MOSCOW, November 20. /TASS/. November 20, 2015 marks the 70th anniversary of the opening of the Nuremberg trials, which tried the case of the main Nazi criminals responsible for unleashing the Second World War. This was the first experience in history of condemning crimes of a national scale - the ruling regime, its punitive institutions, senior political and military figures.

For the first time, war criminals failed to evade responsibility, citing the need to carry out orders from above.

The Nuremberg trial is the only one of its kind in the history of world jurisprudence; it has the greatest social significance for millions of people around the globe

Geoffrey Lawrence

chairman of the tribunal

24 government and military leaders of Nazi Germany were put on trial. Cases against the leader of the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP) Adolf Hitler and representatives of the Fuhrer's inner circle - Joseph Goebbels (Minister of Education and Propaganda) and Heinrich Himmler (Minister of the Interior and head of the SS) were not initiated, since they committed suicide yet before the process starts.

The issue of recognizing as criminal was also brought up for consideration by the tribunal:

• SS (Schutzstaffel, security detachments, paramilitary forces of the NSDAP),
• SA (Sturmabteilung, assault troops),
• SD (Sicherheitsdienst, security service),
• Gestapo (Gestapo, Geheime Staatspolizei, secret state police),

as well as the government, the leadership of the NSDAP, General Staff and the High Command of the German Armed Forces.

How the tribunal was created

The issue of punishing Nazi criminals was raised by the leaders of the USSR, Great Britain and the USA even before the end of World War II.

It was emphasized that Nazi officers and soldiers who committed “atrocities, murders and mass executions” on the territory of the occupied countries, after the end of the war, would be sent “to the places of their crimes and will be judged by the peoples against whom they committed violence.”

The agreement on the establishment of the International Military Tribunal was concluded by the governments of the USSR, USA, Great Britain and France on August 8, 1945 in London.

Tribunal Charter

On the same day, the tribunal's charter was adopted. His first article noted that the goal of the Nuremberg trials was “a speedy and fair trial and punishment of the main war criminals of the Axis countries.”

Article 6 of the statute classified three main groups of crimes:

crimes against peace (unleashing a war of aggression);

war crimes (violations of the laws and customs of warfare recorded in various international documents, including the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907);

crimes against humanity (murder of civilians, racism, genocide, etc.).

The defendants were accused of these crimes, as well as “participating in the creation and implementation of a common plan to commit them.”

Article 27 provided for "the death penalty or such other punishment as the tribunal considers just."

To find the defendant guilty and determine his punishment, the votes of at least three members of the tribunal were required.

It is believed that the process marked the beginning of the formation and development of a new direction of jurisprudence - international criminal law and justice.

Who entered the tribunal

To make judicial decisions, each of the four parties appointed one member and one alternate to the tribunal:

• USSR- Chairman of the Supreme Court of the USSR, Major General of Justice Ion Nikitchenko and Colonel of Justice Alexander Volchkov;
• USA- former prosecutor general of the country Francis Biddle and judge John Parker;
• Great Britain- Chief Justice Geoffrey Lawrence and Justice Norman Birket;
• France- Professor of Criminal Law Henri Donnedier de Vabres and Judge Robert Falco.

An indictment committee was also established, to which each of the four governments appointed a chief prosecutor:

• USSR- Prosecutor of the Ukrainian SSR Roman Rudenko;
• USA- US Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson;
• Great Britain- lawyer Hartley Shawcross;
• France - law professor François de Menton, but during the trial he was replaced by lawyers Charles Dubost and Champetier de Ribes.

Other prosecutors also took part in the trial.

Continuation

"Youtube/moymoymoyification"s channel"

Press about the tribunal

Media representatives from 31 countries attended the trial. In the USSR, the press reported daily on what was happening in Nuremberg. TASS information was supplemented by reports from journalists present at the meetings, including famous writers– Leonid Leonov, Ilya Erenburg, Boris Polevoy and documentary filmmaker Roman Karmen.

Today at 10 a.m. local time (12 p.m. Moscow time) a meeting of the International Military Tribunal took place. For many years in a row, the Nazis held their congresses in Nuremberg, where they outlined aggressive plans to enslave the world, where, to the beat of drums and the sounds of fanfare, the Nazis boasted of their victories and proclaimed a “new order” in Europe

TASS correspondent

Before the opening of the meeting, the hall was filled with:

“There are 20 main German war criminals in the dock. Four defendants are missing. There is no Martin Bormann, Hitler’s deputy for the leadership of the Hitler party. He cowardly fled after heart-rendingly calling on the German army and the German people to fight until last straw blood. Defendant Robert Ley hanged himself in prison without waiting for trial. The defendant Gustav Krupp von Bohlen lies in Salzburg, paralyzed, and, according to experts, cannot stand trial. Defendant Kaltenbrunner, a famous executioner and one of the leaders of the Gestapo, suddenly fell ill. But the court announced its decision to examine his case in his absence,” TASS reported.

It's like we're in the devil's kitchen right now. What we learn deserves such a name. Thanks to the documents brought by the prosecution, we see how a bunch of international robbers, intoxicated by their bloody successes in Western Europe, completely cold-bloodedly planned not only the dismemberment of our Motherland, not only the robbery of its peoples, but also their physical extermination

Boris Polevoy

During the trial, a film was shown about the crimes of the Nazis in the concentration camps of Majdanek, Sachsenhausen, Auschwitz, as well as in the occupied territories of the USSR. This moment, which was called the confrontation between executioners and victims, is considered the culmination of the Nuremberg trials.

When they showed a film about the camps, Schacht turned his back to the screen - he didn’t want to watch; others looked on, and Frank cried and wiped his eyes with a handkerchief. It sounds implausible, but I saw it: Frank, the same one who wrote that in Poland when he arrived there there were three and a half million Jews, and in 1944 of them a hundred thousand remained, sobbed when he saw on the screen what which I have seen a million times in reality; maybe he cried over himself - he realized what awaited him

Ilya Erenburg

12 death sentences

The process lasted 11 months.

During this time, 403 open court hearings took place. A total of 360 witnesses were questioned and about 200 thousand written testimonies were reviewed.

Most were found guilty on all charges or partially. None of them admitted their guilt.

The tribunal sentenced twelve defendants to death, and another nine to prison terms, including life sentences. Three were acquitted.

The following were sentenced to death by hanging:

• Hermann Goering ("successor of the Fuhrer", President of the Reichstag, Commander-in-Chief of the Air Force);
• Wilhelm Keitel (Chief of Staff of the Wehrmacht High Command);
• Joachim von Ribbentrop (Foreign Minister);
• Hans Frank (Governor General of occupied Poland);
• Wilhelm Frick (one of the leaders of the NSDAP);
• Alfred Jodl (Chief of Operations of the German High Command);
• Ernst Kaltenbrunner (Head of the Main Office of Reich Security);
• Alfred Rosenberg (one of the main ideologists of Nazism);
• Fritz Sauckel (led the forced deportations of the population from the occupied territories);
• Arthur Seyss-Inquart (German Commissioner in the occupied Netherlands);
• Julius Streicher (one of the ideologists of Nazism);
• Martin Bormann (head of the Nazi Party chancellery; convicted in absentia because his whereabouts were unknown; in 1973, a German court officially declared him dead).

Life imprisonment received:

• Rudolf Hess (one of Hitler's closest associates, committed suicide in Berlin Spandau prison in 1987);
• Erich Raeder (Commander-in-Chief of the Navy, released in 1955 for health reasons);
• Walter Funk (Minister of Economics, released in 1957 for health reasons).

Sentenced to 20 years in prison:

• Baldur von Schirach (one of the leaders of the NSDAP);
• Albert Speer (Minister of Armaments).

Konstantin von Neurath (one of the leaders of the SS) was sentenced to 15 years in prison, and Karl Doenitz (Hitler's successor as head of state) was sentenced to 10 years.

The leadership of the Nazi Party, SS, SD and Gestapo were declared criminal organizations.

The SA (assault troopers), the government of Nazi Germany, the general staff and the high command of the German armed forces were not recognized as criminal.

Acquitted

Acquittals were made against diplomat Franz von Papen, financier Helmar Schacht and head of the internal propaganda department of the German Ministry of Education and Propaganda Hans Fritsche.

The representative of the USSR at the tribunal, Iona Nikitchenko, issued a statement in which he expressed disagreement with the acquittals.

Continuation

Subsequently, materials from the Nuremberg trials were used during trials against fascist criminals in other countries. In particular, on their basis, a prominent figure of the NSDAP, Erich Koch (1959, Poland; the execution was later commuted to life imprisonment) and one of the Gestapo leaders responsible for the extermination of Jews, Adolf Eichmann (1961, Israel) were sentenced to death. .

Execution of the sentence

On the night of October 16, 1946, death sentences were carried out in the building of the Nuremberg prison (Herman Goering took potassium cyanide 2.5 hours before his execution).

The bodies of the war criminals were burned in a crematorium in Munich, and the ashes were scattered from the plane.

