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166-582: Concerns had been raised in Russia for some time regarding the alleged attempts in some former Soviet countries to revise the outcome of the Nuremberg Trials and rewrite the history of World War II, before the suggestion of the federal Minister of Emergency Situations , Sergey Shoygu , finally raised the issue to that of a state political matter in February 2009. According to commission chairman Sergey Naryshkin ,

332-521: A Greater Germany beyond the frontiers of 1914 ". Contrary to Jackson's argument that the conspiracy began with the founding of the Nazi Party in 1920, the verdict dated the planning of aggression to the 1937 Hossbach Memorandum . The conspiracy charge caused significant dissent on the bench; Donnedieu de Vabres wanted to scrap it. Through a compromise proposed by the British judges, the charge of conspiracy

498-907: A show trial (the Soviet Union) to summary executions (the United Kingdom). In mid-1945, France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States agreed to convene a joint tribunal in Nuremberg , occupied Germany , with the Nuremberg Charter as its legal instrument. Between 20 November 1945 and 1 October 1946, the International Military Tribunal ( IMT ) tried 22 of the most important surviving leaders of Nazi Germany in

664-711: A General European Treaty on Collective Security in Europe "open to all European States without regard to their social systems", which would have included the unified Germany (thus rendering the EDC obsolete). But Eden, Dulles, and Bidault opposed the proposal. One month later, the proposed European Treaty was rejected not only by supporters of the EDC, but also by Western opponents of the European Defence Community (like French Gaullist leader Gaston Palewski ) who perceived it as "unacceptable in its present form because it excludes

830-615: A UN resolution to establish a nuclear-free zone in Latin America when the other Soviet-aligned countries abstained, or why in 1964 Romania opposed the Soviet-proposed "strong collective riposte" against China (and these are examples solely from the 1963–1964 period). Soviet disinformation tried to convince the West that Ceaușescu's empowerment was a dissimulation in connivance with Moscow. To an extent this worked, as some historians came to see

996-407: A crime against humanity—and the Soviet Union wanted to avoid giving an international court jurisdiction over a government's treatment of its own citizens. The charter upended the traditional view of international law by holding individuals, rather than states , responsible for breaches. The other three Allies' proposal to limit the definition of the crimes to acts committed by the defeated Axis

1162-411: A deadlock between the judges; these acquittals surprised observers. Despite being accused of the same crimes, Sauckel was sentenced to death, while Speer was given a prison sentence because the judges considered that he could reform. Nikichenko released a dissent approved by Moscow that rejected all the acquittals, called for a death sentence for Hess, and convicted all the organizations. Initially, it

1328-495: A major objective of US policy towards Europe: to associate West Germany militarily with the West. The US Department of State started to elaborate alternatives: West Germany would be invited to join NATO or, in the case of French obstructionism, strategies to circumvent a French veto would be implemented in order to obtain German rearmament outside NATO. On 23 October 1954 , the admission of

1494-583: A nationalist, as well as privileged access to NATO counterparts and a seat at various European forums which otherwise he would not have had (for instance, Romania and the Soviet-led remainder of the Warsaw Pact formed two distinct groups in the elaboration of the Helsinki Final Act ). When Andrei Grechko assumed command of the Warsaw Pact, both Romania and Albania had for all practical purposes defected from

1660-648: A promise was included in a declaration by the occupied countries in November 1941, gathered at a conference organized on Poland's initiative. Another conference, held in January 1942, saw the participation of observers from the USSR, US, China, and the United Kingdom. It adopted a declaration promising to punish both direct perpetrators and their superiors, which later became the basis of the Nuremberg system. The Inter-Allied Commission on

1826-413: A remilitarized West Germany potentially opposed to the Soviet Union, with no success. On 14 May 1955, the USSR and seven other Eastern European countries "reaffirming their desire for the establishment of a system of European collective security based on the participation of all European states irrespective of their social and political systems" established the Warsaw Pact in response to the integration of

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1992-607: A show trial prosecutor chosen for his skill as an orator. The Soviet judges and prosecutors were not permitted to make any major decisions without consulting a commission in Moscow led by Soviet politician Andrei Vyshinsky ; the resulting delays hampered the Soviet effort to set the agenda. The influence of the Soviet delegation was also constrained by limited English proficiency, lack of interpreters, and unfamiliarity with diplomacy and international institutions. Requests by Chaim Weizmann ,

2158-438: A thousand employees from the four countries' delegations in Nuremberg, of which about two thirds were from the United States. Besides legal professionals, there were many social-science researchers, psychologists, translators, and interpreters, and graphic designers , the last to make the many charts used during the trial. Each state appointed a prosecution team and two judges, one being a deputy without voting rights. Jackson

2324-422: A vote. The International Military Tribunal agreed with the prosecution that aggression was the gravest charge against the accused, stating in its judgment that because "war is essentially an evil thing", "to initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of

2490-526: A way to try crimes against German citizens, such as the German Jews . A Soviet proposal for a charge of "crimes against civilians" was renamed "crimes against humanity" at Jackson's suggestion after previous uses of the term in the post-World War I Commission of Responsibilities and in failed efforts to prosecute the perpetrators of the Armenian genocide . The British proposal to define crimes against humanity

2656-458: A wide variety of crimes committed by the German occupiers as part of their destructive and unprovoked invasion. Rudenko tried to emphasize common ground with the other Allies while rejecting any similarity between Nazi and Soviet rule. The next week, the Soviet prosecution produced Friedrich Paulus —a German field marshal captured after the Battle of Stalingrad —as a witness and questioned him about

2822-488: Is happening in Russia right now." Historian and author Orlando Figes , a professor at the University of London , who views the new commission is part of a clampdown on historical scholarship, stated: "They're idiots if they think they can change the discussion of Soviet history internationally, but they can make it hard for Russian historians to teach and publish. It's like we're back to the old days." Professor Steven Blank of

2988-555: The Allies against representatives of the defeated Nazi Germany for plotting and carrying out invasions of other countries across Europe and atrocities against their citizens in World War II . Between 1939 and 1945, Nazi Germany invaded many countries across Europe, inflicting 27 million deaths in the Soviet Union alone. Proposals for how to punish the defeated Nazi leaders ranged from

3154-567: The Balkans . Other generals were tried in the High Command Trial for plotting wars of aggression, issuing criminal orders , deporting civilians, using slave labor, and looting in the Soviet Union. These trials emphasized the crimes committed during the Holocaust. The trials heard 1,300 witnesses, entered more than 30,000 documents into evidence, and generated 132,855 pages of transcripts, with

3320-656: The Cold War . The term "Warsaw Pact" commonly refers to both the treaty itself and its resultant military alliance , the Warsaw Treaty Organization ( WTO ). The Warsaw Pact was the military complement to the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (Comecon), the economic organization for the Eastern Bloc states. Dominated by the Soviet Union, the Warsaw Pact was established as a balance of power or counterweight to

3486-820: The Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) in 1992, and the Shanghai Five in 1996, which was renamed the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) after Uzbekistan 's addition in 2001. In November 2005, the Polish government opened its Warsaw Treaty archives to the Institute of National Remembrance , which published some 1,300 declassified documents in January 2006, yet the Polish government reserved publication of 100 documents, pending their military declassification. Eventually, 30 of

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3652-814: The Foreign Office . Also on trial were industrialists —in the Flick trial , the IG Farben trial , and the Krupp trial —for using forced labor, looting property from Nazi victims, and funding SS atrocities. 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 ;

