out "by own will US Sergeant John Wood.

Funk and Raeder, sentenced to life imprisonment, were pardoned in 1957. After Speer and Schirach were released in 1966, only Hess remained in prison. The right-wing forces of Germany repeatedly demanded that he be pardoned, but the victorious powers refused to commute the sentence. On August 17, 1987, Hess was found hanged in his cell.

Results and conclusions

The Nuremberg Tribunal, having created a precedent for the jurisdiction of senior government officials to an international court, refuted the medieval principle "Kings are under the jurisdiction of God alone." It was with the Nuremberg trials that the history of international criminal law began. The principles enshrined in the Charter of the Tribunal were soon confirmed by the decisions of the UN General Assembly as universally recognized principles of international law. Having passed a guilty verdict on the main Nazi criminals, the International Military Tribunal recognized aggression as the gravest crime of an international character.