Journalists were present at the execution of the sentence - two people from each of the four Allied powers.

The year 2015 goes down in history - the seventieth year since the end of World War II. Rodina published hundreds of articles, documents, and photographs dedicated to the holy anniversary this year. And we decided to devote the December issue of our “Scientific Library” to some of the results and long-term consequences of the Second World War.
Of course, this does not mean that the military theme will disappear from the pages of Rodina along with the anniversary year. The June issue is already being planned, which will be dedicated to the 75th anniversary of the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, in the editorial portfolio, analytical materials from prominent Russian and foreign scientists are waiting in the wings, letters about native front-line soldiers continue to arrive for the column ""...
Write to us, dear readers. In our " Scientific library"There are still a lot of unfilled shelves.

Editorial "Motherland"

Public trials of the Nazis

The history of World War II is an endless list of war crimes of Nazi Germany and its allies. For this, humanity openly tried the main war criminals in their lair - Nuremberg (1945-1946) and Tokyo (1946-1948). Due to its political-legal significance and cultural imprint, the Nuremberg Tribunal has become a symbol of justice. In its shadow remained other show trials of European countries against the Nazis and their accomplices and, first of all, open trials held on the territory of the Soviet Union.

For the most brutal war crimes in 1943-1949, trials took place in 21 affected cities of five Soviet republics: Krasnodar, Krasnodon, Kharkov, Smolensk, Bryansk, Leningrad, Nikolaev, Minsk, Kiev, Velikiye Luki, Riga, Stalino (Donetsk), Bobruisk, Sevastopol, Chernigov, Poltava, Vitebsk, Chisinau, Novgorod, Gomel, Khabarovsk. They publicly convicted 252 war criminals from Germany, Austria, Hungary, Romania, Japan and several of their accomplices from the USSR. Open trials in the USSR of war criminals carried not only a legal meaning of punishing the perpetrators, but also a political and anti-fascist one. So films were made about the meetings, books were published, reports were written - for millions of people around the world. Judging by the reports of the MGB, almost the entire population supported the accusation and wanted the most severe punishment for the defendants.

At the show trials of 1943-1949. The best investigators, qualified translators, authoritative experts, professional lawyers, and talented journalists worked. About 300-500 spectators came to the meetings (the halls could no longer accommodate), thousands more stood on the street and listened to radio broadcasts, millions read reports and brochures, tens of millions watched newsreels. Under the weight of evidence, almost all the suspects admitted to their crime. In addition, in the dock there were only those whose guilt was repeatedly confirmed by evidence and witnesses. The verdicts of these courts can be considered justified even by modern standards, so none of the convicts were rehabilitated. But despite the importance of open processes, modern researchers know too little about them. the main problem- inaccessibility of sources. The materials of each trial amounted to up to fifty vast volumes, but they were almost never published 1 because they are stored in the archives of former KGB departments and are still not completely declassified. There is also a lack of culture of memory. A large museum opened in Nuremberg in 2010, which organizes exhibitions and methodically examines the Nuremberg Tribunal (and the 12 subsequent Nuremberg trials). But in the post-Soviet space there are no such museums about local processes. Therefore, in the summer of 2015, the author of these lines created a kind of virtual museum “Soviet Nuremberg” 2 for the Russian Military Historical Society. This website, which caused a great stir in the media, contains information and rare materials about 21 open courts in the USSR in 1943-1949.

Justice in time of war

Before 1943, no one in the world had experience of trying the Nazis and their collaborators. There were no analogues of such cruelty in world history, there were no atrocities of such a temporal and geographical scale, therefore there were no legal norms for retribution - neither in international conventions nor in national criminal codes. In addition, for justice it was still necessary to free the crime scenes and witnesses, and capture the criminals themselves. The Soviet Union was the first to do all this, but also not right away.

From 1941 until the end of the occupation, open trials were held in partisan detachments and brigades - over traitors, spies, looters. Their spectators were the partisans themselves and later residents of neighboring villages. At the front, traitors and Nazi executioners were punished by military tribunals until the issuance of Decree N39 of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on April 19, 1943 “On punitive measures for Nazi villains guilty of murder and torture of the Soviet civilian population and captured Red Army soldiers, for spies, traitors to the motherland from among Soviet citizens and for their accomplices." According to the Decree, cases of murder of prisoners of war and civilians were submitted to military courts attached to divisions and corps. Many of their meetings, on the recommendation of the command, were open, with the participation of the local population. In military tribunals, partisan, people's and military courts, the accused defended themselves, without lawyers. A common sentence was public hanging.

Decree N39 became the legal basis for systemic responsibility for thousands of crimes. The evidence base was detailed reports on the scale of atrocities and destruction in the liberated territories; for this purpose, by decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Council of November 2, 1942, the “Extraordinary State Commission for the establishment and investigation of the atrocities of the Nazi invaders and their accomplices and the damage they caused to citizens was created, collective farms, public organizations, state enterprises and institutions of the USSR" (ChGK). At the same time, in the camps, investigators interrogated millions of prisoners of war.

The open trials of 1943 in Krasnodar and Kharkov became widely known. These were the world's first full-fledged trials of the Nazis and their collaborators. The Soviet Union tried to ensure a worldwide resonance: the meetings were covered by foreign journalists and the best writers of the USSR (A. Tolstoy, K. Simonov, I. Ehrenburg, L. Leonov), and filmed by cameramen and photographers. The entire Soviet Union followed the processes - reports of the meetings were published in the central and local press, and readers' reactions were also posted there. Brochures were published about the trials in different languages, they were read aloud in the army and behind the lines. They were released almost immediately documentaries“The Verdict of the People” and “The Trial is Coming” were shown in Soviet and foreign cinemas. And in 1945-1946, documents from the Krasnodar trial on “gas chambers” (“gassenwagens”) were used by the international tribunal in Nuremberg.

According to the principle of “collective guilt”

The most thorough investigation was carried out as part of ensuring open trials of war criminals in late 1945 - early 1946. in the eight most affected cities of the USSR. According to the directives of the government, special operational investigative groups of the Ministry of Internal Affairs-NKGB were created on the ground; they studied archives, acts of the ChGK, photographic documents, interrogated thousands of witnesses from different regions and hundreds of prisoners of war. The first seven such trials (Bryansk, Smolensk, Leningrad, Velikie Luki, Minsk, Riga, Kyiv, Nikolaev) sentenced 84 war criminals (most of them were hanged). Thus, in Kyiv, the hanging of twelve Nazis on Kalinin Square (now Maidan Nezalezhnosti) was seen and approved by more than 200,000 citizens.

Since these trials coincided with the beginning of the Nuremberg Tribunal, they were compared not only by newspapers, but also by the prosecution and defense. Thus, in Smolensk, state prosecutor L.N. Smirnov built a chain of crimes from the Nazi leaders accused at Nuremberg to the specific 10 executioners in the dock: “Both of them are participants in the same accomplice.” Lawyer Kaznacheev (by the way, he also worked at the Kharkov trial) also spoke about the connection between the criminals of Nuremberg and Smolensk, but with a different conclusion: “The sign of equality cannot be placed between all these persons” 3 .

Eight Soviet trials of 1945-1946 ended, and the Nuremberg Tribunal also ended. But among the millions of prisoners of war there were still thousands of war criminals. Therefore, in the spring of 1947, by agreement between the Minister of Internal Affairs S. Kruglov and the Minister of Foreign Affairs V. Molotov, preparations began for the second wave of show trials against German military personnel. The next nine trials in Stalino (Donetsk), Sevastopol, Bobruisk, Chernigov, Poltava, Vitebsk, Novgorod, Chisinau and Gomel, held by resolution of the Council of Ministers of September 10, 1947, sentenced 137 people to prison terms in Vorkutlag.

The last open trial of foreign war criminals was the Khabarovsk trial of 1949 against Japanese developers of biological weapons, who tested them on Soviet and Chinese citizens (more on this on page 116 - Ed.). These crimes were not investigated at the International Tribunal in Tokyo because some potential defendants received immunity from the United States in exchange for experimental data.

Since 1947, instead of individual open trials, the Soviet Union began to conduct closed ones en masse. Already on November 24, 1947, the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs, the USSR Ministry of Justice, the USSR Prosecutor's Office N 739/18/15/311 issued an order, which ordered that the cases of those accused of committing war crimes be considered at closed sessions of the military tribunals of the Ministry of Internal Affairs troops at the place of detention of the defendants (that is, practically without calling witnesses) without the participation of the parties and sentence the perpetrators to imprisonment for a period of 25 years in forced labor camps.