3818-574: The General Governorate of Poland; Hitler Youth leader Baldur von Schirach ; Arthur Seyss-Inquart , Reich Commissioner for the Netherlands ; and Ernst Kaltenbrunner , the leader of Himmler's Reich Main Security Office . Observers of the trial found the defendants mediocre and contemptible. Although the list of defendants was finalized on 29 August, as late as October, Jackson demanded

3984-595: The Imre Nagy government of the withdrawal of Hungary from the Warsaw Pact, Soviet troops entered the country and removed the government . Soviet forces crushed the nationwide revolt, leading to the death of an estimated 2,500 Hungarian citizens. The multi-national Communist armed forces' sole joint action was the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia , another Warsaw Pact member state, in August 1968. All member countries, with

4150-614: The Katyn massacre , which had in fact been committed by the NKVD . Although Western prosecutors never publicly rejected the Katyn charge for fear of casting doubt on the entire proceedings, they were skeptical. The defense presented evidence of Soviet responsibility, and Katyn was not mentioned in the verdict. Inspired by the films shown by the American prosecution, the Soviet Union commissioned three films for

4316-659: The Marshall Plan ." In November 1956, Soviet forces invaded Hungary , a Warsaw Pact member state, and violently put down the Hungarian Revolution . After that, the USSR made bilateral 20-year-treaties with Poland (17 December 1956), the GDR (12 March 1957), Romania (15 April 1957; Soviet forces were later removed as part of Romania's de-satellization ), and Hungary (27 May 1957), ensuring that Soviet troops were deployed in these countries. The founding signatories of

4482-530: The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the Western Bloc . There was no direct military confrontation between the two organizations; instead, the conflict was fought on an ideological basis and through proxy wars . Both NATO and the Warsaw Pact led to the expansion of military forces and their integration into the respective blocs. The Warsaw Pact's largest military engagement was

4648-613: The Palace of Justice in Nuremberg . Located in the American occupation zone , Nuremberg was a symbolic location as the site of Nazi rallies . The Palace of Justice was relatively intact but needed to be renovated for the trial due to bomb damage ; it had an attached prison where the defendants could be held. On 8 August, the Nuremberg Charter was signed in London. In early 1946, there were

4814-606: The Pan-European Picnic in August 1989. East Germany withdrew from the pact following German reunification in 1990. On 25 February 1991, at a meeting in Hungary, the pact was declared at an end by the defense and foreign ministers of the six remaining member states. The USSR itself was dissolved in December 1991 , although most of the former Soviet republics formed the Collective Security Treaty Organization shortly thereafter. In

4980-679: 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. Luftwaffe general Erhard Milch was tried for using slave labor and deporting civilians. In the Hostages case , several generals were tried for executing thousands of hostages and prisoners of war, looting, using forced labor, and deporting civilians in

5146-566: The Russian Academy of Sciences ) Natalia Narochnitskaya , Andrey Sakharov (before 2010 the head of the Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences) and Nikolai Svanidze . In an interview with the website Liberty.ru, historian Alexander Dyukov has said that "only those who falsify history need fear the work of the commission". Russian opposition politicians attacked

Presidential Commission of the Russian Federation to Counter Attempts to Falsify History to the Detriment of Russia's Interests - Misplaced Pages Continue

5312-626: The SS and the SD , and the General Staff and High Command of the German military (Wehrmacht). The aim was to have these organizations declared criminal, so that their members could be tried expeditiously for membership in a criminal organization. Senior American officials believed that convicting organizations was a good way of showing that not just the top German leaders were responsible for crimes, without condemning

5478-474: The U.S. Army War College found the formation of the commission to be a further regress toward Soviet and Stalinist practices, glorifying Soviet empire and its crimes. The Economist found the commission and the law to be a demand "that other countries abandon complexity and fit their history into the Soviet straitjacket" and notes that although it was hard to explain Stalin's crimes convincingly during Soviet era,

5644-691: The Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia , its own member state, in August 1968 (with the participation of all pact nations except Albania and Romania ), which, in part, resulted in Albania withdrawing from the pact less than one month later. The pact began to unravel with the spread of the Revolutions of 1989 through the Eastern Bloc, beginning with the Solidarity movement in Poland, its electoral success in June 1989 and

5810-527: The Western Front (France) and the Eastern Front (the Soviet Union). The United States delegation outlined the overall Nazi conspiracy and criminality of Nazi organizations. The British and American delegations decided to work jointly in drafting the charges of conspiracy to wage aggressive war. On 17 September, the various delegations met to discuss the indictment. The charge of conspiracy , absent from

5976-421: The liberation of Nazi concentration camps , shocked both the defendants and the judges, who adjourned the trial. Indiscriminate selection and disorganized presentation of documentary evidence without tying it to specific defendants hampered the American prosecutors' work on the conspiracy to commit crimes against humanity. The Americans summoned Einsatzgruppen commander Otto Ohlendorf , who testified about

6142-643: The massacre in Katyn . Critics said the official view from Moscow glossed over Soviet-era crimes. In many countries the years of the Soviet Union are seen as hostile Soviet occupations . Some critics, like Heorhiy Kasyanov from the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine , said the Kremlin was trying to whitewash Soviet history in order to justify its denial of human rights: "It's part of the Russian Federation's policy to create an ideological foundation for what

6308-456: The summary execution of Nazi leaders, citing the failure of trials after World War I and qualms about retroactive criminality . The form that retribution would take was left unresolved at the Yalta Conference in February 1945. On 2 May, at the San Francisco Conference , United States president Harry S. Truman announced the formation of an international military tribunal. On 8 May, Germany surrendered unconditionally , bringing an end to

6474-432: The systematic murder of Jews in eastern Europe , at times they blurred the fate of Jews with that of other Soviet nationalities. Although these aspects had already been covered by the American prosecution, Soviet prosecutors introduced new evidence from Extraordinary State Commission reports and interrogations of senior enemy officers. Lev Smirnov presented evidence on the Lidice massacre in Czechoslovakia, adding that

6640-503: The 1930s Moscow trials , in order to demonstrate the Nazi leaders' guilt and build a case for war reparations to rebuild the Soviet economy , which had been devastated by the war. The United States insisted on a trial that would be seen as legitimate as a means of reforming Germany and demonstrating the superiority of the Western system. The United States Department of War was drawing up plans for an international tribunal in late 1944 and early 1945. The British government still preferred

6806-448: The American hegemony (mainly military and economic) over NATO, all decisions of the North Atlantic Alliance required unanimous consensus in the North Atlantic Council and the entry of countries into the alliance was not subject to domination but rather a natural democratic process. In the Warsaw Pact, decisions were ultimately taken by the Soviet Union alone; the countries of the Warsaw Pact were not equally able to negotiate their entry in

Presidential Commission of the Russian Federation to Counter Attempts to Falsify History to the Detriment of Russia's Interests - Misplaced Pages Continue

6972-454: The American prosecution submitted many documents at the beginning of the trial, the judges insisted that all of the evidence be read into the record, which slowed the trial. The structure of the charges also caused delays as the same evidence ended up being read out multiple times, when it was relevant to both conspiracy and the other charges. The International Military Tribunal began trial on 20 November 1945, after postponement requests from

7138-445: The British and Americans presented evidence against individual defendants. Besides the organizations mentioned in the indictment, American, and British prosecutors also mentioned the complicity of the German Foreign Office , army , and navy . From 17 January to 7 February 1946, France presented its charges and supporting evidence. In contrast to the other prosecution teams, the French prosecution delved into Germany's development in

