The Nuremberg Trials and Their Legacy
US Army staffers organize stacks of German documents collected by war crimes investigators as evidence for the International Military Tribunal. Nuremberg, Germany, between November 20, 1945, and October 1, 1946. —US Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of National Archives and Records Administration
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View from of the judges' bench at the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg. Between October 18, 1945, and October 1, 1946. —US Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of National Archives and Records Administration, College Park
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View of the defendants in the dock at the International Military Tribunal trial of war criminals at Nuremberg. November 1945. —US Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of National Archives and Records Administration, College Park
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The Palace of Justice in Nuremberg, where the International Military Tribunal trial of war criminals was held. Flags (French, American, British, and Soviet) of the four prosecuting countries hang above the entrance. —US Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of National Archives and Records Administration, College Park
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Aerial view of the Nuremberg Palace of Justice and prison, where the war crimes trial of the International Military Tribunal was held and its defendants incarcerated. November 20, 1945. —US Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Tade Wolfe
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Floor plan of the court room which was part of a mimeographed program to the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg for November 20, 1945. —US Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Karen Sonheim Braden
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The presentation of evidence about defendant Ernst Kaltenbrunner at the International Military Tribunal trial of war criminals at Nuremberg. January 2, 1946. —US Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of National Archives and Records Administration, College Park
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Cover page of a copy of the Stroop Report, entitled "The Jewish Quarter of Warsaw is no more!" The report was entered into evidence at the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg and stamped as exhibit 275. —US Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of National Archives and Records Administration, College Park More
View from of the judges' bench at the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg. Between October 18, 1945, and October 1, 1946. —US Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of National Archives and Records Administration, College Park
View of the defendants in the dock at the International Military Tribunal trial of war criminals at Nuremberg. November 1945. —US Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of National Archives and Records Administration, College Park
The Palace of Justice in Nuremberg, where the International Military Tribunal trial of war criminals was held. Flags (French, American, British, and Soviet) of the four prosecuting countries hang above the entrance. —US Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of National Archives and Records Administration, College Park
Aerial view of the Nuremberg Palace of Justice and prison, where the war crimes trial of the International Military Tribunal was held and its defendants incarcerated. November 20, 1945. —US Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Tade Wolfe
Floor plan of the court room which was part of a mimeographed program to the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg for November 20, 1945. —US Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Karen Sonheim Braden
The presentation of evidence about defendant Ernst Kaltenbrunner at the International Military Tribunal trial of war criminals at Nuremberg. January 2, 1946. —US Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of National Archives and Records Administration, College Park
Cover page of a copy of the Stroop Report, entitled "The Jewish Quarter of Warsaw is no more!" The report was entered into evidence at the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg and stamped as exhibit 275. —US Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of National Archives and Records Administration, College Park More
The Holocaust was an unprecedented crime—a crime composed of millions of murders, wrongful imprisonments, and tortures, of rape, theft, and destruction. In the immediate aftermath of the Holocaust, the world was faced with a challenge—how to seek justice for an almost unimaginable scale of criminal behavior. The International Military Tribunal (IMT) held at Nuremberg, Germany, attempted to broach this immense challenge on a legal basis.
View historical film footage from the IMT.
In 2015, we mark the 70th anniversary of the IMT, a watershed moment in international justice. The commemoration of this anniversary coincides with numerous atrocities occurring in our world today—crimes that again challenge us to ask: Can justice ever be done?
“We must establish incredible events by credible evidence.”
—US Chief Prosecutor Robert Jackson, June 7, 1945.
Nazi Germany planned and implemented the Holocaust within the devastating maelstrom of World War II. It was in this context that the IMT was created, a trial of judgment for war crimes. The IMT was not a court convened to mete out punishment for the Holocaust alone. The tribunal was designed to document and redress crimes committed in the course of the most massive conflict the world has ever known. In October 1945, the IMT formally indicted the Nuremberg defendants on four counts: crimes against peace, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and conspiracy to commit these crimes.
Convened within months of the end of the war, from the trial’s first public session on November 20, 1945, until the verdicts were delivered on October 1, 1946, the tribunal at Nuremberg set precedents: in international law, in documentation of the historical record-in seeking some beginning, however inadequate, in the search for justice.
A single landmark of justice and honor does not make a world of peace.
— Former US Secretary of War Henry Stimson, January 1947.