The reasons for the curtailment of open processes are not entirely clear; no arguments have yet been found in the declassified documents. However, several versions can be put forward. Presumably, the open trials carried out were quite enough to satisfy society; propaganda switched to new tasks. In addition, conducting open trials required highly qualified investigators; there were not enough of them locally due to the post-war personnel shortage. It is worth taking into account the material support of open processes (the estimate for one process was about 55 thousand rubles); for the post-war economy these were significant amounts. Closed courts made it possible to quickly and en masse consider cases, sentence defendants to a predetermined period of imprisonment and, finally, corresponded to the traditions of Stalinist jurisprudence. In closed trials, prisoners of war were often tried on the principle of “collective guilt”, without concrete evidence of personal participation. Therefore, in the 1990s Russian authorities 13,035 foreigners convicted under Decree N39 for war crimes were rehabilitated (in total, during 1943-1952, at least 81,780 people were convicted under the Decree, including 24,069 foreign prisoners of war) 4.

Statute of limitations: protests and controversy

After Stalin's death, all foreigners convicted in closed and open trials were handed over to the authorities of their countries in 1955-1956. This was not advertised in the USSR - residents of the affected cities, who well remembered the speeches of the prosecutors, clearly would not have understood such political agreements.

Only a few who came from Vorkuta were imprisoned in foreign prisons (this was the case in the GDR and Hungary, for example), because the USSR did not send investigative files with them. There was a Cold War, and there was little cooperation between Soviet and West German justice authorities in the 1950s. And those who returned to Germany often said that they were slandered, and confessions of guilt in open trials were extracted by torture. Most of those convicted of war crimes by the Soviet court were allowed to return to civilian professions, and some were even allowed to enter the political and military elite.

At the same time, part of West German society (primarily young people who themselves did not experience the war) sought to seriously overcome the Nazi past. Under public pressure, open trials of war criminals took place in Germany in the late 1950s. They determined the creation in 1958 of the Central Department of Justice of the Federal Republic of Germany for the prosecution of Nazi crimes. The main goals of his activities were to investigate crimes and identify persons involved in crimes who could still be prosecuted. When the perpetrators are identified and it is established which prosecutor's office they fall under, the Central Office completes its preliminary investigation and transfers the case to the prosecutor's office.

Nevertheless, even identified criminals could be acquitted by a West German court. According to the post-war German Criminal Code, the statute of limitations would have expired for most World War II crimes in the mid-1960s. Moreover, the twenty-year statute of limitations applied only to murders committed with extreme cruelty. In the first post-war decade, a number of amendments were made to the Code, according to which those guilty of war crimes who did not directly participate in their execution could be acquitted.

In June 1964, a “conference of democratic lawyers” meeting in Warsaw heatedly protested against the application of a statute of limitations to Nazi crimes. On December 24, 1964, the Soviet government made a similar declaration. The note dated January 16, 1965 accused the Federal Republic of Germany of seeking to completely abandon the prosecution of Nazi executioners. Articles published in Soviet publications on the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of the Nuremberg Tribunal spoke about the same thing.

The situation seems to have been changed by the resolution of the 28th session of the UN General Assembly of December 3, 1973, “Principles international cooperation in relation to the detection, arrest, extradition and punishment of persons guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity." According to its text, all war criminals were subject to search, arrest, extradition to the countries where they committed their atrocities, regardless of time. But also After the resolution, foreign countries were extremely reluctant to hand over their citizens to Soviet justice, citing the fact that the USSR’s evidence was sometimes shaky, because many years had passed.

In general, due to political obstacles, the USSR in the 1960-1980s tried not foreign war criminals, but their accomplices, in open trials. For political reasons, the names of the punishers were almost not heard at the open trials of 1945-1947 over their foreign owners. Even the trial of Vlasov was held behind closed doors. Because of this secrecy, many traitors with blood on their hands were missed. After all, the orders of the Nazi organizers of executions were willingly carried out by ordinary traitors from the Ostbattalions, Jagdkommandos, and nationalist formations. Thus, at the Novgorod trial of 1947, Colonel V. Findeisen 6, the coordinator of punitive forces from the Shelon battalion, was tried. In December 1942, the battalion drove all the residents of the villages of Bychkovo and Pochinok onto the ice of the Polist River and shot them. The punishers hid their guilt, and the investigation was unable to link the cases of hundreds of executioners from “Shelon” with the case of V. Findeisen. Without understanding, they were given the same sentences for traitors and, together with everyone else, were amnestied in 1955. The punishers disappeared somewhere, and only then was the personal guilt of each gradually investigated from 1960 to 1982 in a series of open trials 7 . It was not possible to catch everyone, but punishment could have overtaken them back in 1947.

There are fewer and fewer witnesses left, and the already unlikely chance of a full investigation into the atrocities of the occupiers and holding open trials is decreasing every year. However, such crimes have no statute of limitations, so historians and lawyers need to search for evidence and bring to justice all suspects still alive.

Notes
1. One of the exceptions is the publication of materials of the Riga trial from the Central Archive of the FSB of Russia (ASD NH-18313, vol. 2. LL. 6-333) in the book by Yu.Z. Kantor. Baltics: war without rules (1939-1945). St. Petersburg, 2011.
2. For more details, see the project “Soviet Nuremberg” on the website of the Russian Military Historical Society http://histrf.ru/ru/biblioteka/Soviet-Nuremberg.
3. Trial in the case of Nazi atrocities in the city of Smolensk and the Smolensk region, meeting on December 19 // News of the Soviets of Workers' Deputies of the USSR, N 297 (8907) dated December 20, 1945, p. 2.
4. Epifanov A.E. Responsibility for war crimes committed on the territory of the USSR during the Great Patriotic War. 1941 - 1956 Volgograd, 2005. P. 3.
5. Voisin V. ""Au nom des vivants", de Leon Mazroukho: une rencontre entre discours officiel et hommage personnel" // Kinojudaica. Les representations des Juifs dans le cinema russe et sovietique / dans V. Pozner, N. Laurent (dir.). Paris, Nouveau Monde editions, 2012, R. 375.
6. For more details, see Astashkin D. Open trial of Nazi criminals in Novgorod (1947) // Novgorod historical collection. V. Novgorod, 2014. Issue. 14(24). pp. 320-350.
7. Archive of the FSB department for the Novgorod region. D. 1/12236, D. 7/56, D. 1/13364, D. 1/13378.

Held in Nuremberg (Germany) from November 20, 1945 to October 1, 1946 at the International Military Tribunal, which was created by the London Agreement of August 8, 1945 between the governments of the USSR, USA, Great Britain and France (19 more states joined it).

The role of the USSR at the beginning of the process.

The main initiative to create the International Military Tribunal belonged to the Soviet Union. Back on October 30, 1943, the Moscow Declaration on the responsibility of the Nazis for the atrocities committed, signed by the USSR, USA and Great Britain, was adopted. The declaration warned that German soldiers and officers and members of the Nazi Party responsible for atrocities, murders and executions committed in the countries they temporarily occupied would be sent back to those countries to be tried for their crimes. The Extraordinary State Commission, created on November 2, 1942 in the USSR, played a major role in collecting documentary data, checking and systematizing all materials about the atrocities of Nazi criminals and material damage. The commission published 27 reports of atrocities committed on Soviet and Polish territory, and collected over 250 thousand protocols for interviewing witnesses, which were useful during the Nuremberg trials.

Creation of the tribunal.

The London Agreement of 1945 provided that the main war criminals would be punished by a joint decision of the allied governments, for which the International Military Tribunal was created, whose activities were regulated by the charter adopted on December 20, 1945. The bringing of individuals to international criminal liability for the first time in practice was carried out within the framework of Nuremberg. Previously, the principle was in force that only states, as the only subjects, could bear international responsibility international law. The verdict of the international military tribunal stated: “Crimes against international law are committed by people, not by abstract categories, and only by punishing individuals who commit such crimes can the provisions of international law be respected.” The Charter of the International Military Tribunal reflected a special classification of crimes against humanity:

1) Crimes against peace - planning, preparing, unleashing or waging aggressive war or war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances or participation in a common plan or conspiracy aimed at carrying out any of the above actions;

2) War crimes - violation of the laws and customs of war; killing, torturing or enslaving or for other purposes the civilian population of the occupied territories; killing or torturing prisoners of war or persons at sea; murder of hostages, robbery of public or private property; wanton destruction of cities or villages; devastation not justified by military necessity, etc.

3) Crimes against humanity - murder, extermination, enslavement, exile and other cruelties committed against the civilian population before or during the war, or persecution on political, racial or religious grounds in execution of or in connection with any crime within the jurisdiction of the tribunal , regardless of whether these actions were a violation of the internal law of the country where they were committed or not.

The tribunal was formed from representatives of four states that signed the London Agreement, each state appointed a member of the tribunal and his deputy: from the USSR - I.T. Nikitchenko and A.F. Volchkov: from the USA - Francis Biddle and John J. Parker; from Great Britain - Lord Justice Geoffrey Lawrence (members of the tribunal elected him as presiding officer) and Norman Briquette; from France - Henri Donnedier de Vabre and Robert Falco. The prosecution was organized on the same basis. The main prosecutors were appointed: from the USSR - R.A. Rudenko; from the USA - Robert H. Jackson; from Great Britain - Hartley Shawcross; from France - Francois de Menton (from January 1946 - Auguste Champetier de Ribes). The prosecution was supported (presented evidence, interrogated witnesses and defendants, gave opinions) by deputies and assistants to the main prosecutors (from the USSR - Yu.V. Pokrovsky, N.D. Zorya, M.Yu. Raginsky, L.N. Smirnov and L.R. .Sheinin). The Tribunal met in the building of the Palace of Justice in Nuremberg.

