Why the Nuremberg Trials’ Level of Justice Was Low

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Basics of the Nuremberg Trials
Inefficiencies of the Nuremberg Trials
Comparing the Arguments
Conclusion
Reference List

Introduction

World War II (WWII) is deservedly considered one of the most tragic events in the world’s history. Millions of casualties, destroyed cities, and dramatic economic consequences are a few consequences of the war. However, the Holocaust was another characteristic feature of WWII, and this issue was terrifying for Jews. According to the official data, approximately six million Jews were murdered between 1941 and 1945 (Stone, 2019, p. 1). That is why the Holocaust is the most evident example of genocide in recent history.

It is good that the Allies managed to overthrow Nazi Germany and stop the war and its atrocities. In 1945, the Soviet Union, France, Great Britain, and the United States established the International Military Tribunal (IMT) in Nuremberg, Germany, to try the surviving Nazi leaders for crimes against humanity and peace (Hirsch, 2022, para. 2). Thus, it is interesting to discover whether the trials presented an adequate and fair prosecution of genocide, and this statement is the purpose of the essay. It can be achieved by obtaining and analyzing evidence from credible and reputable sources, which denotes that qualitative methodology is utilized. In general, the essay demonstrates that the Nuremberg trials failed to become a fair and just prosecution of genocide, even though it was initially a promising response to WWII.

Basics of the Nuremberg Trials

To begin with, one should explain what the Nuremberg Trials were and how they were performed. According to Stiller (2019, p. 148), “charges were first brought against twenty-four defendants and six organizations on 6 October 1945.” Such a small number of defendants is explained by the fact that not all political and military leaders had lived until the trials, and many of them, including Adolf Hitler, had committed suicides. The remaining individuals and organizations were tried and faced four charges by the prosecution. In particular, the Nazis were tried for committing crimes against peace, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and engaging in conspiracy (Stiller, 2019, p. 148). These four issues represented the central ideas of the Nuremberg trials and defined the severity of punishment in every individual case. In many cases, if a person’s guilt was proven, they were sentenced to the death penalty or long prison terms.

It seems that the approach presented above is fair and justified because political and military leaders are more responsible for the WWII atrocities. These individuals and organizations spread the Nazi ideology and motivated others to commit crimes. However, this statement does not mean that ordinary citizens and soldiers should be considered innocent spectators. The Allies understood it and the IMT drew much attention to denazification efforts. That is why the tribunals focused on moral guilt and responsibility in addition to criminal guilt (Steinacher, 2022a, p. 9). This approach demonstrates that the Nuremberg trials acknowledged that ordinary citizens bore some responsibility for their government and its activities that led to the war. In particular, “denazification tribunals looked for Nazi party membership and roles inside the regime” (Steinacher, 2022b, para. 31). Once a person’s guilt was proven, they received adequate punishment, and it is worth stating that sentences in such cases were less severe compared to the death penalty and life imprisonment.

This generalized description of the Nuremberg trials allows for suggesting that the process was fair. On the one hand, this event satisfied the desire for revenge of the nations that significantly suffered from WWII. The Soviet Union was the most prominent among them because approximately 27 million citizens, including soldiers and civilians, were killed as a result of Hitler’s invasion. On the other hand, the first response to the Nuremberg trials was positive even among the Germans in the late 1940s. According to Safferling (2020, p. 42), “around 80% of the German population thought the Nuremberg trials were fair and just; a mere 6% were critical, and some 9% thought the judgments were too harsh.” This quotation demonstrates that ordinary people initially supported the tribunals and denazification efforts, but a few issues changed the assessment of the event and its legacy.

Inefficiencies of the Nuremberg Trials

One should admit that the Nuremberg trials implied some disadvantages that significantly changed public opinion regarding the process. In particular, German public opinion was surveyed in the 1950s, and it appeared that 30% considered the trials unfair, while 40% believed that the punishments were very severe (Safferling, 2020, pp. 42-43). There is no doubt that significant events and activities should have contributed to this shift in public opinion, and the following paragraphs will comment on these details.

The fairness of the Nuremberg Trials was questioned when it appeared that military leaders were tried for political decisions. Defenders highlighted the idea that the military personnel only followed orders, which denoted that it was unfair to place all the responsibility on them (Safferling, 2020, p. 44). Furthermore, loyalty and honor were fundamental values in the German military, and every soldier swore an oath to the “Führer” (Safferling, 2020, p. 44). Even though there is no doubt that these military leaders followed corrupt and immoral orders, it was not right to bear the entire responsibility on these individuals. When people started understanding that military personnel was considered gluttons for punishment, public opinion regarding the trials began to change.

