Nuremberg Trials facts for kids

The Nuremberg Trials were a series of important court cases held after World War II. These trials aimed to bring justice to the leaders of Nazi Germany who had committed terrible crimes during the war.

There were two main parts to the Nuremberg Trials. The first and most famous part was the trial of the top Nazi leaders. This was handled by a special court called the International Military Tribunal (IMT). Judges and lawyers from four Allied countries – France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States – worked together on this.

The second part involved 12 "follow-up trials." These trials focused on other important Nazis who were not the very top leaders, such as doctors and government officials. Even though these trials happened in the same courtroom, they were run only by the Americans. Originally, the plan was for the IMT to have more trials, and for each Allied country to hold its own trials for local officials. But because the Soviet Union and Western Allies had disagreements, the IMT only held one big trial. So, the United States decided to hold trials for the next most important Nazis themselves.

The Main Trial: Bringing Leaders to Justice

Göring and Hess during the trials

The main trial, led by the International Military Tribunal, started on October 18, 1945. It took place in the Supreme Court Building in Berlin. The first session was led by a Soviet judge named Nikitchenko.

The lawyers accused 24 major Nazi leaders and six Nazi organizations of serious wrongs. These organizations included the leadership of the Nazi Party, the Schutzstaffel (SS), the Sicherheitsdienst (SD), the Gestapo, the Sturmabteilung (SA), and the High Command of the German armed forces (OKW).

The charges against them were for:

• Working together to plan and commit serious wrongs against peace.
• Committing War crimes (actions that break the rules of war).
• Committing Crimes against humanity (terrible actions against large groups of people).
• Planning and starting aggressive wars.

Here are the 24 people who were accused:

"I" accused      "G" accused and found guilty      "O" Not Charged

Name	Charge				Sentence	Notes
	1	2	3	4
Martin Bormann	I	O	G	G	Death	He took over from Hess as Nazi Party Secretary. He was sentenced to death even though he wasn't there. His body was found in 1972.
Karl Dönitz	I	G	G	O	10 years	He led the German Navy (Kriegsmarine) from 1943. He started the U-boat attacks. He became President of Germany after Hitler died. He was found guilty of breaking a naval treaty, but his sentence wasn't based on how he used submarines.
Hans Frank	I	O	G	G	Death	He was the Nazi Law Leader and Governor-General of occupied Poland. He said he was sorry for his actions.
Wilhelm Frick	I	G	G	G	Death	He was Hitler's Minister of the Interior and later a protector in Bohemia-Moravia. He helped write the Nuremberg Laws, which were anti-Jewish laws.
Hans Fritzsche	I	I	I	O	Acquitted	He was a popular radio speaker and head of news for the Nazi Propaganda Ministry. He was tried instead of Joseph Goebbels.
Walther Funk	I	G	G	G	Life Imprisonment	He was Hitler's Minister of Economics and head of the German Central Bank (Reichsbank). He was released in 1957 because he was very sick.
Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring	G	G	G	G	Death	He was the commander of the German Air Force (Luftwaffe) and a key Nazi leader. He died the night before he was supposed to be executed.
Rudolf Hess	G	G	I	I	Life Imprisonment	He was Hitler's deputy. He flew to Scotland in 1941 to try to make peace. He was sent to Spandau Prison after the trial and died there in 1987.
Generaloberst Alfred Jodl	G	G	G	G	Death	He was a high-ranking military officer in the German armed forces (Wehrmacht). He was later cleared by a German court in 1953.
Ernst Kaltenbrunner	I	O	G	G	Death	He was the highest-ranking SS leader who survived. He led the central Nazi intelligence office and commanded many special killing squads and concentration camps.
Wilhelm Keitel	G	G	G	G	Death	He was the head of the German armed forces (OKW).
Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach	I	I	I		----	He was a major Nazi industrialist. He was too sick to be tried. His son, Alfried, was later tried in a separate Nuremberg trial for using slave labor.
Robert Ley	I	I	I	I	----	He led the German Labour Front. He died on October 25, 1945, before his trial began.
Konstantin Freiherr von Neurath	G	G	G	G	15 years	He was the Minister of Foreign Affairs and later a protector in Bohemia and Moravia. He was released in 1954 due to poor health.
Franz von Papen	I	I	O	O	Acquitted	He was Chancellor of Germany in 1932 and Vice-Chancellor under Hitler. He was found not guilty at Nuremberg but was later classified as a war criminal by a German court.
Erich Raeder	G	G	G	O	Life Imprisonment	He was the Commander-in-Chief of the German Navy (Kriegsmarine). He was released in 1955 because of ill health.
Joachim von Ribbentrop	G	G	G	G	Death	He was the Minister of Foreign Affairs for Nazi Germany.
Alfred Rosenberg	G	G	G	G	Death	He was a key Nazi thinker about racial theories. He later became Minister for the Eastern Occupied Territories.
Fritz Sauckel	I	I	G	G	Death	He was in charge of the Nazi slave labor program.
Dr. Hjalmar Schacht	I	I	O	O	Acquitted	He was a well-known banker and economist. He admitted breaking the Treaty of Versailles.
Baldur von Schirach (standing)	I	O	O	G	20 years	He was the head of the Hitler Youth and later a regional Nazi leader in Vienna. He expressed sorrow for his actions.
Arthur Seyß-Inquart	I	G	G	G	Death	He helped with the "Anschluß" (joining Germany and Austria). He was later the Reich Commissioner of the occupied Netherlands. He also expressed sorrow.
Albert Speer	I	I	G	G	20 Years	He was Hitler's favorite architect and Minister of Armaments. He used slave labor from occupied areas to make weapons. He expressed sorrow.
Julius Streicher	I	O	O	G	Death	He was a Nazi leader who spread hatred and encouraged murder against Jewish people through his newspaper, Der Stürmer.