Criminals appearing before the tribunal.

24 war criminals who were part of the leadership of the Third Reich were put on trial: - Reich Marshal, Commander-in-Chief of the Air Force of Hitler's Germany, Commissioner for the Four-Year Plan, Hitler's closest assistant since 1922, organizer and leader of the assault troops (SA), one of the organizers of the Reichstag fire and the Nazi seizure of power; - Hitler's deputy in the fascist party, minister without portfolio, member of the Privy Council, member of the Council of Ministers for the Defense of the Empire; Joachim von Ribbentrop - fascist party commissioner for foreign policy, then ambassador to England and foreign minister; Robert Ley is one of the prominent leaders of the fascist party, the leader of the so-called “labor front”; Wilhelm Keitel - Field Marshal, Chief of Staff of the German Armed Forces (OKW); Ernst Kaltenbrunner - SS Obergruppenführer, head of the Reich Main Security Office (RSHA) and head of the Security Police, Himmler's closest assistant; Alfred Rosenberg - Hitler's deputy for "spiritual and ideological" training of members of the Nazi Party, Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories; Hans Frank - Reichsleiter of the Nazi Party on legal issues and president of the German Academy of Law, then Reich Minister of Justice, Governor General of Poland; Wilhelm Frick - Imperial Minister of the Interior, Protector of Bohemia and Moravia; Julius Streicher - one of the organizers of the fascist party, Gauleiter of Franconia (1925-1940), organizer of Jewish pogroms in Nuremberg, publisher of the daily anti-Semitic newspaper "Der Sturmer", "ideologist" of anti-Semitism; Walter Funk - Deputy Reich Minister of Propaganda, then Reich Minister of Economics, President of the Reichsbank and Commissioner General for War Economics, member of the Council of Ministers for Reich Defense and member of the Central Planning Committee; Hjalmar Schacht - Hitler's main adviser on economics and finance; Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach - the largest industrial magnate, director and co-owner of Krupp factories, organizer of the rearmament of the German army; Karl Dönitz - Grand Admiral, commander of the submarine fleet, then Commander-in-Chief of the German Navy and Hitler's successor as head of state; Erich Raeder - Grand Admiral, former Commander-in-Chief of the German Navy (1935-1943), Admiral Inspector of the Navy; Baldur von Schirach - organizer and leader of Hitler's youth organization "Hitler Youth", Gauleiter of the Nazi Party and Imperial Governor of Vienna; Fritz Sauckel - SS Obergruppenführer, General Commissioner for the Use of Labor; Alfred Jodl - Colonel General, Chief of Staff - Operational Leadership of the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces; Franz von Papen - the largest international spy and saboteur, the leader of German espionage in the United States during the First World War, one of the organizers of the Nazi seizure of power, was envoy in Vienna and ambassador to Turkey; Seyss-Inquart - a prominent leader of the fascist party, imperial governor of Austria, deputy governor-general of Poland, imperial commissioner for the occupied Netherlands; Albert Speer - a close friend of Hitler, Reich Minister of Arms and Munitions, one of the leaders of the central planning committee; Constantin von Neurath - Reich Minister without Portfolio, Chairman of the Privy Council of Ministers and Member of the Reich Defense Council, Protector of Bohemia and Moravia; Hans Fritsche - Goebbels' closest collaborator, head of the internal press department of the Ministry of Propaganda, then head of the radio broadcasting department; Martin Bormann, head of the party chancellery, secretary and closest adviser to Hitler, went into hiding and was tried in absentia.

Progress of the process.

During the Nuremberg trials, 403 court hearings were held, at which the defendants (with the exception of Hess and Frick) testified, 116 witnesses were questioned, and over 5 thousand documentary evidence was examined. The Russian text of the transcript of the trial amounted to 39 volumes, or 20,228 pages. All court hearings were held openly; everything said at trial was transcribed, and the prosecutors and defense attorneys were given the transcripts the next day. 249 correspondents from newspapers, magazines and other media outlets accredited to the tribunal covered the progress of the trial. More than 60 thousand passes were issued to the public.

The process was conducted simultaneously in four languages, incl. German. The defendants enjoyed ample opportunities for legal defense and had lawyers of their choice (some even had two). Prosecutors provided the defense with copies of evidentiary documents in German, assisted lawyers in finding and obtaining documents, and in delivering witnesses. During the trial, an atmosphere of strict observance of the law was created; there was not a single fact of violation of the rights of the defendants provided for by the Charter. Much of the evidence presented to the Tribunal by the Prosecution was documentary evidence captured by the Allied armies from German army headquarters, government buildings, concentration camps and other places. Some of the documents were supposed to be destroyed, but were discovered in salt mines, buried in the ground, hidden behind false walls and in other places. Thus, the accusation against the defendants is based largely on documents compiled by them, the authenticity of which was not disputed, except in one or two cases.

Sentence.

On October 1, 1946, the verdict of the International Military Tribunal was announced. Goering, Ribbentrop, Keitel, Rosenberg, Frank, Frick, Kalterbrunner, Streicher, Jodl, Sauckel, Seyss-Inquart and Bormann (in absentia) were sentenced to death by hanging; to life imprisonment - Hess, Funk and Raeder; to imprisonment for 20 years - Schirach and Speer, 15 years - Neurath and 10 years - Doenitz. Schacht, Papen and Fritsche were acquitted. Ley, having received a copy of the indictment, committed suicide in his prison cell; Krupp was declared terminally ill, and therefore the case against him was suspended and subsequently terminated due to his death. Member of the tribunal from the USSR I.T. Nikitchenko expressed a dissenting opinion on the verdict regarding the defendants Schacht, Papen, Fritsche and Hess and the accused organizations (the tribunal did not recognize the government cabinet of Nazi Germany, the general staff and the high command of the German armed forces as criminal organizations).

A number of convicts filed petitions: Goering, Hess, Ribbentrop, Sauckel, Jodl, Keitel, Seyss-Inquart, Funk, Doenitz and Neurath for pardon; Raeder - on replacing life imprisonment with the death penalty; Goering, Jodl and Keitel - about replacing hanging with shooting if the request for clemency is not granted. After the Control Council for Germany rejected requests for clemency, the death penalty was carried out on the night of October 16, 1946. The bodies of those executed and Goering, who committed suicide an hour before the execution, were photographed and then burned, and their ashes scattered to the wind.

The Tribunal recognized the leadership of the NSDAP as criminal organizations (limiting the circle of officials and party organizations adjacent to the political leadership), the state secret police (Gestapo), the security service (SD, with the exception of persons performing purely clerical, stenographic, economic, technical work), security detachments of the German National Socialist Party SS (general SS, SS troops, “Totenkopf” formations and SS men of any kind of police services).

War criminals continued to be prosecuted after the Nuremberg trials as they were discovered; statutes of limitations do not apply to them. The Convention on the Inapplicability of Statutes to War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity was adopted by the UN General Assembly on November 26, 1968.

Having convicted the main Nazi criminals, the International Military Tribunal recognized aggression as the gravest crime of an international character. The Nuremberg Trials are sometimes called the "Trial of History" because it had significant influence for the final defeat of Nazism. It exposed the misanthropic essence of fascism, its plans for the physical extermination of tens of millions of people, the destruction of entire peoples and states. During the trial, the monstrous atrocities of the Nazis in concentration camps, in which over 12 million people were exterminated, including civilians.

History knows many examples of cruelty and inhumanity, the bloody crimes of imperialism, but never before have such atrocities and atrocities been committed and on such a scale as the Nazis committed. “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 revolutionary elements of the peasantry, petty bourgeoisie and intelligentsia. This is medieval barbarism and atrocity. This is unbridled aggression against other peoples and countries" (961). The Nazis tortured, shot, destroyed gas chambers ah, over 12 million women, old people, children, cold-bloodedly and mercilessly exterminated prisoners of war. They razed thousands of cities and villages to the ground, drove millions of people from those they occupied to forced labor in Germany European countries.

It is characteristic of German fascism that, simultaneously with the military, economic and propaganda preparations for the next act of aggression, monstrous plans for the mass extermination of prisoners of war and civilians were being prepared. Extermination, torture, and plunder were elevated to the level of state 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... the elimination of millions of the inferior race...” (962)

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

Atrocities in Nazi Germany became the norm of behavior, the everyday life of its rulers, officials, and 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 requirement of all honest people, one of the conditions for maintaining lasting peace on earth. Soviet soldiers and soldiers of the countries of the 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, began a campaign aimed at preventing the trial of the fascist conspirators. Even during the war, American reactionary sociologists tried to convince their readers that war criminals were nothing more or less than mentally ill people who should be treated. The press discussed a 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, without trial, was exiled for life to the island of St. Helena (963). The wording was different, but they all pursued one goal - to punish the main war criminals without investigation or trial. The main argument was that their guilt in crimes is indisputable, and the collection of forensic evidence would allegedly require a lot of time and effort (964). According to Truman, Churchill already in October 1943 tried to convince the head of the Soviet government that the main war criminals should be shot without trial (965).