A similarly discriminative approach to justice was utilized to punish individuals responsible for the Holocaust. The severest sentences were given to SS members who participated in brutal murders and mass executions (Safferling, 2020, p. 46). This state of affairs was fair, but some questions arose because no significant punishments were imposed on senior management members who did office work and planned the Holocaust (Safferling, 2020, p. 46). This incomplete justice was evident and resulted in the fact that people became less trustful in the trials. Criticism occurred because the general public started believing that genuinely responsible criminals could have remained unpunished.

In addition to that, no one can deny that particular groups of the German population suffered from Hitler’s regime. When the Nuremberg trials began, these individuals had a hope that their sufferings would be acknowledged and the responsible people would be punished. However, the IMT only focused on WWII atrocities and ignored all the crimes that the German people had survived before the war (Safferling, 2020, p. 46). Thus, the failure to prosecute war criminals for all their crimes contributed to the criticism of the trials.

Another example demonstrates that the Nuremberg trials investigated specific cases and ignored other atrocities that deserved punishment. For instance, Grzebyk (2019, p. 1) highlights that German soldiers killed 30,000-65,000 civilians within a few days of the Wola Uprising that took place in Poland’s capital in 1944. Even though that event was considered a brutal crime and its organizers and actors were known, none of them was prosecuted by the IMT (Grzebyk, 2019, p. 1). This condition became another factor that contributed to the criticism of the international tribunal.

The Cold War additionally contributed to the fact that the Nuremberg trials became ineffective. The United States and the Soviet Union required specific human resources to establish control over West Germany and East Germany, correspondingly. That is why the former Allies stopped their denazification efforts and rehabilitated many individuals who used to be members of the Nazi party (Bamford, 2020, para. 14). In West Germany, discussion of the Holocaust virtually disappeared, and school textbooks were left with few words about German war crimes (Bamford, 2020, para. 14). These processes took place in the 1950s, and they were closely correlated with the shift in public opinion regarding the effectiveness of the Nuremberg trials.

Comparing the Arguments

Since there are many arguments that prove or refute the fairness of the Nuremberg trials, it is reasonable to analyze and compare them. This process is needed to see a comprehensive picture and be able to make a reasonable and informed conclusion regarding the issue under analysis. Thus, the following paragraphs will rely on evidence from reputable sources to determine which point of view is more valid and whether the prosecution of genocide was fair after WWII.

In the beginning, the Nuremberg trials received positive assessments internationally. The IMT was designed to establish justice and formulate fundamental principles of international law (Grzebyk, 2019, p. 1). It became a well-known precedent indicating that people responsible for hostilities and atrocities would be subject to prosecution and adequate punishment. It was believed that the process was necessary for establishing international peace and security, and various scholars supported this statement. For example, Steinert (2019, p. 1003) described the Nuremberg trials as “the first milestone in the development of international criminal accountability.” Simultaneously, Shulman (2018, p. 649) stipulated that fair prosecution was required for building international peace and the rule of law.

The tribunals were effective and fair because they initially relied on appropriate legal provisions. The United States insisted that a fair and just trial should have been used to prosecute Nazi leaders, while the Soviet Union only advocated for finding an appropriate measure of guilt (Halpern, 2018, p. 108). Furthermore, the Nuremberg trials could be considered just because they attempted to determine the level of guilt of every prosecuted individual. This strategy became possible because the tribunals did not treat people as abstractions but utilized individualized approaches (Annas, 2018, p. 42). As a result, the Nuremberg trials were considered adequate and fair prosecution means stipulating that a specific set of international crimes could be defined as genocide (Adjey, 2020, p. 69). This information demonstrates that the IMT was designed to become an effective and fair response to the war crimes of the Nazi criminals.

However, a closer look at the Nuremberg trials and their retrospective analysis revealed a few inefficiencies of the prosecution in terms of effectiveness and fairness. The most evident issue implied that not all people responsible for committing atrocities were tried. While soldiers and military leaders were subject to harsh sentences, the people who dealt with planning mass executions and inventing the Holocaust managed to escape any punishment. The decision to prosecute military leaders for political decisions additionally contributed to the criticism of the tribunals.

The Nuremberg trials could not be considered fair and adequate because they only focused on a limited set of crimes. No one denies the brutality and horrors of the Holocaust, but it is not reasonable to ignore that the Nazis subjected other national groups, including German and Polish ones, to various atrocities. A failure to find and punish people who were responsible for these crimes denoted that it was impossible to consider the tribunal fair and effective.

In addition to that, the procedures of the Nuremberg trials raised some questions. The legal proceedings started shortly after the end of WWII, and the United States assigned judges to hear cases and decide on them according to law. Since the defendants were not familiar with the legal provisions, they required time to study the laws. However, these individuals were not provided with sufficient time and facilities, which denoted that they did not have a full opportunity to defend their interests in court (Lloyd, 2021, p. 2). That is why there existed a possibility that some individuals received inadequately harsh punishments because they could not prove their position before the court.

