Interagency Working Group (IWG)

The Trial of the Major War Criminals before the International Military Tribunal, (IMT) Nuremberg, 14 November 1945-1 October 1946.

The Allies also established an International Military Tribunal (IMT) to try 24 major Nazi war criminals and six groups.1 These groups, the Nazi leadership corps, the Reich Cabinet, the German General Staff and High Command, the SA (Sturmabteilung), the SS (Schutzstaffel-including the Sicherheitsdienst, or SD), and the Gestapo (Secret Police), had an aggregate membership exceeding two million and it was estimated that approximately half of them would be made liable for trial if the groups were convicted. The trials began in November, 1945 and on October 1, 1946, the IMT rendered its judgment on twenty-one top officials of the Third Reich. The IMT sentenced most of the accused to death or to extensive prison terms and acquitted three. The IMT also convicted three of the groups, the Nazi leadership corps, the SS (including the SD), and the Gestapo. Three groups were acquitted of collective war crimes charges, but this did not relieve individual members of those groups from conviction and punishment under the Denazification program. Members of the three convicted groups were subject to apprehension and trial as war criminals by the national, military, and occupation courts of the four allied powers. And, even though individual members of the convicted groups might be acquitted of war crimes, they still remained subject to trial under the Denazification program.

War Criminals Convicted by the IMT.

Bormann, Martin
Donitz, Karl
Frank, Hans
Frick, Wilhelm
Fritzsche, Hans
Funk, Walther
Goering, Hermann
Hess, Rudolph
Jodl, Alfred
Kaltenbrunner, Ernst
Keitel, Wilhelm
Krupp, Gustav
Ley, Robert
Raeder, Erich
Rosenberg, Alfred
Sauckel, Fritz
Schacht, Hjalmar
Seyss-Inquart, Arthur
Speer, Albert
Streicher, Julius
von Neurath, Konstantin
von Papen, Franz
von Schirach, Baldur
von Ribbentrop, Joachim

Trials of War Criminals before the Nuremberg Military Tribunals under Allied Control Council (ACC) Law No. 10, October 1946-April 1949.

Originally, a second international trial at Nuremberg was to have focused primarily on the activities of German finance and industry during the Third Reich. The so-called "industrialists trial," was widely regard as of equal importance to the prosecution of the Nazi and SS high command. The United States vetoed this plan, declaring in the autumn of 1945 that it would refuse to participate in any further international trials and would hold separate prosecutions on its own. This led to the four-power, Allied Control Council (ACC) for Germany to authorize each of the powers to hold subsequent trials on its own, in its zone of occupation.

Pursuant to this authority the Control Council adopted on December 20, 1945, Law No. 10. Based upon the same principals as those underlying the work of the IMT, the law defined "war crimes" and "crimes against humanity" and identified those who should be held responsible for such acts. 2    The law specified that any person who "held a high political, civil, or military position in Germany or one of its Allies, cobelligerents or satellites or held a high position in the financial, industrial or economic life of any such country" was deemed to have committed a crime against peace, namely planning and executing an aggressive war in violation of treaties. Thus, membership in an organization like the SS became sufficient cause for arrest. But Law No. 10 did not require that all persons considered as criminals be prosecuted; it simply gave the commanders of the occupation forces authority to bring charges as warranted .

Based on the authority granted them by the ACC, the United States occupation authorities set about identifying additional war criminals to be tried in these subsequent trials. Eventually, 185 individuals were arraigned to stand trial as war criminals. They would be tried, beginning in October 1946, in twelve separate proceedings, grouped either by type of crime or by organization. These consisted of four cases in which the defendants belonged to various branches of the SS, officials of three industrial organizations (the Krupp works, I.G. Farben company, and the Flick combine), three cases of German generals, and two cases included mainly members of former German ministries. 177 stood trial (with four committing suicide and four being physically unable to stand trial). The last of the cases was completed in April. 1949.

After taking into consideration the commutation of sentences ordered on January 31, 1951, by the United States High Commissioner for Germany, 13 defendants received the death penalty, eight were imprisoned for life, seventy-seven served terms of imprisonment, thirty-three were released on the basis of time already served, and one received a medical parole. Those that did not stand trial before war crimes trials were subject to Denazification trials.