The real reason, which gave rise to such proposals, there was a fear that unsightly aspects in the activities of the governments of Great Britain, the USA and other Western countries might emerge in an open trial: their complicity with Hitler in creating a powerful war 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 could develop into an indictment of the imperialist system that nurtured it and brought it to power.

Bourgeois falsifiers of history are trying to distort the position of the USSR on the issue of the trial of the main war criminals. For example, 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 ​​​​trial of fascist criminals and defended it. The position of the Soviet state was supported by all freedom-loving peoples of the world.

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

Already in the notes of the Soviet government dated November 25, 1941, “On the outrageous atrocities of the German authorities against Soviet prisoners of war,” January 6, 1942, “On the widespread looting, devastation of the population and the monstrous atrocities of the German authorities in the Soviet territories they captured,” April 27, 1942 d. “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) it was stated 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 were made widely public.

The inevitability of the Nazis' criminal responsibility for their atrocities was expressed 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 ensuring a lasting and just peace.

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

The statement of the Soviet government was greeted by the world community with great interest and understanding, especially by the governments of countries that were 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 back in October 1941. Roosevelt noted that severe retribution awaited the Nazis for the atrocities committed, and Churchill emphasized that “retribution for these crimes will henceforth become one of the main goals of war" (970).

Strict punishment of fascist criminals was mentioned in the Moscow Declaration, signed by the leaders of the USSR, USA and Great Britain on October 30, 1943, as well as in other international agreements.

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 Hitler's Germany perceived the trial of its rulers as a just act of retribution, a natural result of the Second World War.

The idea of ​​the International Criminal Court was brought to life by organizing 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, created on the basis of the London Agreement of August 8, 1945. between the governments of the USSR, 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 the main provision was that the International Military Tribunal was established for the 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 it, as indicated in the introductory part of this agreement, was established in the interests of all the United Nations. The fight against German fascism should have become and has become a worldwide concern, uniting the peoples of both hemispheres, because fascism, its misanthropic ideology and policies have always been and are a direct threat to universal peace and social progress. The states of the anti-Hitler coalition managed to achieve a coordinated policy, which included the task of military defeat of German fascism, as well as ensuring conditions for a just world. “Cooperation in the accomplishment of the great military task before us,” Roosevelt pointed out, “must be the prelude to cooperation in the accomplishment 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 back in 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. Its members included Secretary of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions N. M. 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 of Kiev and Galicia Nikolai (974). More than 7 million workers and collective farmers, engineers and technicians, scientists and public figures(975) . 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, an International Military Tribunal was formed on a parity basis from representatives of states: from the USSR - Deputy Chairman of the Supreme Court of the USSR, Major General of Justice I. T. Nikitchenko, from the USA - member of the Federal Supreme Court F. Biddle, from Great Britain - Chief Judge 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 - judge from the state of North Carolina J. Parker, from Great Britain - one of the leading lawyers of the country N. Birkett, from France - member of the Supreme Court of Cassation R. Falco. Lawrence was elected presiding over the first trial (976).

The prosecution was organized in a similar way. The main prosecutors were: from the USSR - Prosecutor of the Ukrainian SSR R. A. Rudenko, from the USA - Member of the Federal Supreme Court (former assistant to President Roosevelt) R. Jackson, from Great Britain - Prosecutor General and Member of the House of Commons H. Shawcross, from France - Minister Justice F. de Menton, who was then replaced by C. de Rib. In addition to the main prosecutors, the prosecution was supported (presented 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 the proper documentation of evidence presented to the Tribunal. The documentary part was headed 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. Alexandrov (977). The scientific consultant of the Soviet delegation was Corresponding Member of the USSR Academy of Sciences A. N. Trainin.

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

The list of defendants to be tried by the International Military Tribunal included: G. Goering, Reichsmarschall, Commander-in-Chief of the Air Force, authorized under the so-called “Four Year Plan”, since 1922 Hitler’s closest accomplice; R. Hess, Hitler's deputy in the fascist party, member of the Council of Ministers for the Defense of the Empire; I. Ribbentrop, Minister of Foreign Affairs, authorized representative of the fascist party on foreign policy issues; 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 Office and Security Police, Himmler's closest accomplice; A. Rosenberg, Hitler's deputy for ideological training of members of the National Socialist Party, Reich Minister for the Eastern Occupied Territories; G. Frank, Reichsleiter of the Nazi Party and President of the Academy of German Law, Governor General of the occupied Polish territories; W. Frick, Minister of the Interior and Reich Commissioner for Military Administration; J. Streicher, Gauleiter of Franconia, ideologist of racism and anti-Semitism, organizer of Jewish pogroms; W. Funk, Minister of Economics, President of the Reichsbank, member of the Council of Ministers for the Defense of the Empire; G. Schacht, organizer of the rearmament of the Wehrmacht, one of Hitler's closest advisers on economics and finance; G. Krupna, the head of the largest military-industrial concern, which took an active part in the preparation and implementation of the aggressive plans of German militarism, the culprit of the death of many thousands of people deported to hard labor in Nazi Germany; K. Dönitz, Grand Admiral, commander of the submarine fleet, and since 1943 - the naval forces, Hitler's successor as head of state; E. Raeder, grand admiral, until 1943 commander-in-chief of the naval forces; B. Schirach, organizer and leader of fascist youth organizations in Germany, Hitler's governor in Vienna; F. Sauckel, SS Obergruppenführer, General Commissioner for the Use of Labor; A. Yodl, Colonel General, Chief of Staff of the Operational Leadership of the Supreme 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 of Armaments and Munitions, one of the leaders of the central planning committee; K. Neurath, former Minister of Foreign Affairs, member of the Imperial Defense Council, and after the capture of Czechoslovakia - Protector of Bohemia and Moravia; G. Fritsche, Goebbels' closest collaborator, head of the internal press department of the Ministry of Propaganda and head of the radio broadcasting department; M. Bormann, from 1941 Hitler’s deputy in the Nazi Party, head of the party chancellery, 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 occupied countries, of deporting civilians to Germany for forced labor, of killing hostages, of robbing public and private property, the aimless destruction of cities and villages, countless devastations not justified by military necessity, that is, war crimes, extermination, enslavement, exile and other cruelties committed against the civilian population for political, racial or religious reasons, that is, crimes against humanity.

On October 18, 1945, the International Military Tribunal accepted the indictment signed by the main prosecutors from the USSR, USA, Great Britain and France, which on the same day, that is, more than a month before the start of the trial, was handed over to all defendants in order to give them the opportunity in advance prepare for the defense.” Thus, in the interests of a fair trial, from the very beginning a course was taken towards the strictest respect for the rights of the defendants. The world press, commenting on the indictment, noted that this document speaks on behalf of the offended conscience of humanity, that this is not an act of revenge, but a triumph of justice, and not only the leaders of Hitler’s Germany, but also 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, Krupn, who was paralyzed, 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 his Nuremberg prison cell.

The defendants were given ample opportunity to defend themselves against the charges brought against them; they all had German lawyers (some even two), and enjoyed rights to defend themselves that were deprived of those accused not only in the courts of Nazi Germany, but also in many Western countries. The prosecutors provided the defense with copies of all documentary evidence in German, assisted the lawyers in searching and obtaining documents, and delivering witnesses whom the defense wanted to call (979).

The Nuremberg trial captured the attention of millions of people around the world. As President Lawrence emphasized on behalf of the Tribunal, “the trial which is now about to begin is the only one of its kind in the history of world jurisprudence, and it is of the greatest public importance to millions of people throughout the globe” (980). Supporters of peace and democracy saw it as a continuation of post-war international cooperation in the fight against fascism and aggression. It was clear to all honest people in the world that a lenient attitude towards those who criminally violated generally accepted norms of international law and committed atrocities against the world and humanity poses a great danger. Never before has a trial united all the progressive elements of the world in such a unanimous desire to end aggression, racism and obscurantism. The Nuremberg trials reflected humanity's anger and indignation at atrocities whose perpetrators must be punished so that they never happen again. Fascist organizations and institutions, misanthropic “theories” and “ideas”, criminals who took over the entire state and made the state itself an instrument of monstrous atrocities appeared before the court.

