Jackson. Proposals for how to punish the defeated Nazi leaders ranged from a . Minister of Foreign Affairs (until 1938), then Reich Protector for Bohemia and Moravia. I played checkers with him on a number of occasions, Prestianni revealed. [115], From 17 January to 7 February 1946, France presented its charges and supporting evidence. [188] The Office of Chief Counsel for War Crimes identified 2,500 major war criminals, of whom 177 were tried. It was in my family until the early 2000s. I tried to judge them myself, not by what others said of them. [121], On 8 February, the Soviet prosecution opened its case with a speech by Rudenko that covered all four prosecution charges, highlighting both aggressive war and the devastation of Eastern Europe[122] and listing many crimes committed by the German occupiers against the Soviet people. One can only imagine the effect the pounding had on the condemned prisoners, now with only one more day to live. Minister of Foreign Affairs 193238, succeeded by Ribbentrop. Three of the defendants were acquitted. Whether the prisoners availed themselves of this privilege was by individual choice. How long did it take you to learn what you are doing? he often asked. Three of those accused were acquitted and upon their release soon faded into obscurity. In July 2020, Dey was found guilty and given a two . [102] Jackson's focus was on the aggressive war charge, which he described as the root of the crimes against humanity and of war crimes. Through these openings, aluminum food trays could be placed within reach of the prisoners. Number 4 was assigned to Erich Raeder, the Navys former grand admiral before being replaced by Dnitz. The British government was still opposed, unable to see the benefit of such a trial and preferring summary execution of Nazi leaders. [67] Also prosecuted were leaders of the German economy, such as Gustav Krupp (of the conglomerate Krupp AG), former Reichsbank president Hjalmar Schacht, and economic planners Albert Speer and Walther Funk, along with Speer's subordinate and head of the forced labor program, Fritz Sauckel. He was totally indifferent to the world around him and to world affairs. She kept a scrapbook which had photos of her group and many signatures of court officials and army officers commending them for their service. [221] The IMT defendants required Soviet permission for release; Speer was not successful in obtaining early release, and Hess remained in prison until his death in 1987. Sixteen of these captives were guarded by Pfc. 3 Feb 1946. His name was Raymond J Arsenault. [61], The problem of translating the indictment and evidence into the three official languages of the tribunal, as well as German, was severe due to the scale of the task and difficulty in recruiting interpreters, especially in the Soviet Union. He was strictly military during the three months I observed him. Another favorite was Alfred Jodl, former chief of the operations staff of the Army high command, who was found guilty and executed. Asked whether the 60-year myth about Streicher struggling for 20 minutes at the end of the hangmans rope was true, Prestianni said guards never witnessed the hanging and he had not heard any such rumors at the time, but guessed it could have happened. [39] Besides legal professionals, there were many social-science researchers, psychologists, translators and interpreters, and graphic designers, the latter to make the many charts used during the trial. Joachim von Ribbentrop, Nazi Germanys foreign minister beginning in 1938, was amiable, Prestianni said. Prestianni said that during his guard duties he tried to adhere to his fathers advice. We needled him by saying his girls wanted to abandon the Fatherland, marry Americans, and emigrate to the United States.. He was the popular picture court room scene the second on the left of the door. [10] The declaration also stated that those high-ranking Nazis who had committed crimes in several countries would be dealt with jointly. I do have a photo of my Dad standing behind the German prisoners. [49][48] The French government tried to appoint staff who were not tainted by collaboration with the Vichy regime; some appointments were of those who had been in the French resistance. The Nuremberg prison was a Bastille-like affair. [2] German aggression was accompanied by immense brutality in occupied areas and the systematic murder of millions of Jews in the Holocaust. As a good military officer I was only following orders, he steadfastly maintained with quiet military bearing. Waffen-SS Soldiers Guarded the Nuremberg Trials Mark Felton Productions 1.82M subscribers Subscribe 81K 4.3M views 2 years ago Unbelievable but true - an entire unit of former Waffen-SS. [135] The Soviet Union also called two Holocaust survivors