Altstoetter, Josef
Ambros, Otto
Baier, Hans Heinrich
Barnickel, Paul
Becker-Freyseng, Hermann
Beiglboeck, Wilhelm
Berger, Gottlob
Biberstein, Ernst
Blaskowitz, Johannes
Blobel, Paul
Blome, Kurt
Blume, Walter
Bobermin, Hans
Boehme, Franz
Bohle, Ernst Wilhelm
Brack, Viktor
Brandt, Rudolf
Brandt, Karl
Braune, Werner
Brueckner, Heinz
Brueggemann, Max
Buergin, Ernst
Buetefisch, Heinrich
Burkart, Odilo
Creutz, Rudolf
Cuhorst, Hermann
Darré, Richard Walther
Dehner, Ernst
Dietrich, Otto
Duerrfeld, Walter
Eberhardt, Karl Adolf
      Ferdinand
Ebner, Gregor
Eirenschmalz, Franz
Engert, Karl
Fanslau, Heinz Karl
Felmy, Helmuth
Fendler, Lothar
Fischer, Fritz
Flick, Friedrich
Foertsch, Hermann
Frank, August
Gajewski, Fritz
Gattineau, Heinrich
Gebhardt, Karl
Genzken, Karl
Graf, Mathias
Greifelt, Ulrich
Haefliger, Paul
Haensch, Walter
Handloser, Siegfried
Haussmann, Emil
Hildebrandt, Richard
Hoerlein, Heinrich
Hofmann, Otto
Hohberg, Hans
Hollidt, Karl
Hoth, Hermann
Houdremont, Eduard
Hoven, Waldemar
Huebner, Herbert
Ihn, Max Otto
Ilgner, Max
Jaehne, Friedrich
Janssen, Friedrich Wilhelm
Joel, Guenther
Jost, Heinz
 Kaletsch, Konrad
Keppler, Wilhelm
Kiefer, Max
Klingelhöfer, Waldemar
Klein, Horst
Klemm, Herbert
Koerner, Paul
Korschan, Heinrich Leo
Krauch, Carl
Kuehne, Hans
Kugler, Hans
Kuntze, Walter
Kupke, Hans Albert Gustav
Lanz, Hubert
Lautenschlaeger, Carl
Lautz, Ernst
Lehmann, Werner Wilhelm Heinrich
Lehmann, Rudolph
List, Wilhelm
Loerner, Georg
Loerner, Hans
Loeser, Ewald Oskar Ludwig
Lorenz, Werner
Mann, Wilhelm
Meissner, Otto
Meyer-Hetling, Konrad
Milch, Erhard
Mueller, Erich
Mummenthey, Karl
Murgowsky, Joachim
Naumann, Erich
Nebelung, Guenther
Nosske, Gustav
Oberheuser, Herta
Oeschey, Rudolf
Ohlendorf, Otto
Oster, Heinrich
Ott, Adolf
Petersen, Hans
Pfirsch, Karl Heinrich
Plieger, Paul
Pohl, Oswald
Pokorny, Adolf
Pook, Hermann
Poppendick, Helmut
Puhl, Emil
Rasch, Otto
Rasche, Karl
Reinecke, Hermann
Reinhardt, Hans
Rendulic, Lothar
Ritter, Karl
Romberg, Hans Wolfgang
Rose, Gerhard
Rostock, Paul
Rothaug, Oswald
Rothenberger, Curt
Ruehl, Felix
Ruff, Siegfried
Sandberger, Martin
Scheide, Rudolf
Schellenberg, Walter
Schlegelberger, Franz
Schmitz, Hermann
Schneider, Christian
Schniewind, Otto
 Schroeder, Oskar
Schubert, Heinz
Schulz, Erwin
Schwalm, Fritz
Schwarzenberger, Otto
Seibert, Willy
Sievers, Wolfram
Six, Franz
Sollman, Max
Sommer, Karl
Speidel, Wilhelm
Sperrle, Hugo
Steimle, Eugen
Steinbrinck, Otto
Strauch, Eduard
Stuckart, Wilhelm
Ter Meer, Fritz
Terberger, Hermann
Tesch, Guenther
Tschentscher, Erwin
Veesenmayer, Edmund
Viermetz, Inge
Vogt, Josef
Volk, Leo
von Bülow, Friedrich
von Ammon, Wilhem
von Leyser, Ernst
von Leeb, Wilhelm
von Geitner, Kurt
von Weizsaecker, Ernst
von Moyland, Gustav Adolf Steengracht
von Bohlen und Halbach, Alfried Felix Alwyn Krupp
von Radetzky, Waldemar
von Kuechler, Georg Karl Friedrich-Wilhelm
von Salmuth, Hans
von Erdmannsdorff, Otto
von Roques, Karl
von Weichs, Maximillian
von Knieriem, August
von Krosigk, Lutz Schwerin
von der Heyde, Erich
von Schnitzler, Georg
Warlimont, Walter
Weltz, Georg August
Westphal, Carl
Woehler, Otto
Woermann, Ernst
Wurster, Carl

  1They were to be tried for crimes against peace; war crimes; and crimes against humanity. Leaders, organizers, instigators, and accomplices participating in the formulation or execution of a common plan or conspiracy to commit the crimes so specified were declared responsible for all acts performed by any persons in execution of such plan. The official positions of defendants as head of state or holders of high government office were not to free them from responsibility or mitigate their punishment; nor was the fact that a defendant acted pursuant to an order of a superior to excuse him from responsibility, although it might be considered by the IMT in mitigation of punishment. As the trial of any individual member of any group or organization the IMT was authorized to declare (in connection with any act of which the individual was convicted) that the group or organization to which he belonged was a criminal organization. And where a group or organization was so declared criminal the competent national authority of any signatory was given the right to bring individuals to trial for membership in that organization, in which trial the criminal nature of the group or organization was to be taken as proved. back

2They were to be tried for crimes against peace; war crimes; and crimes against humanity. Leaders, organizers, instigators, and accomplices participating in the formulation or execution of a common plan or conspiracy to commit the crimes so specified were declared responsible for all acts performed by any persons in execution of such plan. The official positions of defendants as head of state or holders of high government office were not to free them from responsibility or mitigate their punishment; nor was the fact that a defendant acted pursuant to an order of a superior to excuse him from responsibility, although it might be considered by the IMT in mitigation of punishment. As the trial of any individual member of any group or organization the IMT was authorized to declare (in connection with any act of which the individual was convicted) that the group or organization to which he belonged was a criminal organization. And where a group or organization was so declared criminal the competent national authority of any signatory was given the right to bring individuals to trial for membership in that organization, in which trial the criminal nature of the group or organization was to be taken as proved. back

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