Nuremberg Tribunal

The International Military Tribunal was established by the Allies on the basis of the London Agreement of 08.08.1945 after the end of World War II to prosecute key figures in Nazi Germany who were responsible for war crimes, crimes against peace and crimes against humanity. It is known for the only international trial that took place in the city of Nuremberg (Germany) from 11/20/1945 to 10/1/1946, when 19 of the 24 defendants from the leadership of Nazi Germany were convicted, including 12 death sentences for prominent figures such as Hermann Göring and Joachim von Ribbentrop.

Although the author of the term "genocide" Raphael Lemkin was an advisor to the US chief prosecutor at the Tribunal Robert Jackson, the persecution of Jews by the Nazis was not officially defined as genocide at the time; the Tribunal considered it a crime against humanity. However, the indictment considered by the Tribunal stated that the accused:

“… conducted deliberate and systematic genocide, viz., the extermination of racial and national groups, against the civilian populations of certain occupied territories in order to destroy particular races and classes of people and national, racial, or religious groups, particularly Jews, Poles, and Gypsies and others.”

Indictment, https://avalon.law.yale.edu/imt/count3.asp

And the term "genocide" itself was repeatedly used in the trial.

The tribunal examined in detail the persecution of Jews, starting with the formation of anti-Jewish policy in the NSDAP party program, the Nazis' rise to power in Germany and the elimination of Jews from public life, the burning of synagogues, the looting of Jewish businesses, the imposition of a collective fine of 1 billion marks, the confiscation of property, the creation of ghettos, and ending with the implementation of the plan for the "final solution of the Jewish question" in the summer of 1941, which provided for the systematic extermination of Jews.

"In the summer of 1941 ... plans were developed for the "final solution" of the Jewish question throughout Europe. This "final solution" meant the extermination of the Jews... A special section in the Gestapo under Adolf Eichmann, as head of Section B 4 of the Gestapo, was formed to carry out the policy.

"In the summer of 1941 ... plans were made for the "final solution" of the Jewish question in all of Europe. This "final solution" meant the extermination of the Jews... a special section in the Gestapo under Adolf Eichmann, as head of Section B 4 of the Gestapo, was formed to carry out the policy".

Tribunal Decision of 01.10.1946, p. 464

As the Tribunal established, the methods used to exterminate the Jews never followed a single pattern: detention in ghettos, mass murders in cities; the rounding up of Jews from all over Germany-occupied Europe and their systematic extermination in concentration camps, etc.

These actions included mass executions in concentration camps equipped with gas chambers for mass murder. The Tribunal's verdicts emphasized the guilt of the German leadership, which planned and directed the crimes against Jews and other minorities.

"It is a record of consistent and systematic inhumanity on the greatest scale."

Tribunal Decision of 01.10.1946, p. 463

Although the concept of genocide was not legally criminalized until 1948, the Nuremberg Trials set an important precedent in international justice, proving that the systematic destruction of individual population groups, as occurred during the Holocaust, is a crime against humanity that the international community must condemn and punish. This trial laid the foundation for the further development of international law and the protection of human rights.

Mykola Pashkovsky, Research Fellow at the V. V. Research Institute for the Study of Crime Problems Stashisa NAPRN of Ukraine, lawyer, scientific advisor of JSC "BARRISTERS"

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Other quotes from the Decision

“The persecution of Jews during the same period [before the war of 1939] is established beyond all doubt”.

Decision

“We had two SS doctors on duty in Auschwitz to examine prisoners arriving at the concentration camp. The prisoners were led past one of the doctors, who made decisions on the spot as they passed. Those who were fit for work were sent to the camp. Others were sent immediately to extermination plants. Young children were invariably exterminated because they were too young to work. Another improvement we made over Treblinka was that at Treblinka the victims almost always knew they were going to be exterminated, whereas at Auschwitz we tried to deceive the victims into thinking they were going to go through a purification procedure. Of course, they often knew our true intentions, and this sometimes caused us riots and difficulties. Very often women hid their children under their clothes, but of course when we found them we sent the children to be exterminated."

Testimony of Hess, commandant of the Auschwitz camp from May 1, 1940 to December 1, 1943, about the procedure for selecting for extermination. According to his estimates, 2,500,000 people were exterminated in this camp alone during this time, and another 500,000 died of disease and hunger.

This is such a terrible crime, so unheard of in history throughout the Christian era until the rise of Hitlerism, that the term "genocide" had to be invented to define it, and in order to make it credible, a huge amount of documents and testimonies were needed.

This is a crime so monstrous, so undreamt of in history throughout the Christian era up to the birth of Hitlerism, that the term "genocide" has had to be coined to define it and an accumulation of documents and testimonies has been needed to make it credible.

M. AUGUSTE CHAMPETIER DE RIBES (Procureur General of the French Republic)
July 29, 1946
https://avalon.law.yale.edu/imt/07-29-46.asp
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