as witnesses, Samuel Rajzmana Treblinka survivorand poet Abraham Sutzkever, who eloquently described the murder of tens of thousands of Jews from Vilna, although their testimony did not directly incriminate any of the defendants. [192] Members of the SS were tried in the Pohl trial, which focused on members of the SS Main Economic and Administrative Office that oversaw SS economic activity, including the Nazi concentration camps;[193] the RuSHA trial of Nazi racial policies; and the Einsatzgruppen trial, in which members of the mobile killing squads were tried for the murder of more than one million people behind the Eastern Front. An enduring mystery of the 1946 Nuremberg trials was apparently solved yesterday when an American former prison guard claimed it was he who, as an unwitting accomplice, passed to Hermann. At least 30,000 women died here. For example, Baldur von Schirach, former head of the Hitler Youth, was known only as Number 1. Ribbentrop, Prestianni related, was a man without humor. On October 1, 1946, the verdicts on 22 of the original 24 defendants were handed down for the Nrnberg trials. A defendant was entitled to receive a copy of the indictment, to offer any relevant explanation to the charges brought against him, and to be represented by counsel and confront and cross-examine the witnesses. [103], Much of the American case focused on the development of the Nazi conspiracy before the outbreak of war. My father, Jack J. list of guards at nuremberg trialsdelpark homes sutton list of guards at nuremberg trials. [222] By the late 1950s, the West German consensus on release began to erode, due to greater openness in political culture and new revelations of Nazi criminality, including the first trials of Nazi perpetrators in West German courts. [56][57] After this division of formulating the charges, the British and American delegations decided to work jointly in drafting the charges of conspiracy to wage aggressive war. Schirach, who had been replaced by Hitler as head of the youth movement in 1940 and drafted into Army service where he saw considerable combat on the Eastern Front, maintained his decorum and seldom responded to the teasing. Beginning on November 20, 1945, all sessions of the tribunal were held in Nrnberg under the presidency of Lord Justice Geoffrey Lawrence (later Baron Trevethin and Oaksey), the British member. The first of the trials was the Major War Crimes Trial, in which 22 high-ranking Nazis stood trial in the Palace of Justice. [77] Gring, the most famous surviving Nazi, headlined the trial. [186] These trials were held under Law No. Surviving members of the company marked the 56th anniversary of its founding , which took place, according to Toronto's Tommy Tomson, on December 26, 1946. [171] Only eight defendants were convicted on that charge; all of whom were also found guilty of crimes against peace. Prestianni did not recall any such instances. On October 1, 1946, the International Military Tribunal handed down its verdicts in the trials of 22 Nazi leaders - eleven were given the death penalty, three were acquitted, three were given life imprisonment and four were given imprisonment ranging from 10 to 20 years. These once powerful leaders of Nazi Germany were the accused of the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal. He would have been 92 the following month. These were people, Neurath reasoned, of whom Germany was cleansing the world.. God have mercy on my soul. Your Moms birthday and maiden name. End of the trial: Guardian report on the executions, 16 October 1946 Hermann Gring last night died by his own hand. While they walked, the prisoners were separated by a prescribed number of yards. [127] Evidence was presented on the murder of children, attempts to cover up atrocities,[128] systematic plunder of occupied territories, and confiscation or destruction of cultural heritage. 1 They were convened under the authority of Control Council Law No.. The tribunal responded that such acts had been regarded as criminal prior to World War II. At this time, 24 former Nazi leaders were charged with the perpetration of war crimes, and various groups (such as the Gestapo, the Nazi secret police) were charged with being criminal in character. The defendants included some of the most famous Nazis, including Hermann Gring, Rudolf Hess, Joachim von Ribbentrop, and Wilhelm Keitel. Joined: Oct 14, 2007 Messages: 2,804 Colonels from all four countries were running around trying to determine how it happened.. On November 20, 1945, several months after the end of World War II, a series of military tribunals began in the German city of Nuremberg. He didnt really talk to me very much. My father Paul Davis Smith served at a guard at Nuremberg though he never really talked much about