7304-402: The Federal Republic of Germany into NATO, declaring that: "a remilitarized Western Germany and the integration of the latter in the North-Atlantic bloc [...] increase the danger of another war and constitutes a threat to the national security of the peaceable states; [...] in these circumstances the peaceable European states must take the necessary measures to safeguard their security". One of

7470-411: The Federal Republic of Germany to the North Atlantic Pact was finally decided. The incorporation of West Germany into the organization on 9 May 1955 was described as "a decisive turning point in the history of our continent" by Halvard Lange , Foreign Affairs Minister of Norway at the time. In November 1954, the USSR requested a new European Security Treaty, in order to make a final attempt to not have

7636-582: The German annexation of Alsace–Lorraine , under the label of Germanization , which he argued was a crime against humanity. Unlike the British and American prosecution strategies, which focused on using German documents to make their cases, the French prosecutors took the perspective of the victims, submitting postwar police reports. Eleven witnesses, including victims of Nazi persecution, were called; resistance fighter and Auschwitz survivor Marie Claude Vaillant-Couturier testified about crimes she had witnessed. The French charges of war crimes were accepted by

7802-737: 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 . While the British were skeptical of prosecuting economic leaders, the French had a strong interest in highlighting German economic imperialism. The military leaders were Hermann Göring —the most infamous surviving Nazi — Wilhelm Keitel , Alfred Jodl , Erich Raeder , and Karl Dönitz . Also on trial were propagandists Julius Streicher and Hans Fritzsche ; Rudolf Hess , Hitler's deputy who had flown to Britain in 1941; Hans Frank , governor-general of

7968-458: The German invaders had destroyed thousands of villages and murdered their inhabitants throughout eastern Europe. The Soviet prosecution emphasized the racist aspect of policies such as the deportation of millions of civilians to Germany for forced labor , the murder of children, systematic looting of occupied territories, and theft or destruction of cultural heritage . The Soviet prosecution also attempted to fabricate German responsibility for

8134-521: The German press. Sentences were debated at length by the judges. Twelve of the defendants were sentenced to death (Göring, Ribbentrop, Keitel, Kaltenbrunner, Rosenberg, Frank, Frick, Streicher, Sauckel, Jodl, Seyss-Inquart, and Bormann). On 16 October, ten were hanged , with Göring killing himself the day before. Seven defendants (Hess, Funk, Raeder, Dönitz, Schirach, Speer, and Neurath) were sent to Spandau Prison to serve their sentences. All three acquittals (Papen, Schacht, and Fritzsche) were based on

8300-404: The IMT. In all, 249 journalists were accredited to cover the IMT and 61,854 visitor tickets were issued. In France, the sentence for Rudolf Hess and acquittal of organizations were met with outrage from the media and especially from organizations for deportees and resistance fighters, as they were perceived as too lenient. In the United Kingdom, although a variety of responses were reported, it

8466-438: The London Conference. The French government tried to appoint staff who were not tainted by collaboration with the Vichy regime; some appointments, including Champetier de Ribes, were of those who had been in the French resistance . Expecting a show trial, the Soviet Union initially appointed as chief prosecutor Iona Nikitchenko , who had presided over the Moscow trials, but he was made a judge and replaced by Roman Rudenko ,

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8632-480: The Nazi system, but Göring took the opposite approach, expecting to be executed but vindicated in the eyes of the German people. The charter did not recognize a tu quoque defense —asking for exoneration on the grounds that the Allies had committed the same crimes with which the defendants were charged. Although defense lawyers repeatedly equated the Nuremberg Laws to legislation found in other countries, Nazi concentration camps to Allied detention facilities, and

8798-440: The Pact consisted of the following communist governments: [REDACTED]   Mongolia : In July 1963, the Mongolian People's Republic asked to join the Warsaw Pact under Article 9 of the treaty. Due to the emerging Sino-Soviet split , Mongolia remained in an observer status. In what was the first instance of a Soviet initiative being blocked by a non-Soviet member of the Warsaw Pact, Romania blocked Mongolia's accession to

8964-422: The Pact nor the decisions taken. Although nominally a "defensive" alliance, the Pact's primary function was to safeguard the Soviet Union's hegemony over its Eastern European satellites, with the Pact's only direct military actions having been the invasions of its own member states to keep them from breaking away. Romania and, until 1968, Albania – were exceptions. Together with Yugoslavia, which broke with

9130-439: The Pact. In the early 1960s, Grechko initiated programs meant to preempt Romanian doctrinal heresies from spreading to other Pact members. Romania's doctrine of territorial defense threatened the Pact's unity and cohesion. No other country succeeded in escaping from the Warsaw Pact like Romania and Albania did. For example, the mainstays of Romania's tank forces were locally developed models. Soviet troops were deployed to Romania for

9296-480: The Punishment of War Crimes was also established at that time. The United States and United Kingdom refused to endorse this proposal, citing the failure of war crimes prosecutions after World War I . Pressures, primarily from Poland and Czechoslovakia, led the British to take concrete steps in the area of prosecuting German crimes. The London-based United Nations War Crimes Commission —without Soviet participation—first met in October 1943 and became bogged down in

9462-407: The Reich Cabinet, and the General Staff and High Command were not ruled to be criminal organizations. Although the Wehrmacht leadership was not considered an organization within the meaning of the charter, misrepresentation of the verdict as an exoneration was one of the foundations of the clean Wehrmacht myth . The trial had nevertheless resulted in the coverage of its systematic criminality in

9628-400: The Russians and to press on the European Defense Community". According to John Gaddis , "there was little inclination in Western capitals to explore this offer" from the USSR, while historian Rolf Steininger asserts that Adenauer's conviction that "neutralization means sovietization ", referring to the Soviet Union's policies towards Finland known as finlandization , was the main factor in

9794-425: The Soviet Union before the Warsaw Pact was created, these three countries completely rejected the Soviet doctrine formulated for the Pact. Albania officially left the organization in 1968, in protest of its invasion of Czechoslovakia. Romania had its own reasons for remaining a formal member of the Warsaw Pact, such as Nicolae Ceaușescu 's interest of preserving the threat of a Pact invasion so he could sell himself as

9960-402: The Soviet Union already had an armed presence and political domination all over its eastern satellite states by 1955, the pact has been long considered "superfluous", and because of the rushed way in which it was conceived, NATO officials labeled it a "cardboard castle". The USSR, fearing the restoration of German militarism in West Germany, had suggested in 1954 that it join NATO, but this

10126-655: The Soviet Union arrogated the right to define socialism and communism and act as the leader of the global socialist movement. A corollary to this was the necessity of military intervention if a country appeared to be "violating" core socialist ideas, i.e. breaking away from the Soviet sphere of influence , explicitly stated in the Brezhnev Doctrine . estimates On 12 March 1999, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland joined NATO ; Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovenia and Slovakia joined in March 2004; Croatia and Albania joined on 1 April 2009. The USSR's successor Russia and some other post-Soviet states joined

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10292-433: The Soviet Union. On 31 August, closing arguments were presented. 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. In contrast to the opening prosecution statements, all eight closing statements highlighted the Holocaust; and the French and British prosecutors made this