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

The Tribunal considered the issue of recognizing the criminal organizations of German fascism - the SS, SA, Gestapo, SD, government, general staff and high command of the German armed forces, as well as the leadership of the National Socialist Party. Recognizing the criminal nature of organizations was necessary in order to ensure that national courts have the right to prosecute individuals for belonging to organizations recognized as criminal. Consequently, the principle of “specific individuals being subject to criminal liability” was retained. The question of the guilt of individuals for their membership in criminal organizations, as well as the question of responsibility for such affiliation, remained under the jurisdiction of national courts, which had to decide the question of punishment in accordance with the crime. 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 trial in the broadest sense of the word. Of the 403 court hearings, not a single one was closed (981). More than 60 thousand passes were issued to the courtroom, some of them were received by the Germans. Everything that was said at the trial was carefully recorded in shorthand. The transcripts of the trial 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 transmitted reports about the progress of the trial to all corners of the globe.

An atmosphere of the strictest legality reigned during the trial. There was not a single case in which the rights of the defendants were in any way infringed. In the speeches of the prosecutors, along with an analysis of the facts, the legal problems of the trial were analyzed, the jurisdiction of the Tribunal was justified, a legal analysis of the crime was given, and the unfounded arguments of the defendants' defenders 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 expression in the coordinated fight against crime, rests on a different legal basis. The source of law and the only law-forming act in the international sphere is a treaty, an agreement between states (983). The London Agreement and its component - the Charter of the International Tribunal - were 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 covenants. The Charter of the Tribunal gave legal form to those international principles and ideas that had been advanced for many years in defense of legality and justice in the field of international relations. For a long time, peoples interested in strengthening peace have put forward and supported the idea of ​​​​the criminal nature of aggression, and this has found official recognition 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 the position of peaceful coexistence of states with different social systems. The Soviet Union is doing everything to ensure that this most important principle of its foreign policy becomes the law of international relations. A special chapter of the 1977 USSR Constitution enshrines 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 security of peoples. “No people,” noted F. Castro at the First Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba, “wanted peace and defended it so 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 treacherous attacks on other states, they were thereby committing grave crimes against the world; they knew and therefore tried to disguise their criminal actions with false speculation about defense. They counted on the fact, emphasized the Chief Prosecutor from the USSR R. A. Rudenko, that “a total war, having ensured victory, would bring impunity. Victory did not come in the footsteps of atrocities. The complete unconditional surrender of Germany has arrived. The hour has come for a severe response for all the atrocities committed" (985).

The Nuremberg trials were exceptional in terms of the impeccability and strength of the prosecution's evidence. The evidence included the testimony of numerous witnesses, including former prisoners Auschwitz, Dachau and other Nazi concentration camps - eyewitnesses of fascist atrocities, as well as material evidence and documentaries. But a vital role belonged to official documents, signed by those who were put in the dock. In total, 116 witnesses were heard in court, of which, in individual cases, 33 were called by prosecutors and 61 by defense attorneys, and more than 4 thousand documentary evidence was presented. “The accusation against the defendants,” stated in the Tribunal’s Verdict, “is based largely on documents composed by themselves, the authenticity of which was not disputed, except in one or two cases" (986).

Thousands of documents from the archives of the Hitler General Staff and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the personal archives of Ribbentrop, Rosenberg, Goering and Frank, correspondence of the banker K. Schröder, etc., revealing 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 decided otherwise. Wide publicity and impeccable legal validity were the most important features of the Nuremberg trials. On January 3, 1946, the leader of one of the operational groups that carried out the mass extermination of civilians, O. Ohlendorf, testified: his group alone destroyed 90 thousand men, women and children during the year in southern Ukraine. 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 a 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 of up to 30 million...”. And when asked by lawyer A. Tom what explained this 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 people, this is the inevitable result...” (989). Far from wanting this, Bach-Zelewski contributed to exposing the misanthropic essence of fascism.

The National Socialist Party, like its leaders, was nurtured by monopoly capital and militaristic circles, and fascism was brought to life by the greedy goals of German imperialism. It is no coincidence that during the putsch in Munich in 1923, E. Ludendorff, the ideologist of the Prussian military, walked next to Hitler and his closest accomplice R. Hess. It is also no coincidence that such influential representatives of financial capital as G. Schacht, E. Staus, F. Papen joined the fascist party. The latter wrote in the book “The Road to Power” that in the struggle for power the Reichswehr was a decisive factor, “not only a certain group of generals was responsible for the events leading to January 30, 1933, but also the officer corps as a whole” (990).

Having ensured the establishment of the 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, held on February 3, 1933, the task of future aggression was set: the development of new markets, the seizure of new living space in the East and its merciless Germanization (991).

The trial revealed criminal methods of transferring the German economy onto a war footing, the implementation of the ominous slogan “guns instead of butter,” the militarization of the entire country and the decisive role in this of the monopoly owners who occupied key positions in the military-economic apparatus. The German monopolies willingly financed not only the general predatory plans of the fascists, but also the “special events” of G. Himmler.

The defendants tried to assure the Tribunal that only Himmler and the professional SS killers subordinate to him were to blame for all the atrocities. However, it was irrefutably proven that 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 civilians and prisoners of war was carried out by SS and Gestapo executioners in close cooperation with the generals. Thus, the former commandant of the concentration camp R. Hess stated under oath that among those gassed and burned were Soviet prisoners of war, who were taken to Auschwitz by officers and soldiers of the regular German army (992), and Bach-Zelewski reported that the extermination of civilians (under the guise fight against partisans) he regularly informed G. Kluge, G. Krebs, M. Weichs, E. Busch and others (993). Field Marshal G. Rundstedt, speaking in 1943 to students at 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)

Deputy Chief Prosecutor T. Taylor, based on the evidence he presented about the criminality of the Hitler General Staff and the Supreme High Command, concluded that they emerged from the war tainted by crimes. Expressing the opinion of all the accusers, he convincingly spoke about the danger of militarism in general, and German militarism in particular. German militarism, Taylor noted, “if it rises again, 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 will bet on the restoration of German military power" (995) . That is why it is necessary to uproot militarism with all its roots.

Regarding Hitler's generals, the International Military Tribunal wrote in the Verdict: they are responsible to a large extent for the misfortunes and suffering that befell millions of men, women and children; they disgraced the honorable profession of a warrior; Without their military leadership, the aggressive aspirations of Hitler and his accomplices would have been distracted and fruitless. “Modern German militarism,” the Verdict emphasized, “has blossomed on a short time with the assistance of its last ally - National Socialism, as well 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 Nazi criminals and prove the unprovable - the innocence of Hitler's generals. The materials of the Nuremberg trials completely expose such falsification. He revealed the true role of the generals and monopolies in the crimes of German fascism, and this is its enduring historical significance.

The Nuremberg trials helped to tear away the veil from the mystery of the origins of the Second World War. He convincingly showed that militarism was the breeding ground in which fascism developed so rapidly. Assistant American prosecutor R. Kempner emphasized in his speech that one of the causes of the global catastrophe was the fiction of the “communist danger.” This danger, he declared, “was a fiction that, among other things, led ultimately to the Second World War” (997).

Trying to disguise their goals, the Hitler clique, as usual, screamed about the supposedly existing danger from the USSR, declaring the predatory war against the Soviet Union “preventive.” However, the “defensive” masquerade of the defendants and their defenders was exposed with utmost clarity at the trial; the falsity of Hitler’s propaganda statements about the “preventive” nature of the attack on the Land of the Soviets was proven to the whole world.

Based on numerous documentary evidence, testimony, including that of Field Marshal F. Paulus, and confessions of the defendants themselves, the Tribunal wrote in the Verdict 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 falsifiers of the history of the Second World War, who are trying to justify Hitler’s aggression against the USSR for the purpose of revanchism directed against socialist countries.

The Nuremberg trials went down in history as an anti-fascist process. The misanthropic essence of fascism, its ideology, especially racism, which is the ideological basis for preparing and unleashing aggressive wars and mass extermination of people, was revealed to the whole world. With the help of the Nuremberg trials, fascism appeared for what it is - a conspiracy of bandits against freedom and humanity. Fascism is war, it is rampant terror and tyranny, it is a denial of the human dignity of non-Aryan races. And this is inherent in all successors of German fascism in any of its forms. The trial clearly and convincingly demonstrated the danger of the revival of fascism for the fate of the world. 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 that, as soon as the bloodiest war in the history of mankind ended, began provoking new wars in order to establish their dominance over the world. The materials of the trial call: one must not allow one to downplay the crimes of fascism, to instill in the new generation a completely false and blasphemous version, as if Auschwitz and Majdanek, Buchenwald and Ravensbrück never existed, as if gas chambers and gas chambers never existed. The process has acquired special significance also because the fact of conviction of the aggressors represents 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 is judging, 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, blame in this process. And how pathetic are the attempts to challenge the right of humanity to judge the enemies of humanity, how untenable are the attempts to deprive peoples of the right to punish those. who made the enslavement and extermination of peoples his goal and carried out this criminal goal for many years in a row through criminal means” (999).

