the Nuremberg trials saw the end of a regime that cost the Holocaust and it was the first time in history where an international court sentenced people to prison and to death it would later set the stage for an International Court of Justice the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and to Geneva Conventions Germany started the Second World War when it invaded Poland and eventually attacked over half a dozen countries throughout the continent but by 1943 the tide of war had turned the Soviet Union was beginning to push back at Leningrad Moscow and Stalingrad while the British meanwhile had beaten back the German air raids and pushed the Axis powers out of Africa so the leaders of the major Allied powers came together to discuss the state of the world after world war ii had ended Stalin of the Soviet Union Roosevelt of the USA and Churchill of the United Kingdom discussed creating the United Nations the d-day invasions and dividing Germany up into four occupation zones because Germany will be divided but that was not all over the course of World War two it became apparent that Germany committed atrocities on a massive scale the night raids the forced deportations the mass genocide there was only one question on everybody's mind how do you punish acts that are dis evil to this question there were basically only three answers the first was to do nothing to let all the atrocities all the death all the destruction go unpunished but how could any country consent to such a course of action how could the far-off USA the invaded Soviet Union ory occupied Czechoslovakia consent to such a course of action the second option was to put all the perpetrators to death through executive action to simply give the command to kill thousands of people regardless of whether they committed any war crimes or not but this action was disliked by both Roosevelt and Churchill at the time and so eventually by the end of the war a third option was chosen justice through persecution it was decided that a perpetrators of the Second World War and of the Holocaust would be dealt a fairness and justice that they themselves destroyed in Germany but that brought up the next question how do you punish someone from another sovereign country for crimes that are not actually illegal in that country the Allied powers answered this question with the London Charter of the International Military Tribunal this Charter laid out a system where four different legal codes of France the Soviet Union the United States and the United Kingdom would be incorporated into a single tribunal there were prosecutors and defense attorneys according to British and US laws but decisions and sentences were imposed by a group of judges according to French and Soviet legislation furthermore four types of crimes were determined that a person could be indicted for the first is crimes against peace which include a planning initiating and waging wars of aggression or wars in violation of international treaties the second is crimes against humanity such as extermination deportation and genocide the third is war crimes this basically meant a violation of the rules of war that was set before the Second World War such as executing prisoners the fourth crime is a common plan or conspiracy to commit any of the three aforementioned crimes after all simply because you didn't put anyone in the gas chambers yourself doesn't mean you're not guilty of creating the system leading to such genocides it would be possible for someone to be indicted for any or all of these crimes for example milhollin Cato who was the de facto head of the German military during the war was indicted for all four crimes he was found guilty on all four charges at the Nuremberg trial and sentenced to death or take the case of Julius Streicher publisher of an anti-semitic newspaper he was only indicted for conspiracy and crimes against humanity and he would only be found guilty of the latter although he too would be sentenced to death for that crime it is important to note that this is not the only trial there were several others such as the doctor's trial and a judge's trial the Nuremberg trial however was only for the worst offenders those who had created the system of oppression and extermination in Germany and it's occupying territories one of such worst offenders is Wilhelm Frick Minister of the Interior and co-author of anti-semitic laws imposed in Germany before the war or Ernst Kaltenbrunner the highest-ranking SS officer tried at Nuremberg and chief of the intelligence Gestapo and criminal police both of them would be found guilty and both of them would be sentenced to death in total 24 men would be indicted at the trial of these 24 there are three special cases we need to discuss first first is Martin Bormann who was party secretary he was absent at the trial he would be found guilty and sentenced to death in absentia however it would be discovered in 1972 that he had actually died a few days before the war had ended but his body wasn't identified before then there's also the case of Gustav group von Berlin and Alba a major industrialist he was found medically unfit for trial and passed away in 1950 without sentencing and thirdly is the case of Robert lay head of the German trade unions he believed that as the loser in the war he ought to just be shot rather than to be brought before a tribunal like a criminal lay therefore strangled himself in a Cell three days after receiving his indictment the trial was now almost ready to begin the war was over the men had been captured and the crimes were determined but there was one more obstacle to overcome before the trial could commence and that was the problem of language this trial was held between French English Russian and German speakers how are they going to communicate efficiently with each other IBM came up with a brilliant system that we still use today simultaneous interpretation this is the technique where interpreters translate what is being said while it is being said and then everybody can listen to the translation in their own native language directly via headphones this is how for example the United Nations and the European Parliament work today now it was time for a trial to commence each of the four countries provided a prosecutor and a team of experts behind them the defendants were entitled to receive a copy of the indictment made against them any relevant explanation about the indictments and to be represented by a lawyer of their choice and of course the defendants chose the best German lawyers they could possibly find to give an example of how good these lawyers are let's look at the case of Admiral Karl dönitz head of the German Navy from 1943 onwards he was indicted because he had ordered his submarines not to help the survivors of any sinking ship instead letting them drown in the Atlantic Ocean this was in clear violation of the second London Naval Treaty his lawyer however would save his life he presented evidence that the USA had committed the exact same breach of the treaty in the Pacific in its war with Japan and argued that donuts' should not be convicted for a crime the USA also committed and it worked Karl dönitz was sentenced to only ten years in prison he was released in 1956 and died in 1980 when the trial first started prosecution was afraid there wouldn't be any evidence that these men were responsible for the atrocities committed during the war but they forgot the German character the Germans documented everything forty-seven crates of binders 1,400 kilograms of party records and kilometers of film poured in there for the prosecution decided not to go directly after the greater atrocities of World War two instead they wanted to lay bare the system of conspiracy that would slowly lead to the Second World War and the atrocities committed in them they wanted to prove that it was these men who created the