10458-427: The Soviet prosecution, who wanted more time to prepare its case, were rejected. All defendants pleaded not guilty. Jackson made it clear that the trial's purpose extended beyond convicting the defendants. Prosecutors wanted to assemble irrefutable evidence of Nazi crimes, establish individual responsibility and the crime of aggression in international law, provide a history lesson to the defeated Germans, delegitimize

10624-399: The Soviets decided to declare their "readiness to examine jointly with other interested parties the question of the participation of the USSR in the North Atlantic bloc", specifying that "the admittance of the USA into the General European Agreement should not be conditional on the three Western powers agreeing to the USSR joining the North Atlantic Pact". Again, all Soviet proposals, including

10790-420: The Soviets that it would remain in the Pact, this broke the brackets of Eastern Europe, which could no longer be held together militarily by the Warsaw Pact. Independent national politics made feasible with the perestroika and liberal glasnost policies revealed shortcomings and failures (i.e. of the soviet-type economic planning model) and induced institutional collapse of the Communist government in

10956-417: The USA from participation in the collective security system in Europe". The Soviets then decided to make a new proposal to the governments of the US, UK, and France to accept the participation of the US in the proposed General European Agreement. As another argument deployed against the Soviet proposal was that it was perceived by Western powers as "directed against the North Atlantic Pact and its liquidation",

11122-424: The USSR , and the Chief of Combined Staff of the Unified Armed Forces of the Warsaw Treaty Organization was also a First Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Soviet Armed Forces . On the contrary, the Secretary General of NATO and Chair of the NATO Military Committee are positions with fixed term of office held on a random rotating basis by officials from all member countries through consensus. Despite

11288-431: The USSR in 1991. From 1989 to 1991, Communist governments were overthrown in Albania , Poland , Hungary , Czechoslovakia , East Germany , Romania , Bulgaria , Yugoslavia , and the Soviet Union . As the last acts of the Cold War were playing out, several Warsaw Pact states (Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary) participated in the US-led coalition effort to liberate Kuwait in the Gulf War . On 25 February 1991,

11454-556: The United States Army's refusal to publish the trial record in German for fear it would undermine the fight against communism. The German churches, both Catholic and Protestant, were vocal proponents of amnesty. The pardon of convicted war criminals also had cross-party support in West Germany , which was established in 1949. The Americans satisfied these wishes to bind West Germany to the Western Bloc , beginning early releases of Nuremberg Military Tribunal convicts in 1949. In 1951, High Commissioner John J. McCloy overturned most of

11620-411: The United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies implemented strategic policies aimed at the containment of each other in Europe, while working and fighting for influence within the wider Cold War on the international stage. These included the Korean War , Vietnam War , Bay of Pigs invasion , Dirty War , Cambodian–Vietnamese War , and others. In 1956, following the declaration of

11786-412: The United States over the Western Bloc . All Warsaw Pact commanders had to be, and have been, senior officers of the Soviet Union at the same time and appointed for an unspecified term length: the Supreme Commander of the Unified Armed Forces of the Warsaw Treaty Organization , which commanded and controlled all the military forces of the member countries, was also a First Deputy Minister of Defence of

11952-565: The United States, meeting Nixon , Eisenhower , and Dulles . Ratification of the EDC was delayed but the US representatives made it clear to Adenauer that the EDC would have to become a part of NATO. Memories of the Nazi occupation were still strong, and the rearmament of Germany was feared by France too. On 30 August 1954, the French Parliament rejected the EDC, thus ensuring its failure and blocking

12118-666: The Warsaw Pact was declared disbanded at a meeting of defence and foreign ministers from remaining Pact countries meeting in Hungary. On 1 July 1991, in Prague , the Czechoslovak President Václav Havel formally ended the 1955 Warsaw Treaty Organization of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance and so disestablished the Warsaw Treaty after 36 years of military alliance with the USSR. The USSR disestablished itself in December 1991. The Warsaw Treaty's organization

12284-462: The Warsaw Pact, regardless of military power, was the Pan-European Picnic in August 1989. The event, which goes back to an idea by Otto von Habsburg , caused the mass exodus of GDR citizens and the media-informed population of Eastern Europe felt the loss of power of their rulers and the Iron Curtain broke down completely. Though Poland's new Solidarity government under Lech Wałęsa initially assured

12450-557: The Warsaw Pact. The Soviet government agreed to station troops in Mongolia in 1966. At first, China , North Korea , and North Vietnam had observer status, but China withdrew in 1961 as a consequence of the Albanian-Soviet split , in which China backed Albania against the USSR as part of the larger Sino-Soviet split of the early 1960s. For 36 years, NATO and the Warsaw Pact never directly waged war against each other in Europe;

12616-478: 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. The International Military Tribunal, and its charter, "marked the true beginning of international criminal law ". The trial has met a mixed reception ranging from glorification to condemnation. The reaction

12782-433: The accumulated evil of the whole". Most of the defendants were also charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity , and the systematic murder of millions of Jews in the Holocaust was significant to the trial. Twelve further trials were conducted by the United States against lower-level perpetrators, which focused more on the Holocaust. Controversial at the time for their retroactive criminalization of aggression,

12948-502: The addition of new names, but this was rejected. Of the 24 men indicted, Martin Bormann was tried in absentia , as the Allies were unaware of his death; Krupp was too ill to stand trial; and Robert Ley had committed suicide before the start of the trial. Former Nazis were allowed to serve as counsel and by mid-November all defendants had lawyers. The defendants' lawyers jointly appealed to

13114-408: The charter, held together the wide array of charges and defendants and was used to charge the top Nazi leaders, as well as bureaucrats who had never killed anyone or perhaps even directly ordered killing. It was also an end run on the charter's limits on charging crimes committed before the beginning of World War II. Conspiracy charges were central to the cases against propagandists and industrialists:

13280-551: The commission as effectively reintroducing state ideology for the first time since the fall of the Soviet Union, which was explicitly forbidden by the Constitution of Russia of that time. According to former Duma deputy, Vladimir Ryzhkov of the Russian Republican Party , the commission and new legislation criminalizing criticism of the Soviet Union allows the state to impose its own idea of political will and ideology and

13446-429: The commission for the numbers of professional historians there; he counted three members as historians out of actual five, stating "even they are not recognized among professionals." The legislation received criticism in many countries, mainly former Warsaw Pact and former Soviet republics . The Baltic states argue about the recognition of the occupation , Ukraine disputes the famine in 1930s , and Poland argues

13612-576: The complete withdrawal of the Soviet Army from its territory in 1958. The Romanian campaign for independence culminated on 22 April 1964 when the Romanian Communist Party issued a declaration proclaiming that: "Every Marxist–Leninist Party has a sovereign right...to elaborate, choose or change the forms and methods of socialist construction." and "There exists no "parent" party and "offspring" party, no "superior" and "subordinated" parties, but only

13778-417: The concept of crimes against peace (waging aggressive war ) which would later be central to the proceedings at Nuremberg. Trainin's ideas were reprinted in the West and widely adopted. Of all the Allies , the Soviet Union lobbied most intensely for trying the defeated German leaders for aggression in addition to war crimes. The Soviet Union wanted to hold a trial with a predetermined outcome similar to

13944-432: The conference, it was debated whether wars of aggression were prohibited in existing customary international law ; regardless, before the charter was adopted there was no law providing for criminal responsibility for aggression. Despite misgivings from other Allies, American negotiator and Supreme Court justice Robert H. Jackson threatened the United States' withdrawal if aggression was not prosecuted because it had been

