NUREMBERG TRIALS

Nuremberg Trials





Nuremberg Trials

Introduction

The efforts of Hitler and the Nazis to destroy all the Jews of Europe are known as the Holocaust. In his policy of anti-Semitism, Hitler set out to drive Jews from Germany. In 1935, the Nuremberg Laws placed severe restrictions on the Jewish people. They were prohibited from marrying non-Jews, denied citizenship, forced to wear a yellow Star of David, and prohibited from attending or teaching at German schools or universities.

On November 9, l938, the Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass) riots took place. Nazi-led mobs attacked Jewish synagogues, businesses, and homes. The night of violence initiated a period of intense persecution for the Jews in which over 91 Jews were killed and 30,000 Jews were rounded up and later sent to concentration camps.

By 1939, German Jews had lost all their civil rights, and after the fall of Warsaw, the Nazis began deporting them to Poland. Jews from all over Europe were moved into ghettos surrounded by barbed wire, forced to wear the Star of David, and used as slave labor. In January 1942, German leaders met at Wannsee, a suburb of Berlin to carry out the Final Solution of the Jewish Question-the murder of every Jew. Jews in all parts of Hitler's empire were systematically arrested and shipped like cattle to concentration camps or death camps. A death camp was a concentration camp with special apparatus for systematic murder. All of them were located in Poland. Victims were sent to “shower” rooms that were really gas chambers. Special camp workers stripped victims of their gold teeth or hair. Bodies were cremated while hones were crushed for ferlili7er. The most infamous of these death camps was at Auschwitzi in Poland, where l2, 000 Jews were killed each day, close to 1 million in total. When the war finally came to an end, over 6 million Jews had been killed, as well as millions of homosexuals, gypsies, communists, and Slaves. The ultimate monstrosity of the Nazi policy of genocide had contributed to the death of millions of people. Although they were aware of the Nazi concentration and death camps during the war, when the Allies discovered the lull extent of these atrocities, they agreed that Axis leaders should be tried for crimes against humanity.” On November 21, 1945, the Nuremberg Trials began and lasted until October I. 1946. An international military tribunal put Nazi war criminals on trial. A total of 177 Germans and Austrians were tried and 142 were found guilty. Some top Nazis received death sentences. Similar war crime trials were held in Japan and Italy. These trials showed that political and military leaders had to be held responsible and accountable for their actions in wartime.

Discussion

Military tribunals were conducted in the Nuremberg Trials. The trial was conducted by the major nations, or the successful Allied forces of World War II. These nations were noteworthy for the hearing of famous members of the political, military, and economic leadership of the overpowered Nazi ...