Finally, the effectiveness and fairness of the Nuremberg trials significantly suffered in public opinion during the Cold War. When the United States and the Soviet Union started rehabilitating war criminals, ordinary people understood that justice was absent (Gordon, 2022, p. 11). In particular, the US freed former Nazi members because the latter helped fight against communism in Western Germany. In turn, the USSR did the same because the assistance of sentenced individuals was necessary to control the situation and Eastern Germany. These processes actively evolved in the 1950s, when the tension between the two superpowers intensified. It was no coincidence that the rehabilitation of former Nazis contributed to the fact that a greater number of citizens expressed their distrust in the Nuremberg trials. That is why one can admit that the tribunals appear unfair when they are analyzed over a particular time period.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the Nuremberg trials and the created IMT became an understandable end of WWII. Since the Nazis started the war and caused the deaths of millions of people, the Allies and their citizens deservedly wanted to revenge by punishing the people who were responsible for all the brutalities and horrors. That is why the trials were designed to satisfy these desires and subject war criminals to fair sentences. However, it is impossible to offer a unanimous analysis of the Nuremberg trials in terms of justice and fairness, and the actual assessment depends on when the process is considered. The proceedings initially obtained positive attitudes because they promised to identify adequate sentences for war criminals who were responsible for genocide.

However, all good hopes began to vanish as the court proceedings took place. It soon became evident that the entire blame was placed on soldiers and military leaders who followed orders. Simultaneously, political leaders and people who planned genocide and motivated others managed to escape harsh punishment. Moreover, the court ignored the sufferings of the German population before the war and some prominent massacres, which indicated that the trials were biased. The 1950s resulted in the fact that the Soviet Union and the United States started rehabilitating former Nazis to help them compete in the Cold War. This information demonstrated that the Nuremberg trials were unfair prosecution of genocide.

Reference List

Adjei, W. E. (2020) ‘The development of individual criminal responsibility under international law: lessons from Nuremberg and Tokyo war crimes trials’, Journal of Legal Studies “Vasile Goldiş”, 25(39), pp. 69-97.

Annas, G. J. (2018) ‘Beyond Nazi war crimes experiments: the voluntary consent requirement of the Nuremberg Code at 70’, American Journal of Public Health, 108(1), pp. 42-46.

Bamford, T. (2020) The Nuremberg trial and its legacy. Web.

Gordon, G. S. (2022) ‘The Nuremberg trials public communications apparatus propaganda for WWII healing and Cold War positioning at the dawn of PR in ICL’, Journal of International Criminal Justice, 20(1), pp. 11-53.

Grzebyk, P. (2019) ‘Hidden in the glare of the Nuremberg trial: impunity for the Wola massacre as the greatest debacle of post-war trials’, MPILux Research Paper, pp. 1-16.

Halpern, M. (2018) ‘Trends in admissibility of hearsay evidence in war crime trials: is fairness really preserved’, Duke Journal of Comparative & International Law, 29, pp. 103-126.

Hirsh, F. (2022) Ukraine and Russia are both looking to the Nuremberg trials – but finding different lessons in the history. Web.

Lloyd, K. E. (2021) ‘Vice, virtue, and memory: the question of fairness at Nuremberg’, Culture, Society, and Praxis, 13(2), pp. 2-6.

Safferling, C. J. (2020) ‘German participation in the Nuremberg trials and its implications for today’, in Griech-Polelle, B.A. (ed.) The Nuremberg war crimes trial and its policy consequences today. Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG, pp. 41-54.

Shulman, M. R. (2018) ‘No peace without justice, no justice without law: a review essay’, Columbia Journal of Transnational Law, 57, pp. 649-659.

Steinacher, G. J. (2022a) ‘Forgive and forget. the Vatican and the escape of Nazi war criminals from justice’, S: IMON Shoah: Intervention. Methods. Documentation, 9(1), pp. 4-28.

Steinacher, G. J. (2022b) Video: The Pope against Nuremberg: Nazi war crime trials, the Vatican, and the question of postwar justice. Web.

Steinert, C. V. (2019) ‘Trial fairness before impact: tracing the link between post-conflict trials and peace stability’, International Interactions, 45(6), pp. 1003-1031.

Stiller, A. (2019) ‘The mass murder of the European Jews and the concept of ˈgenocideˈ in the Nuremberg trials: reassessing Raphaël Lemkin’s impact’, Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal, 13(1), pp. 144-172.

Stone, L. (2019) ‘Quantifying the holocaust: hyperintense kill rates during the Nazi genocide’, Science Advances, 5(1), pp. 1-10.

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