14110-486: The conspiracy charge "invited apologetic interpretations: narratives of absolute, totalitarian dictatorship, run by society's lunatic fringe, of which the Germans had been the first victims rather than agents, collaborators, and fellow travellers ". In contrast, the evidence presented on the Holocaust convinced some observers that Germans must have been aware of this crime while it was ongoing. On 21 November, Jackson gave

14276-463: The country. Moscow controlled the Communist parties that ruled the satellite states, and they followed orders from the Kremlin. Historian Mark Kramer concludes: "The net outflow of resources from eastern Europe to the Soviet Union was approximately $ 15 billion to $ 20 billion in the first decade after World War II, an amount roughly equal to the total aid provided by the United States to western Europe under

14442-618: The court's jurisdiction because the prosecution had not proven a connection to aggressive war. Four organizations were ruled to be criminal: the Leadership Corps of the Nazi Party, the SS, the Gestapo, and the SD, although some lower ranks and subgroups were excluded. The verdict only allowed for individual criminal responsibility if willing membership and knowledge of the criminal purpose could be proved, complicating denazification efforts. The SA,

14608-657: The court, claiming it did not have jurisdiction against the accused; but this motion was rejected. The defense lawyers saw themselves as acting on behalf of their clients, but also the German nation. Initially, the Americans had planned to try fourteen organizations and their leaders, but this was narrowed to six: the Reich Cabinet , the Leadership Corps of the Nazi Party , the Gestapo , the SA ,

14774-450: The defendants had surrendered to the United States or United Kingdom. The defendants, who were largely unrepentant, included former cabinet ministers: Franz von Papen (who had brought Hitler to power ); Joachim von Ribbentrop ( foreign minister ), Konstantin von Neurath ( foreign minister ). Wilhelm Frick ( interior minister ), and Alfred Rosenberg (minister for the occupied eastern territories). Also prosecuted were leaders of

14940-514: The defense's 83 , not including 19 defendants who testified on their own behalf. The prosecution examined 110,000 captured German documents and entered 4,600 into evidence, along with 30 kilometres (19 mi) of film and 25,000 photographs. The charter allowed the admissibility of any evidence deemed to have probative value, including depositions . Because of the loose evidentiary rules, photographs, charts, maps, and films played an important role in making incredible crimes believable. After

15106-563: The deportation of Jews to the expulsion of Germans , the judges rejected their arguments. Alfred Seidl  [ de ] repeatedly tried to disclose the secret protocols of the German–Soviet pact; although he was eventually successful, it was legally irrelevant and the judges rejected his attempt to bring up the Treaty of Versailles . Six defendants were charged with the German invasion of Norway , and their lawyers argued that this invasion

15272-427: The developments. The business daily Vedomosti noted the name of the commission leaves the way clear for the falsification of history in favor of Russia, establishing a " cult of victory "—similar to the civil religions upon which authoritarian and totalitarian states have been built in the past. Journalist and author Yulia Latynina compared the commission to George Orwell 's Nineteen Eighty-Four : "The whole idea

15438-437: The entire German people. Over the summer, all of the national delegations struggled to gather evidence for the upcoming trial. The American and British prosecutors focused on documentary evidence and affidavits rather than testimony from survivors. This strategy increased the credibility of their case, since survivor testimony was considered less reliable and more vulnerable to accusations of bias, but reduced public interest in

15604-517: The exception of the Socialist Republic of Romania and the People's Republic of Albania , participated in the invasion. The German Democratic Republic provided only minimal support. (Albania withdrew from the pact one month after this intervention.) In 1989, popular civil and political public discontent toppled the Communist governments of the Warsaw Treaty countries. The beginning of the end of

15770-596: The following 20 years, the Warsaw Pact countries outside the USSR each joined NATO (East Germany through its reunification with West Germany; and the Czech Republic and Slovakia as separate countries), as did the Baltic states . Before the creation of the Warsaw Pact, the Czechoslovak leadership, fearful of a rearmed Germany, sought to create a security pact with East Germany and Poland. These states protested strongly against

15936-441: The former were charged with providing the ideological justification for war and other crimes, while the latter were accused of enabling Germany's war effort. The charge, a brainchild of War Department lawyer Murray C. Bernays , and perhaps inspired by his previous work prosecuting securities fraud , was spearheaded by the United States and less popular with the other delegations, particularly France. The problem of translating

16102-574: The founding members, East Germany , was allowed to re-arm by the Soviet Union and the National People's Army was established as the armed forces of the country to counter the rearmament of West Germany. The USSR concentrated on its own recovery, seizing and transferring most of Germany's industrial plants, and it exacted war reparations from East Germany, Hungary , Romania , and Bulgaria using Soviet-dominated joint enterprises. It also instituted trading arrangements deliberately designed to favour

16268-400: The governments-in-exile of countries occupied by Germany, especially Poland , which as early as December 1939 established agencies aimed at recording crimes committed by Germany in Poland for their later prosecution. These efforts resulted in a Polish-French-British declaration on April 18, 1940, holding Germany responsible for the crimes, without an explicit promise of their prosecution. Such

16434-517: The hand of Moscow behind every Romanian initiative. For instance, when Romania became the only Eastern European country to maintain diplomatic relations with Israel, some historians have speculated that this was at Moscow's whim. However, this theory fails upon closer inspection. Even during the Cold War, some thought that Romanian actions were done at the behest of the Soviets, but Soviet anger at said actions

16600-421: The impression of apologizing without assuming personal guilt or naming any victims other than the German people. 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. The verdict was drafted by British deputy judge Norman Birkett . All eight judges participated in the deliberations, but the deputies could not cast

16766-522: The indictment and evidence into the three official languages of the tribunal—English, French, and Russian—as well as German was severe due to the scale of the task and difficulty of recruiting interpreters, especially in the Soviet Union. Vyshinsky demanded extensive corrections to the charges of crimes against peace, especially regarding the role of the German–Soviet pact in starting World War II. Jackson also separated out an overall conspiracy charge from

16932-674: The individual guilt of each defendant. None of the defendants tried to assert that the Nazis' crimes had not occurred. Some defendants denied involvement in certain crimes or implausibly claimed ignorance of them, especially the Final Solution. A few defense lawyers inverted the arguments of the prosecution to assert that the Germans' authoritarian mindset and obedience to the state exonerated them from any personal guilt. Most rejected that Germany had deviated from Western civilization, arguing that few Germans could have supported Hitler because Germany

17098-558: The intelligence and security services. Not only did Romania not participate in joint operations with the KGB, but it also set up "departments specialized in anti-KGB counterespionage". Romania was neutral in the Sino-Soviet split . Its neutrality in the Sino-Soviet dispute along with being the small Communist country with the most influence in global affairs enabled Romania to be recognized by

17264-452: The judgments totaling 3,828 pages. Of 177 defendants, 142 were convicted and 25 sentenced to death; the severity of sentencing was related to the defendant's proximity to mass murder. Legal historian Kevin Jon Heller argues that the trials' greatest achievement was "their inestimable contribution to the form and substance of international criminal law", which had been left underdeveloped by

17430-503: The large family of communist and workers' parties having equal rights." and also "there are not and there can be no unique patterns and recipes". This amounted to a declaration of political and ideological independence from Moscow. Following Albania's withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact, Romania remained the only Pact member with an independent military doctrine which denied the Soviet Union use of its armed forces and avoided absolute dependence on Soviet sources of military equipment. Romania