On September 30 - October 1, 1946, the Verdict was announced. Tribunal: sentenced Goering, Ribbentrop, Keitel, Kaltenbrunner, Rosenberg, Frank, Frick, Streicher, Sauckel, Jodl, Seyss-Inquart, as well as Bormann (in absentia) to death by hanging, Hess, Funk, etc. Raeder - to life imprisonment, Schirach and Speer - to 20, Neurath - to 15 and Doenitz - to 10 years in prison. Fritsche, Papin and Schacht were acquitted. The Tribunal declared the leadership of the National Socialist Party, the SS, SD and the Gestapo to be criminal organizations. A member of the Tribunal from the USSR in a Dissenting Opinion stated his disagreement with the decision to acquit Fritsche, Papen and Schacht and not recognize the General Staff and members of the government cabinet as criminal organizations, since the Tribunal had at its disposal sufficient evidence of their guilt. After the Control Council rejected the requests for clemency from those sentenced to death, 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 the Special Opinion of the Soviet judge, it is impossible not to emphasize that the verdict passed on Hitler’s murderers in Nuremberg will be assessed positively by all honest people all over the world, because it fairly and deservedly punished the worst criminals against the peace and welfare of peoples. The Judgment of History has ended..." (1000)

The attitude of the German population to the process is characteristic. On August 15, 1946, the American Information Administration published another review of the surveys: the overwhelming number of Germans (about 80 percent) considered the Nuremberg trials fair and the guilt of the defendants undeniable; about half of those surveyed responded that the defendants should be sentenced to death; only four percent responded negatively to the process.

According to the Charter of the International Military Tribunal, subsequent trials must take place “at such places as the Tribunal may determine” (Article 22). For a number of reasons, such as the withdrawal of the Western powers from the Potsdam and other agreements adopted during the war and immediately after its end, the activities of the Tribunal were limited Nuremberg trials. Nevertheless, the activities of the International Military Tribunal and the significance of its Judgment are of enduring significance. The historical role of the Nuremberg trials lies in the fact that for the first time in the history of international relations it put an end to impunity for aggression and aggressors in the criminal legal aspect.

The International Military Tribunal recognized aggression as the gravest crime of an international character. For the first time in history, state leaders guilty of preparing, unleashing and waging an aggressive war were punished as criminals, and the principle of “position as head of state or leading official of government departments, as well as the fact that they acted on orders of the government or carried out a criminal order is not a basis for exemption from liability.” The Judgment notes: “It has been asserted that international law deals only with the actions of sovereign States, without prescribing penalties for individuals,” that if a wrongful act is committed by a State, then “the persons who actually carried it out are not personally responsible, but are protected by the doctrine on the sovereignty of the state" (1001). In the opinion of the Tribunal, both these provisions must be rejected. It has long been recognized that international law imposes certain duties on individuals as well as on states.

Furthermore, the Tribunal stated: “Crimes against international law are committed by men and not by abstract categories, and it is only by punishing individuals who commit such crimes that the provisions of international law can be respected... A principle of international law which, in certain circumstances, protects the agent of a State , cannot be applied to acts which are condemned as criminal under international law" (1002).

The principles of the Charter and the Judgment of the Tribunal, confirmed by resolutions of the UN General Assembly, were a significant contribution to current international law and became its generally accepted norms. Such definitions of concepts as international conspiracy, planning, preparation and waging of an aggressive war, war propaganda were introduced into use by 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 Verdict of the Tribunal serve the cause of peace on earth, while simultaneously serving as a formidable warning to aggressive forces that have not yet abandoned their adventurous plans. The results of the Nuremberg trials call for vigilance by everyone who does not want a repeat of the bloody tragedy of the last war and who is fighting to preserve peace.

Today the situation is completely different than during the rise of Hitler's fascism. But also in modern conditions Constant and high vigilance and an active fight against fascism in all its manifestations are 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, they were amnestied en masse with reference to the rules of general statute of limitations; there are voices about the early release of convicts. But the Nuremberg trials convincingly revealed the fact that fascist war criminals and their crimes against peace by their very nature are international crimes and for this reason the ordinary statute of limitations does not apply to them, that such political adventurers, in order to achieve their criminal goals, did not stop at any atrocities, from whose groans and anger filled the earth. Can “rescription” erase from the memory of the peoples of Oradour-sur-Glane and Lidice, the ruins of Coventry and Smolensk, Khatyn and Pirchupis and much, much more, which became an expression of fascist cruelty and vandalism? How can we forget the cellars of the Reichsbank, in which W. Funk and E. Puhl kept chests filled with gold crowns, dentures and spectacle frames, which 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 to 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 feeling of revenge, but by a sense of justice and concern for the future of peoples. Liberation from Hitler's slavery was paid too dearly to the peoples of the world so that they could allow the neo-fascists to erase the results of the Second World War. “We call,” 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 planet are trying to pursue a misanthropic policy, a policy of imperialist takeovers and aggression, inciting military hysteria, and creating a threat to the peace and security of peoples.

The lessons of the Nuremberg trials indicate that, despite differences on individual points, the Tribunal's verdict expresses the unanimous opinion of representatives of four countries in condemning the top of the Hitler gang and such criminal organizations of German fascism as the leadership of the National Socialist Party, SS, SD and Gestapo. The hopes of the world reaction that a rift between the judges was inevitable and the trial would not be completed were not realized.

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

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

In connection with the transition from war to peace, one of the 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 ensure that the United Nations lived up to these lofty goals.

The lessons of the Second World War indicate that great importance, which the joint actions of the great powers had in the fight against their common enemy - Nazi 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 can ensure unity of action to achieve the noble goal of eliminating unjust wars from the life of mankind.

True to the Leninist principles of peace and peaceful coexistence of states regardless of their social system, the Soviet government is deeply interested in ensuring that the cooperation established during the war between the states of the anti-Hitler coalition continues after its end.

1. The most important element denazification of Germany, can be considered the Nuremberg trials of Nazi criminals. Although they were not sealed by a cause-and-effect relationship, without the categorical decision of the Nuremberg trial of the bonzes of the 3rd Reich, the lustration process of post-war Germany would most likely have led to a repetition of the Versailles syndrome.

   Nuremberg trials: verdict on Nazism

   Back in November 1943, at a Moscow conference, the main principles of the Nuremberg trial were announced. The verdict on Nazism had to be passed by the entire world community. The choice of location for the tribunal was not accidental - the Nazis especially singled out the city of Nuremberg, where they held their congresses, accepted new members into their ranks, and rejoiced at Hitler’s speeches. Because of this it was sometimes said that
   In the city, the same hall in the very house where everything happened is still open to the public.

   Particular attention was paid to preparing the work of the panel of judges, the charter of the tribunal and document flow. The fact is that the Nuremberg trial is a unique phenomenon in world practice that has no precedents. And according to the conditions, representatives of countries with fundamentally different ideologies had to take equal part in the work of the court.

   In particular, the fact of the crimes of the Nazi regime was exposed, even before the start of the work of the judicial body, in October 1943, at a meeting of the foreign ministers of the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition.

   In this regard, it was decided not to apply to the defendants fundamental principle legal law - the presumption of innocence.

   With regard to document flow, each of the participating countries had their own specific conditions, which they agreed upon at the Potsdam Conference in early August 1945. Although these nuances have not yet been fully disclosed, partial information about these exceptions is available in the open press. And even now the obscenity of these exceptions does not honor the participants.

   When the Nuremberg trial of Nazi criminals began, none of the victorious countries wanted the documentation on the work of the tribunal to reflect manifestations of racial segregation in relation to representatives of the German and Japanese nations who lived in the territories of the participants in the anti-Hitler coalition.

   For example, in the United States, during the war, about 500 thousand ethnic Japanese were deprived of their civil rights and property without trial. In the USSR, a similar procedure was applied to the Volga Germans.

   It should be noted that the agreement on all the conditions for the full functioning of the Nuremberg Tribunal took place without any difficulties.

   The trial lasted 10 months and 10 days, but according to the results of the work, the death sentences of the Nuremberg trials were approved only for 12 defendants. Although all decisions were approved unanimously, the protocols recorded the “dissenting opinion” of Judge Nikitchenko (representative of the USSR), where he expressed the Soviet side’s disagreement with the “soft” sentences regarding some of the defendants who were acquitted or received prison sentences.

   Judge Nikitchenko
   

   The essence of the Nuremberg trials

   The inconsistency in the actions of the Allies after the First World War led to the formation of the “Versailles Syndrome”. This is a special state of mentality of the population the whole country, which, after defeat in the war, did not thoroughly revise its beliefs and demanded revenge.

   The basis for the emergence of this syndrome were:

   • The meticulously developed Schlieffen plan;
   • Overestimation of one's strengths;
   • Disdainful attitude towards opponents.

   As a result, after a crushing defeat and the conclusion of the shameful Treaty of Versailles, the German nation did not reassess its aspirations, but only began a “witch hunt.” Jews and socialists were recognized as internal enemies. And the very idea of ​​war and world domination of German weapons only grew stronger. Which in turn led to Hitler's rise to power.

   The essence of the Nuremberg process, by and large, was to ensure that a fundamental change occurred in the national identity of the German people. And the beginning of this change should have been a global assessment of the crimes of the Third Reich.