system that would lead to these atrocities from the supposed need for breathing room to feed the German people to the aspiration of the extermination of what they considered an undesirable population the prosecution pulled out one incriminating document after another such as a document that showed how they were planning to start a wall by whatever means necessary it is my unalterable decision to squash Czechoslovakia by military means in the near future it is the job of the political leaders to bring about the military and politically suitable moments the primary defense of these actions was that they were only made illegal after the crimes had been committed but the prosecution countered by stating that the first person to be sentenced for murder could just as easily have argued that nobody had ever been sentenced for murder so why should they they argued that some crimes are so universally immoral that it shouldn't require a precedent one of the defendants Albert Speer realized that the prosecution the Allied powers and the judges wanted to hear an apology an admission of wrongdoing an expression of repentance and so he simply gave them one he took personal responsibility for the crimes he and his country had committed while Speer was responsible for ordering the use of hundreds of thousands of slave laborers he himself was only sentenced to 20 years in prison he was released in 1966 and died in 1981 now that the prosecution had presented that there was indeed a common conspiracy against peace and certain types of people they continued with the greater atrocities of the war they showed a documentary about the concentration camps which I will not show here because I do not want any of my audience to involuntarily see the horrific acts depicted in them if you do want to see the evidence it is available on the English Wikipedia page on the nuremberg trials and i will leave a link in the description this film showed the horrors of the concentration camps the piles of bodies the gas chambers the unimaginable suffering people in the courtroom cried some even fainted the defense of these men on trial could largely be summed up as I was just following orders the prosecution deconstructed that argument stating that men who commit crimes cannot plea as a defense that they committed them in uniform military men not above and beyond the moral requirements that apply to others incapable of exercising moral judgment on their own they pointed out that another German General Evan Romo had been ordered to kill any commanders that he had or would capture but Romo had burned the order showing that even a high-ranking general was able to exercise moral judgment and disobey immoral orders as the trial progressed a very curious case became clear dead of Hellmuth shocked shocked was a prominent banker and economist in Germany having served as president of the central bank and economics Minister while an important figure before the war he had lost all his power by the time it started and had even been in contact with resistance leaders until he himself was put in a concentration camp in the end he was acquitted and set free and would go on advising developing countries on methods of finance and economics and passed away in 1970 by now all the evidence had been presented and the accused had been given the opportunity to defend themselves it was now time to pass judgment it took the judges two days to determine the sentences of these 24 men twelve were sentenced to death by hanging seven were sent to prison three were acquitted and two were left without a decision of those men sentenced to death who have not yet been named in this video are Hans Frank governor-general of occupied Poland Alfred Jodl a general in the German military who signed the summary execution of the Allied commanders and Soviet commissars yo're him from the Ribbentrop ambassador to the UK and later Minister of Foreign Affairs he was responsible for a treaty that divided Poland up between Germany and the Soviet Union Alfred Rosenberg minister of eastern occupied territories Fred Sacco head of the slave labor program Arthur says in quality commander of the occupied Netherlands and Herman Goering welcome back to him in a little bit the men sentenced to prison who have not yet been named Walter funk Minister of economics and sentenced to life imprisonment but released due to ill health in 1957 and passed away in 1960 Konstantin von Neurath Minister of Foreign Affairs and rifle protector of bohemia and moravia and resigned in 1943 sentenced to 15 years in prison but released in 1954 due to ill health and passed away in 1956 eddie who later commander in chief of the german navy until his retirement in 1943 sentenced to life imprisonment but released in 1955 due to ill health and passed away in 1960 Baldur von Schirach head of the parties use division until 1940 sentenced to 20 years in prison and passed away in 1974 and the Rudolf Hess will also get back to him later out of the three men who were acquitted there was the previously named shocked but also hon Switzer a popular radio commentator and head of the news division of the propaganda ministry his crimes were not deemed severe enough for this Tribunal and he would later be sentenced to nine years in prison and a different trial he would be released in 1950 due to ill health and died in 1953 and there is France from poppin he served as the Chancellor and Vice Chancellor of Germany was an ambassador to Austria and later Turkey he was acquitted at Nuremberg however he would later be sentenced to eight years in prison for his actions during the war he appealed that decision and was once again acquitted after serving only two years in prison and passed away in 1969 the hangings of those sentenced to death would take place two weeks later Hermann Goering the highest-ranking man on trial took one last act of defiance by committing suicide he was commander of the air force de facto head of the economy and the original head of the Gestapo he was found guilty on all charges and sentenced to death the hangings were supposed to be done via the standard drop method where the goal is to break the neck so the person dies instantly instead of suffering a slow strangulation but some of the hangings were botched and took several minutes of strangulation before they died from the Ribbentrop took 17 minutes Yodle 18 and keidel 28 the bodies were then cremated and the ashes dumped into the river the last one of these men to die was Rudolf Hess he flew to Scotland in 1941 to negotiate a peace treaty with the British but was instead imprisoned thus he didn't participate in many of the atrocities he was sentenced to life imprisonment and died in 1987 when he strangled himself at the age of 93 the prison was demolished to prevent it from becoming a shrine to follow us of that toxic ideology but instead his burial site became a destination for yearly pilgrimages by neo-nazis so when the lease on his burial site ended in 2011 his grave was reopened his remains cremated and his ashes scattered at the sea and so ended the regime that started the second world war in Europe committed genocide with a brutality rarely seen in history and took the lives of 50 to 56 million people this video was only a summary of the Nuremberg trials I had to leave out many things such as the fact that the Soviet Union committed many of the same atrocities but were not put on trial or why Nuremberg was chosen as the location therefore if you're interested in reading more about a topic I will provide a few sources down below where you can learn more about the subject if you liked this video please give it a thumbs up and press the subscribe button my next video will finish the series on the tulip mania and after that I will start a new series on the Aztec empire if you want to see those and other videos as soon as they come out press the subscribe button