17596-415: The largest delegation, it would take on the bulk of the prosecutorial effort. At Jackson's recommendation, the United States appointed judges Francis Biddle and John Parker . The British chief prosecutor was Hartley Shawcross , Attorney General for England and Wales , assisted by his predecessor David Maxwell Fyfe . Although the chief British judge, Sir Geoffrey Lawrence ( Lord Justice of Appeal ),

17762-417: The last time in 1963, as part of a Warsaw Pact exercise. After 1964, the Soviet Army was barred from returning to Romania, as the country refused to take part in joint Pact exercises. Even before the advent of Nicolae Ceaușescu , Romania was in fact an independent country, as opposed to the rest of the Warsaw Pact. To some extent, it was even more independent than Cuba (a communist Soviet-aligned state that

17928-493: The main charge, as opposed to that of aggression. All prosecutors except the Americans mentioned the concept of genocide , which had been recently invented by the Polish-Jewish jurist Raphael Lemkin . British prosecutor Shawcross quoted from witness testimony about a murdered Jewish family from Dubno , Ukraine. During the closing statements, most defendants disappointed the judges by their lies and denial. Speer managed to give

18094-518: The murder of 80,000 people by those under his command, and SS general Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski , who admitted that German anti-partisan warfare was little more than a cover for the mass murder of Jews. The British prosecution covered the charge of crimes against peace, which was largely redundant to the American conspiracy case. On 4 December, Shawcross gave the opening speech, much of which had been written by Cambridge professor Hersch Lauterpacht . Unlike Jackson, Shawcross attempted to minimize

18260-411: The murder of tens of thousands of Jews from Vilna . The Soviet prosecution case was generally well received and presented compelling evidence about the suffering of the Soviet people and the Soviet contributions to victory. From March to July 1946, the defense presented its counterarguments. Before the prosecution finished, it was clear that their general case was proven, but it remained to determine

18426-558: The nineteenth century, arguing that it had diverged from the West due to pan-Germanism and imperialism. They argued that Nazi ideology, which derived from these earlier ideas, was the mens rea —criminal intent—of the crimes on trial. The French prosecutors, more than their British or American counterparts, emphasized the complicity of many Germans; they barely mentioned the charge of aggressive war and instead focused on forced labor, economic plunder, and massacres. Prosecutor Edgar Faure grouped together various German policies, such as

18592-590: The novelty of the aggression charges, elaborating its precursors in the conventions of Hague and Geneva , the League of Nations Covenant , the Locarno Treaty , and the Kellogg–Briand Pact . The British took four days to make their case, with Maxwell Fyfe detailing treaties broken by Germany. In mid-December the Americans switched to presenting the case against the indicted organizations, while in January both

18758-413: The opening speech for the prosecution. He described the fact that the defeated Nazis received a trial as "one of the most significant tributes that Power has ever paid to Reason". Focusing on aggressive war, which he described as the root of the other crimes, Jackson promoted an intentionalist view of the Nazi state and its overall criminal conspiracy. The speech was favorably received by the prosecution,

18924-623: The other three charges, aiming that the American prosecution would cover the overall Nazi conspiracy while the other delegations would flesh out the details of Nazi crimes. The division of labor, and the haste with which the indictment was prepared, resulted in duplication, imprecise language, and lack of attribution of specific charges to individual defendants. Some of the most prominent Nazis— Adolf Hitler , Heinrich Himmler , and Joseph Goebbels —had committed suicide and therefore could not be tried. The prosecutors wanted to try representative leaders of German politics, economy, and military. Most of

19090-477: The political, military, and economic spheres, as well as six German organizations. The purpose of the trial was not just to convict the defendants but also to assemble irrefutable evidence of Nazi crimes, offer a history lesson to the defeated Germans, and delegitimize the traditional German elite. The IMT verdict followed the prosecution in declaring the crime of plotting and waging aggressive war "the supreme international crime" because "it contains within itself

19256-473: The preparations for the invasion of the Soviet Union. Paulus incriminated his former associates, pointing to Keitel, Jodl, and Göring as the defendants most responsible for the war. More so than other delegations, Soviet prosecutors showed the gruesome details of German atrocities, especially the death by starvation of 3 million Soviet prisoners of war and several hundred thousand residents of Leningrad . Although Soviet prosecutors dealt most extensively with

19422-542: The president of the World Zionist Organization , as well as the Provisional Government of National Unity in Poland, for an active role in the trial justified by their representation of victims of Nazi crimes were rejected. The Soviet Union invited prosecutors from its allies, including Poland, Czechoslovakia , and Yugoslavia ; Denmark and Norway also sent a delegation. Although the Polish delegation

19588-515: The prior legislation concerning the commission, thus dismantling it. Its former member historian Alexander Chubarian said that the commission had fulfilled its task leaving a certain legacy behind, whereas the State Hermitage director Mikhail Piotrovsky and historian Viktor Pleshkov commented that it had been ineffective and useless. Nuremberg Trials This is an accepted version of this page The Nuremberg trials were held by

19754-687: The proceedings. The American prosecution drew on reports of the Office of Strategic Services , an American intelligence agency, and information provided by the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research and the American Jewish Committee , while the French prosecution presented many documents that it had obtained from the Center of Contemporary Jewish Documentation . The prosecution called 37 witnesses compared to

19920-411: The prosecution's case. Over the course of the trial, Western judges allowed the defendants additional leeway to denounce the Soviet Union, which was ultimately revealed to be a co-conspirator in the outbreak of World War II. In the context of the brewing Cold War —for example, in 1946 Winston Churchill delivered the Iron Curtain speech —the trial became a means of condemning not only Germany but also

20086-518: The rationale for American entry into World War II . However, Jackson conceded on defining crimes against peace; the other three Allies were opposed because it would undermine the freedom of action of the United Nations Security Council . War crimes already existed in international law as criminal violations of the laws and customs of war , but these did not apply to a government's treatment of its own citizens. Legal experts sought

20252-403: The re-militarization of West Germany . The Warsaw Pact was put in place as a consequence of the rearming of West Germany inside NATO . Soviet leaders, like many European leaders on both sides of the Iron Curtain , feared Germany being once again a military power and a direct threat. The consequences of German militarism remained a fresh memory among the Soviets and Eastern Europeans. As

20418-452: The region, such as Czechoslovakia and Poland. At the start of 1990, the Soviet foreign minister, Eduard Shevardnadze , implicitly confirmed the lack of Soviet influence over Ceaușescu's Romania. When asked whether it made sense for him to visit Romania less than two weeks after its revolution , Shevardnadze insisted that only by going in person to Romania could he figure out how to "restore Soviet influence". Romania requested and obtained

20584-520: The rejection of the Soviet proposals. Adenauer also feared that German unification might have resulted in the end of the CDU's leading political role in the West German Bundestag. Consequently, Molotov, fearing that the EDC would be directed in the future against the USSR and "seeking to prevent the formation of groups of European States directed against the other European States", made a proposal for

20750-471: The request to join NATO, were rejected by the UK, US, and French governments shortly after. Emblematic was the position of British General Hastings Ismay , a fierce supporter of NATO expansion . He opposed the request to join NATO made by the USSR in 1954 saying that "the Soviet request to join NATO is like an unrepentant burglar requesting to join the police force". In April 1954, Adenauer made his first visit to