"I" accused      "G" accused and found guilty      "O" Not Charged

The death sentences were carried out on October 16, 1946, by hanging. The French judges suggested using a firing squad for the military officers, which is common in military courts. However, the American and Soviet judges disagreed. They felt that these military officers had acted so badly that they did not deserve to be treated like regular soldiers. The prisoners who were sentenced to jail were moved to Spandau Prison in 1947.

The rules for what counts as a war crime are explained in the Nuremberg Principles. This document was created because of the trials. Also, the terrible medical experiments done by German doctors, which were tried in the Doctors' Trial, led to the creation of the Nuremberg Code. This code helps control how future research involving people is done.

Four organizations were accused of being criminal. Only the SS was found guilty. These organizations were found not to be criminal:

• Reichsregierung (the German government)
• Oberkommando and Generalstab der Wehrmacht (the High Command and General Staff of the Armed Forces)
• Sturmabteilung (the Stormtroopers or "Brownshirts")

Images for kids

• 

  Stalingrad in ruins, December 1942

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  Aerial view of the Palace of Justice in 1945, with the prison attached behind it

• 

  Ruins of Nuremberg, around 1945

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  Handing over the accusations to the tribunal, 18 October 1945

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  The defendants in the dock

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  United States Army clerks with evidence

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  Roman Rudenko opens the Soviet case

• 

  Hermann Göring under cross-examination

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  A member of the Soviet team speaks to the tribunal

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  Telford Taylor opens for the lawyers in the Ministries trial, 6 January 1948

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  Monowitz prisoners unload cement from trains for IG Farben, shown as evidence

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  Press at the International Military Tribunal

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  Germans read Süddeutsche Zeitung reporting the verdict, 1 October 1946

• 

  Benjamin Ferencz, chief lawyer of the Einsatzgruppen trial, in the Palace of Justice courtroom, 2012

See also

In Spanish: Juicios de Núremberg para niños