Sixty-five years ago, on November 20, 1945, the Nuremberg trials opened to prosecute a group of key Nazi war criminals. The International Military Tribunal, which represented the four Allied Powers, sat in session for 218 days, until October 1, 1946.
The leaders of Nazi Germany were brought to the Nuremberg Court accused of a conspiracy against world peace, planning, unleashing and conducting a military aggression, violations of military law, and crimes against humanity.
It took over 400 court hearings for the Tribunal to qualify the SS, the SD, the Gestapo and the Nazi Party top leadership as criminal organizations.
Twelve defendants were condemned to death by hanging and three to life imprisonment. Four more were sentenced to 25, 15 and 10 years of imprisonment. Three men were acquitted.
The death sentences were carried out in the early hours of October 16, 1946 in the Nuremberg prison gym. The bodies were cremated and the ashes scattered from a plane.
The Nuremberg trial is called the Judgment of History – a trial that qualified aggression as the gravest of crimes and raised legal and moral barriers to the revival of Nazism.
Nuremberg trials: how top Nazi criminals were prosecuted
11:55 GMT 22.11.2010 (Updated: 19:53 GMT 19.10.2022)
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Sixty-five years ago, on November 20, 1945, the Nuremberg trials opened to prosecute a group of key Nazi war criminals. The International Military Tribunal, which represented the four Allied Powers, sat in session for 218 days, until October 1, 1946.