20916-742: The reunification of Germany were nothing new: earlier on 20 March 1952, talks about a German reunification, initiated by the so-called ' Stalin Note ', ended after the United Kingdom , France , and the United States insisted that a unified Germany should not be neutral and should be free to join the European Defence Community (EDC) and rearm. James Dunn (US), who met in Paris with Eden, Konrad Adenauer (West Germany), and Robert Schuman (France), affirmed that "the object should be to avoid discussion with

21082-465: The same work for Russian propagandists is even harder. According to the Kremlin, the History Commission was needed as there were increasingly aggressive attempts to rewrite history to Russia's disadvantage. Sergei Markov , a pro-Kremlin lawmaker and member of the commission, said the new body would not imprison people or blacklist historians whose analyses it disagrees with. Its priority, he said,

21248-741: The scope of its mandate, with Belgian jurist Marcel de Baer and Czech legal scholar Bohuslav Ečer arguing for a broader definition of war crimes that would include "the crime of war". On 1 November 1943, the Soviet Union, United Kingdom, and United States issued the Moscow Declaration , warning the Nazi leadership of the signatories' intent to "pursue them to the uttermost ends of the earth...in order that justice may be done". The declaration stated that those high-ranking Nazis who had committed crimes in several countries would be dealt with jointly, while others would be tried where they had committed their crimes. Soviet jurist Aron Trainin developed

21414-467: The sentences and the last three prisoners, all convicted at the Einsatzgruppen trial, were released in 1958. The German public took the early releases as confirmation of what they saw as the illegitimacy of the trials. 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. By the late 1950s,

21580-511: The tasks of the commission would not be to "re-write" or "politicise" history in the manner of countries like Latvia and Lithuania . Instead, the commission would analyse alleged falsifications of historical facts aimed at tarnishing Russia's international reputation, and advise the Russian president on the ways in which such alleged falsifications can be countered. It was foreseen that the commission would meet at least twice per year. The commission

21746-511: The traditional German elite, and allow the Allies to distance themselves from appeasement . Jackson maintained that while the United States did "not seek to convict the whole German people of crime", neither did the trial "serve to absolve the whole German people except 21 men in the dock". Nevertheless, defense lawyers (although not most of the defendants) often argued that the prosecution was trying to promote German collective guilt and forcefully countered this strawman . According to Priemel,

21912-502: The treaty signatories were based upon mutual non-intervention in the internal affairs of the member countries, respect for national sovereignty , and political independence. However, de facto , the Pact was a direct reflection of the USSR's authoritarianism and undisputed domination over the Eastern Bloc , in the context of the so-called Soviet Empire , which was not comparable to that of

22078-428: The trial procedure and attempted to discredit the entire proceedings. In order to appease them, the defendants were allowed a free hand with their witnesses and a great deal of irrelevant testimony was heard. The defendants' witnesses sometimes managed to exculpate them, but other witnesses—including Rudolf Höss , the former commandant of Auschwitz, and Hans Bernd Gisevius , a member of the German resistance —bolstered

22244-555: The trial was procedurally fair. The judges were aware that both the Allies and the Axis had planned or committed acts of aggression, writing the verdict carefully to avoid discrediting either the Allied governments or the tribunal. The judges ruled that there had been a premeditated conspiracy to commit crimes against peace, whose goals were "the disruption of the European order" and "the creation of

22410-577: The trial: The German Fascist Destruction of the Cultural Treasures of the Peoples of the USSR , Atrocities Committed by the German Fascist Invaders in the USSR , and The German Fascist Destruction of Soviet Cities , using footage from Soviet filmmakers as well as shots from German newsreels. The second film included footage of the liberation of Majdanek and the liberation of Auschwitz and

22576-510: The trials illegitimate victor's justice and an imposition of collective guilt, which they rejected—instead considering themselves victims of the war. As the Cold War began, the rapidly changing political environment began to affect the effectiveness of the trials. The educational purpose of the Nuremberg Military Tribunals was a failure, in part because of the resistance to war crimes trials in German society, but also because of

22742-401: The trials' innovation of holding individuals responsible for violations of international law is considered "the true beginning of international criminal law ". Between 1939 and 1945, Nazi Germany invaded many European countries , including Poland , Denmark , Norway , the Netherlands , Belgium , Luxembourg , France , Yugoslavia , Greece , and the Soviet Union . German aggression

22908-461: The tribunal, except for the execution of hostages. Due to the narrow definition of crimes against humanity in the charter, the only part of the Germanization charges accepted by the judges was the deportation of Jews from France and other parts of Western Europe. On 8 February, the Soviet prosecution opened its case with a speech by Rudenko that covered all four prosecution charges, highlighting

23074-505: The tribunal, the audience, historians, and even the defendants. Much of the American case focused on the development of the Nazi conspiracy before the outbreak of war. The American prosecution became derailed during attempts to provide evidence on the first act of aggression, against Austria . On 29 November, the prosecution was unprepared to continue presenting on the invasion of Czechoslovakia , and instead screened Nazi Concentration and Prison Camps . The film, compiled from footage of

23240-502: The usage of the term "independent" to describe Romania's relations with the Soviet Union, favoring "autonomy" instead on account of the country's continued membership within both the Comecon and the Warsaw Pact along with its commitment to socialism, this approach fails to explain why in July 1963 Romania blocked Mongolia 's accession to the Warsaw Pact, why in November 1963 Romania voted in favor of

23406-482: The war in Europe . At the London Conference, held from 26 June to 2 August 1945, representatives of France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States negotiated the form that the trial would take. Until the end of the negotiations, it was not clear that any trial would be held at all. The offenses that would be prosecuted were crimes against peace, crimes against humanity , and war crimes. At

23572-487: The whole". The work of the judges was made more difficult due to the broadness of the crimes listed in the Nuremberg Charter. The judges did not attempt to define the crime of aggression and did not mention the retroactivity of the charges in the verdict. Despite the lingering doubts of some of the judges, the official interpretation of the IMT held that all of the charges had a solid basis in customary international law and that

23738-434: The world as the "third force" of the Communist world. Romania's independence – achieved in the early 1960s through its freeing from its Soviet satellite status – was tolerated by Moscow because Romania was not bordering the Iron Curtain – being surrounded by socialist states – and because its ruling party was not going to abandon communism. Although certain historians such as Robert King and Dennis Deletant argue against

23904-549: The worst offenders were not prosecuted, for logistical or financial reasons. One set of trials focused on the actions of German professionals: the Doctors' trial focused on human experimentation and euthanasia murders , the Judges' trial on the role of the judiciary in Nazi crimes , and the Ministries trial on the culpability of bureaucrats of German government ministries, especially

24070-458: Was "persuasively genuine". In truth, the Soviets were not beyond publicly aligning themselves with the West against the Romanians at times. The strategy behind the formation of the Warsaw Pact was driven by the desire of the Soviet Union to prevent Central and Eastern Europe being used as a base for its enemies. Its policy was also driven by ideological and geostrategic reasons. Ideologically,

24236-709: Was a civilized country. The defendants tried to blame their crimes on Hitler, who was mentioned 1,200 times during the trial—more than the top five defendants combined. Other absent and dead men, including Himmler, Reinhard Heydrich , Adolf Eichmann , and Bormann, were also blamed. To counter claims that conservative defendants had enabled the Nazi rise to power , defense lawyers blamed the Social Democratic Party of Germany , trade unions, and other countries that maintained diplomatic relations with Germany. In contrast, most defendants avoided incriminating each other. Most defendants argued their own insignificance within