it so I dont know in what capacity. The Russians always were a problem and only cooperated with the other countries about 10 percent of the time. 18008 Bothell Everett Hwy SE # F, Bothell, WA 98012. For added security outside the prison, three American Sherman tanks, manned by MPs, were positioned at the front, side, and rear entries to the prison. events, and resources, Michael Prestianni: Guarding the War Criminals at Nuremberg. [69][37], The defendants, who were largely unrepentant,[70] included former cabinet ministers: Franz von Papen (who had brought Hitler to power); Joachim von Ribbentrop (foreign minister), Wilhelm Frick (interior minister), and Alfred Rosenberg, minister for the occupied eastern territories. Raeder kept to himself, voraciously reading and writing his memoirs, but when he interacted with the others, it was often to lash out in anger. Trial issues are criminal activities or subjects at issue in a trial that are addressed by a document. Number 3 was Konstantin von Neurath, a former high-ranking politician. The Subsequent Nuremberg Trials tried major war criminals, but of lower ranks than those tried in the first trial. He guarded Goehring. [52][46] The Soviet personnel's lack of knowledge of English, lack of interpreters, and unfamiliarity with diplomacy and international institutions also limited their influence. There were limits to how much gore that could be tolerated by some of the courtroom guards, he recalled. Call us at (425) 485-6059. Cell doors were never opened when food was distributed. [58], The charge of conspiracy was spearheaded by the United States prosecution and was less popular with the other Allies. They, as a group, had no problem with their guilt. Each of the governing countries, the United States, England, France, and Russia, had its own interpretation of punishment. Streicher, for reasons never made known, was photographed clothed and then naked and again in death. [33], The negotiators decided that the tribunal's permanent seat would be in Berlin, while the trial would be held at the Palace of Justice in Nuremberg. Among those brought to trial were. By creating an Aryan nation, the world would look up to and envy Germany for its racial purity.. The International Military Tribunal set up by the . Uncover the topics related to the Nuremberg trials. The names were -- Wippern, Hahnefeld and myself carried out the checking. He was the first of 10 hanged on October 16, 1946. Before and during the war crimes trial, they were to be considered still innocent, Andrus drummed into the military personnel under his command. The first attempt to punish the perpetrators was conducted by the International Military Tribunal (IMT) in the German city of Nuremberg, beginning on November . Keitel was one of ten defendants hanged in the Palace of Justice in the early morning hours of October 16, 1946. I asked him why that necessitated the killing of people to achieve this so-called needed land, especially the people of Poland. He was a true Nazi all the way in every way, Prestianni recalled. Thank you so much for your time and I am looking forward to getting into many discussions. He could never understand why he had been tried for war crimes. After the war, she and other WACS were asked to stay for the Nuremburg trials to serve as stenographers . [151], In order to appease concerns about fair process, the defendants were allowed a free hand with their witnesses and a great deal of irrelevant testimony was heard. Does anyone know where I can read about the nuremberg trials from the guards perspective? [157] Over the course of the trial, crimes against humanity and especially against Jews (who were mentioned as victims of Nazi atrocities far more than any other group) came to upstage the aggressive war charge. Text Size:thredup ambassador program how to dress more masculine for a woman. Three of the defendants were acquitted: Hjalmar Schacht, Franz von Papen, and Hans Fritzsche. [22][23] War crimes already existed in international law as criminal violations of the laws and customs of war. View full size Courtesy, U.S. Army The Military Tribunal proceedings in Nuremberg, Germany, Herman Goering sits between two guards, the left one being Andrew Wendland of Bay City. My Dad was murdered, hanged, when I was 5 years old in 1965. [105] The American prosecutors were not any more effective when presenting documentary evidence on the conspiracy to commit crimes against humanity, and ended up reaching a "saturation point of horror" by their indiscriminate selection and disorganized presentation of evidence without tying it to specific defendants. [197] The trials heard 1,300 witnesses, entered more than 30,000 documents into evidence, and generated 132,855 pages of transcripts, with the judgements themselves