   Results of the Nuremberg trials

   Nazi criminals executed under the verdict of the Nuremberg trials lived only 16 days after the end of the trial. During this time, they all filed appeals and were denied. At the same time, some of them asked to replace hanging or life imprisonment with shooting.

   But only 10 convicts were executed. One of them was sentenced in absentia (M. Borman).
   

   Another (G. Goering) took poison a few hours before the execution.

   Execution by hanging was carried out by American military personnel in a converted gymnasium.

   Chief executioner of the Nuremberg trials
   

2. Photos of the Nuremberg executions were published in many newspapers around the world.

   Photos of executions in Nuremberg

   The bodies of Nazi criminals were cremated near Munich and their ashes were scattered over the North Sea.
   The consolidated investigation into the crimes of the Nazi regime of the Third Reich was undertaken not so much to punish the criminals, but more so to unanimously and definitively brand Nazism and genocide. At the same time, one of the points of the final document enshrined the principle of “the inviolability of the decision of the Nuremberg Tribunal.” In other words: “there will be no revision of decisions.”

   Progress of denazification

   Over the course of 5 years, the personal files of all German citizens who held at least any significant leadership positions during the Third Reich were thoroughly checked. The meticulously carried out work on denazification allowed the German people to rethink the vector of their aspirations and take the path of peaceful development in Germany.

   Although more than 72 years have passed since the end of World War II, and de jure Germany is an independent country, in fact, there are still US occupation forces on its territory.

   This fact is carefully hushed up by the liberal media, and only in moments of aggravation of the political situation is it raised by nationally oriented associations in Germany.

   Apparently free Germany still inspires fear.

3. , why are you interested in this topic? In general, in general, people with a Soviet education are familiar with this. Well, those who are younger should read it.
   

   The essence of the Nuremberg process, by and large, was to ensure that a fundamental change occurred in the national identity of the German people. And the beginning of this change should have been a global assessment of the crimes of the Third Reich.

   A well-developed plan for the denazification of post-war Germany provided for a phased lustration of the activities of government officials at all levels. At the same time, the procedure had to begin with the leaders of the Wehrmacht, gradually revealing crimes at all levels of government.

   Click to expand...

   Do you think that even then the powers that be - representatives of the victorious countries - were thinking about the self-awareness of the German people? And how did it work? Everywhere they write that they succeeded - that the Germans for the most part are shying away from that past and from the theories that were once instilled in their society. But you add that this is only an appearance:

   And the last phrase
   Is it a regret that, in general, a great country is being held back in its development in some sense, or do you also think that new aggressive trends may arise there?

   
   

4. It is unlikely that anything is holding Germany back now. It used to be true: the Germans did not seem to stick out their nationality because of the memory of the Second World War.

   And in the last ten years, especially under Merkel, the Germans are gradually moving away from this.

   But neither then nor now, nothing interfered or restrained the growth of the German economy. That is, there were no sanctions as we understand them.

   
   

5. The main executioner of the Nuremberg trials is the American John Woods.

   In the photo, this man shows his "unique" 13-knot rope knot. John Woods "helped" his victims by clinging to the legs of someone who had just been hanged, so the process would end faster.

   The prison where the Nazis were held during the Nuremberg trials was in the American sector. American soldiers were on duty in this prison, guarding Nazi criminals:

   A soviet soldiers guarded the entrance to the courthouse where the Nuremberg trials of Nazi criminals took place:

   Woods was used to working quickly, his work experience affected him, especially since he was recruited for this “service” as a volunteer in Normandy.

   Experienced Woods organized 3 gallows at once in the gym of the Nuremberg prison. Hatches were installed in the scaffolding so that the hanged would fall through the hatch, break their necks and die longer and more painfully.

   The Nuremberg trials ended, the verdict on Nazism was pronounced. Goering was to be the executioner's first victim.

   But he committed suicide. There is a version that Gernig’s wife gave an ampoule of poisonous potassium cyanide in a kiss at a farewell meeting.

   By the way, the executioner John Woods himself died in service, in 1950, after the war, from electric shock.

   Last edited: Sep 29, 2017

6. The Nuremberg trials of Nazi criminals led to the fact that some of them were sentenced to death. Executed by the verdict of the Nuremberg trials, photos of their executions and deaths are shown above.
   And one person was sentenced in absentia. This man was Martin Bormann.

   One of the key figures of the Third Reich, Bormann came from a family of employees. Martin Bormann for a long time was something like Hitler's press secretary. And then he began to control Hitler’s financial flows: money received from German industrialists, royalties for the sale of the book Mein Kanf and much more. He partially controlled "access to the Fuhrer's body" for those who requested meetings.

   A member of the NSDAP, he was an ardent supporter of the persecution of Jews and Christians. In particular, Bormann said that “in the future Germany there will be no place for churches, it’s just a matter of time.” And in relation to Jews and prisoners of war, Bormann adhered to a position of maximum cruelty. During World War II, Martin Bormann strengthened his position and began to report only to Hitler in the hierarchy. Many, not without reason, believed that falling out of favor with Bormann was about the same as falling out of favor with Hitler himself. And after the defeat of the Germans at Stalingrad, Hitler remained alone for a long time, not letting anyone in. Bormann had the right to be there at such moments.

   Since January 1945, Hitler was in a bunker. In April 1945, the Soviet Army launched an attack on Berlin. The goal is to surround the city. At the end of April, Hitler marries Eva Braun in the bunker. Martin Bormann and Goebbels were witnesses at this “wedding”. Hitler draws up a will, according to which Bormann becomes Minister of Party Affairs. Then, on the orders of the Fuhrer, Bormann leaves the bunker.

   Meanwhile, Bormann, as part of a group of four people, among whom was SS doctor Stumpfegger, is trying to break out of the Soviet encirclement. While crossing the bridge over the Spree River in Berlin, Bormann was wounded. On subsequent attempts, the group managed to cross the bridge, after which the group members split up. One of the fugitives recalled that he came across a Soviet patrol, returned to the bridge and saw the dead - Bormann and SS doctor Stumpfegger. But the body of Martin Bormann was not found in reality. And his fate remained unknown until the end.

   The post-war period gave rise to and in every possible way fueled rumors: either Bormann was seen in Argentina, or his former driver reported that he saw his patron in Munich.

   When the Nuremberg trials began, Bormann was officially “neither alive nor dead.” The Nuremberg trials sentenced Martin Bormann, due to the lack of proof of his death, to death in absentia for crimes against humanity.

   But attempts to find the body of Reichsleiter Martin Bormann continued. The CIA and German intelligence services worked. Bormann's son Adolf (note the name) recalls that in the post-war period several thousand publications were published about his father being seen somewhere.
   The options were:
   Martin Bormann has changed his appearance and lives in Paraguay,
   Martin Bormann was a Soviet agent and fled to Moscow
   Martin Bormann is hiding in South America,
   Martin Bormann lives in Latin America, developing activities to create and strengthen the new Nazi organization.
   And so on.

   And in 1972, during the construction of a house not far from the site of Bormann’s supposed death, human remains were seized. And initially - based on the reconstruction of the remains, and later again - on the basis of DNA examination, it was proven that the remains belong to Borman. The remains were burned and the ashes were scattered over the Baltic Sea.

   
   

7. When the Nuremberg trials of Nazi criminals began, there was even talk of non-application of the basic norms of democracy to the accused, so large-scale and cruel were their crimes. However, during the ten months that the Nuremberg war crimes trials lasted, the relationship between the accusing parties changed. Churchill’s speech, the so-called “Fulton Speech,” contributed to the aggravation of relations.

   And the accused, war criminals, understood and felt this. They and their lawyers played for time as best they could.

   At this stage, the firmness, intransigence and professionalism of the actions of the Soviet side helped. The most convincing evidence of the cruelty of the Nazis in the concentration camps was also presented in the form of chronicle footage from Soviet war correspondents.

   There are no doubts or loopholes left to challenge the guilt of the defendants.
   This is what the accused Nazis looked like when the verdicts of the Nuremberg trials were announced:

   The essence of the Nuremberg trials is that the history of international law begins with it. Aggression was recognized as a grave crime.

   The norms of international law are often questioned today. Sometimes people say that they simply don’t work.

   Only a strong country capable of protecting its borders and its people can talk about independence today.

S. Kara-Murza, in his book “Manipulation of Consciousness,” gives an interesting example of a network attack.
Imagine, there is a division of super-duper special forces. Everything is in the latest equipment, armor protection, modern weapons. Well, practically, you can only bomb them. You won't take it that way.
But then a cloud of mosquitoes, midges and midges swoops in. They hide under body armor, under ammunition, they sting and bite fighters.
And none of the available defenses and any weapons will help this division survive.
Real example?
The USSR was destroyed according to a similar scenario. They are approaching Russia with a similar event.
The trouble is that they are preparing to confront one weapon, but the enemy uses another.
And it would be nice if there were external attacks. Because lately they have been acting from within.