24402-445: Was accompanied by immense brutality in occupied areas; war losses in the Soviet Union alone included 27 million dead , mostly civilians, which was one seventh of the prewar population. The legal reckoning was premised on the extraordinary nature of Nazi criminality, particularly the perceived singularity of the systematic murder of millions of Jews . The first step towards the trials of Nazi war criminals were initiatives taken by

24568-408: Was also part of a continuing rehabilitation of Stalin and the former Soviet dictator's policies. Human rights activist and former lawmaker Lev Ponomaryov dubbed the decree openly totalitarian and claimed that it discredited President Medvedev as a lawyer. Mikhail Gorbachev has also expressed disapproval of Medvedev's decree. Some Russian media and individual opposition journalists also criticised

24734-479: Was appointed the United States' chief prosecutor, whom historian Kim Christian Priemel describes as "a versatile politician and a remarkable orator, if not a great legal thinker". The United States prosecution believed that Nazism was the product of a German deviation from the West (the Sonderweg thesis) and sought to correct this deviation with a trial that would serve both retributive and educational purposes. As

24900-468: Was considered even more disturbing than the American concentration camp film. Soviet witnesses included several survivors of German crimes, including two civilians who lived through the siege of Leningrad, a peasant whose village was destroyed in anti-partisan warfare, a Red Army doctor who endured several prisoner-of-war camps and two Holocaust survivors— Samuel Rajzman , a survivor of Treblinka extermination camp , and poet Abraham Sutzkever , who described

25066-511: Was copied from Orwell's 1984 and from the famous phrase about Russia as a country with unpredictable past." According to the newspaper Vremya Novostei , the struggle over historical truth in Russia declared at the highest level has taken grotesque form as an article by historian Sergey Kovalyov published on the official website of the Russian Ministry of Defence blamed Poland for starting World War II. Historian Roy Medvedev criticized

25232-495: Was difficult to sustain interest in a long trial. Where the prosecution was disappointed by some of the verdicts, the defense could take satisfaction. Many Germans at the time of the trials focused on finding food and shelter. Despite this, a majority read press reports about the trial. In a 1946 poll, 78 percent of Germans assessed the trial as fair, but four years later that had fallen to 38 percent, with 30 percent considering it unfair. As time went on, more Germans considered

25398-504: Was initially predominantly negative, but has become more positive over time. Warsaw Pact The Warsaw Pact ( WP ), formally the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance ( TFCMA ), was a collective defense treaty signed in Warsaw , Poland , between the Soviet Union and seven other Eastern Bloc socialist republics of Central and Eastern Europe in May 1955, during

25564-488: Was largely accepted, with the final wording being "murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, and other inhumane acts committed against any civilian population". The final version of the charter limited the tribunal's jurisdiction over crimes against humanity to those committed as part of a war of aggression. Both the United States—concerned that its " Jim Crow " system of racial segregation not be labeled

25730-489: Was narrowed to a conspiracy to wage aggressive war. Only eight defendants were convicted on that charge; all of whom were also found guilty of crimes against peace. All 22 defendants were charged with crimes against peace, and 12 were convicted. The war crimes and crimes against humanity charges held up the best, with only two defendants charged on those grounds being acquitted. The judges determined that crimes against humanity concerning German Jews before 1939 were not under

25896-460: Was not a member of the Warsaw Pact). The Romanian regime was largely impervious to Soviet political influence, and Ceaușescu was the only declared opponent of glasnost and perestroika . On account of the contentious relationship between Bucharest and Moscow, the West did not hold the Soviet Union responsible for the policies pursued by Bucharest. This was not the case for the other countries in

26062-412: Was not empowered to intervene in the proceedings, it submitted evidence and an indictment, succeeding at drawing some attention to crimes committed against Polish Jews and non-Jews. The work of drafting the indictment was divided up by the national delegations. The British worked on aggressive war; the other delegations were assigned the task of covering crimes against humanity and war crimes committed on

26228-680: Was planned to hold a second international tribunal for German industrialists, but this was never held because of differences between the Allies. Twelve military trials were convened solely by the United States in the same courtroom that had hosted the International Military Tribunal. Pursuant to Law No. 10 adopted by the Allied Control Council , United States forces arrested almost 100,000 Germans as war criminals. The Office of Chief Counsel for War Crimes identified 2,500 major war criminals, of whom 177 were tried. Many of

26394-473: Was rejected by Jackson. Instead, the charter limited the jurisdiction of the court to Germany's actions. Article 7 prevented the defendants from claiming sovereign immunity , and the plea of acting under superior orders was left for the judges to decide. The trial was held under modified common law . The negotiators decided that the tribunal's permanent seat would be in Berlin, while the trial would be held at

26560-521: Was rejected by the US. The Soviet request to join NATO arose in the aftermath of the Berlin Conference of January–February 1954. Soviet foreign minister Molotov made proposals to have Germany reunified and elections for a pan-German government, under conditions of withdrawal of the four powers ' armies and German neutrality, but all were refused by the other foreign ministers, Dulles (US), Eden (UK), and Bidault (France). Proposals for

26726-540: Was staffed by then current and former State Duma members, such as Natalia Narochnitskaya , Sergey Markov and Konstantin Zatulin , and officials of Russia's armed forces and FSB , including General of the army Nikolay Makarov . Among the twenty-eight members were five professional historians: Andrey Artizov (the head of the Federal Archive Agency), Alexander Chubaryan (the head of the Institute of World History of

26892-495: Was the nominal president of the tribunal, in practice Biddle exercised more authority. The French prosecutor, François de Menthon , had just overseen trials of the leaders of Vichy France ; he resigned in January 1946 and was replaced by Auguste Champetier de Ribes . The French judges were Henri Donnedieu de Vabres , a professor of criminal law, and deputy Robert Falco , a judge of the Cour de Cassation who had represented France at

27058-440: Was the only non-Soviet Warsaw Pact member which was not obliged to militarily defend the Soviet Union in case of an armed attack. Bulgaria and Romania were the only Warsaw Pact members that did not have Soviet troops stationed on their soil. In December 1964, Romania became the only Warsaw Pact member (save Albania, which would leave the Pact altogether within 4 years) from which all Soviet advisors were withdrawn, including those in

27224-832: Was to challenge what he said were distorted interpretations of the Soviet Union's role in World War II. Nezavisimaya Gazeta published the responses of historian Natalya Narochnitskaya , who said "they try to convince us that it was not we who won the Great Patriotic War , that it was Americans." Regarding attempts at equating the Communism imposed on Eastern Europe with Nazism, she claimed that "agrarian peoples: Czechs, Poles, Romanians, Hungarians left us with violins, professors, academicians, cinematographers, whereas Hitler planned for them fates of pig herders and janitors." A presidential decree issued on 14 February 2012, invalidated all

27390-461: Was two-fold: the Political Consultative Committee handled political matters, and the Combined Command of Pact Armed Forces controlled the assigned multi-national forces, with headquarters in Warsaw , Poland. Although an apparently similar collective security alliance, the Warsaw Pact differed substantially from NATO. De jure , the eight-member countries of the Warsaw Pact pledged the mutual defense of any member who would be attacked; relations among

27556-509: Was undertaken to prevent a British invasion of that country ; a cover-up prevented the defense from capitalizing on this argument. Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz testified that the United States Navy had also used unrestricted submarine warfare against Japan in the Pacific ; Dönitz's counsel successfully argued that this meant that it could not be a crime. The judges barred most evidence on Allied misdeeds from being heard in court. Many defense lawyers complained about various aspects of

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