totaling 3,828 pages. [90][91] The bringing of conspiracy charges also slowed the trial, as the same evidence ended up being read out multiple times, when it was relevant to both substantive and conspiracy charges. After 216 court sessions, on October 1, 1946, the verdict on 22 of the original 24 defendants was handed down. Immediately following the end of the IMT, the American military government held twelve more war crimes trials in Nuremberg. Whenever these female prisoners, most of whom were former concentration camp guards, created a problem, we merely, as instructed, called the sergeant-of-the-guard to resolve the situation. Designated as protector of Bohemia and Moravia in August 1943, he played a major role in developing the concentration- and labor-camp network for the slaughter of millions. my father david c bergeron was a 1st LT with the guards at the war trials. [2] They were indicted for: Four were convicted and sentenced to terms of imprisonment ranging from 10 to 20 years. [59] The conspiracy charge was used to charge the top Nazi leaders, as well as bureaucrats who had never killed anyone or perhaps even directly ordered killing. [67] Former Nazis were allowed to serve as counsel[45] and by mid-November all defendants had lawyers. The tribunal consisted of a member plus an alternate selected by each of the four signatory countries. Between 1939 and 1945, Nazi Germany invaded many countries across Europe, inflicting 27 million deaths in the Soviet Union alone. Generally, I would describe the food, as I recall, quite good, Prestianni remembers. [86] Overall, the prosecution called 37 witnesses compared to the defense's 83, not including 19 defendants who testified on their own behalf. But the Nuremberg Trials showed contempt for the only-obeying-orders position, and we hold it in contempt too.". Four were sentenced to terms of imprisonment ranging from 10 to 20 years: Karl Dnitz, Baldur von Schirach, Albert Speer, and Konstantin von Neurath. [85] After the American prosecution flooded the trial with untranslated evidence, the judges insisted that all of the evidence be read into the record, which slowed the trial. [6][7] Trainin's ideas were reprinted in the West and widely adopted. Other prisoners shuffled past him without even glancing in his direction or outwardly acknowledging that he existed. During numerous argumentative discussions, Neurath referred to the Polish population and others that were slaughtered by German troops as untermenschen, the German expression for inferior beings. [30] Article 7 prevented the defendants from claiming immunity for their actions under the act of state doctrine,[31] and the plea of acting under superior orders was left for the judges to decide. What was the name of that individual? Boy I wish I asked more questions of the trials. The defendants at Nuremberg. He was proud of his physique, saying he was strong like Germany.. [12] The United States insisted on a fair trial as a means of reforming Germany. [160] On 2 September, the court recessed; and the judges retreated into seclusion to decide the verdict and sentences, which had been under discussion since June. When asked how the individual personalities, habits, and mannerisms differed, Prestianni responded that they were varied. He greeted me in the morning and that was about it. Today these sketches are highly prized. The IMT focused on the crime of aggressionplotting and waging aggressive war, which the verdict declared "the supreme international crime" because "it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole". The Avalon Project: Documents in Law, History, and Diplomacy. She was released after four years and eventually committed suicide in a Bavarian prison. List of Judges Francis Biddle (American) John J Parker (American) Edward Francis Carter (American) Colonel Sir Geoffrey Lawrence, Lord Justice (British, President of the Tribunal) Sir Norman Birkett (British) Henri Donnedieu de Vabres (French) Robert Falco (French) Major General Iona Nikitchenko (Soviet) (Robert Ley committed suicide while in prison, and Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbachs mental and physical condition prevented his being tried.) The photograph shows some of the security measures taken at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials. Let me have that again, please. The Ugly Truth About the Nuremberg Tribunals. FRD provides custom research services to federal agencies, the District of Columbia government, and authorized federal contractors. Alfried was tried in a separate Nuremberg trial (the Krupp Trial) for the use of slave labor, thereby escaping worse charges and possible execution; found guilty in 1948, pardoned and all property returned 1951.

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