The Nuremberg Trials: Chronology
August, 1944
Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau submits his plan for post-war treatment of
Nazi leaders to President Roosevelt. He proposes shooting many leaders
upon capture, using German POWs to rebuild Europe, and tearing down industry and
remaking Germany as an agricultural society.
September 15, 1944
Colonel Murray Bernays, of the War Department's Special Project Branch, proposes
part of the framework that will be used in Nuremburg. Bernays proposes
treating the Nazi regime as a criminal plot. William Chanler, a friend of
Secretary of War Stinson, suggests another part of the framework: making the
waging of a war of aggression a crime.
February, 1945
Meeting at Yalta, FDR, Churchill and Stalin agree that a prosecution of Axis
leaders should follow the expected conclusion of World War II.
April, 1945
President Trumant asks Samuel Rosenman to approach Supreme Court Justice Robert
Jackson and inquire about his willingness to serve as chief U. S. prosecutor in
a war crimes trial.
April 30, 1945
Adolph Hitler commits suicide in his bunker below the Berlin sewer system.
May 2, 1945
President Truman appoints Robert Jackson as chief U. S. counsel for the
prosecution of Nazi war criminals.
May 6, 1945
Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering surrenders to the Allies. Goring is at
first toasted with champagne, but later is transferred to Bad Mondorf in
Luxembourg.
May 7, 1945
Colonel General Alfred Jodl signs the terms of unconditional surrender for
Germany in Rheims World War II in Europe ends.
May 23, 1945
British tanks enter Flensburg, Germany. In Flensburg, the British take
several of the Nazis that will be tried in the Major War Figures Trial,
including Donitz, Jodl, Keitel, Rosenberg, and Speer. Heinrich Himmler,
the most powerful and terrifying of the Nazi leaders after Hitler, commits
suicide.
June 26, 1945
Robert Jackson departs Washington to meet with his Allied counterparts in London
to discuss legal proceedings against Nazi officials. Numerous
disagreements are discussed, including whether to use the adversarial system
favored by the americans and British, or the inquisitive system favored by the
French and Soviets. The Allies agree to prohibit the use of the defense of
superior orders, although they agree to allow its consideration in mitigation of
sentence.
July 7, 1945
Robert Jackson visits Nuremberg--a city 91% destroyed by Allied bombs. He
inspects the Palace of Justice and decides to recommend it as a site for the
upcoming trials. The Soviets prefer that the trials take place in Berlin,
within their zone of occupation.
July 21, 1945
Jackson returns to Nuremberg with British and French representatives. They
inspect possible housing accomodations.
August 8, 1945
The London Agreement is signed by the Allies, enabling the prosecution of war
criminals.
August 12, 1945
Major war criminals that had been housed in Luxembourg are flown to Nuremberg,
where they are incarcerated in a prison adjacent to the Palace of Justice.
September 5, 1945
Robert Jackson meets with President Truman. Truman proposes naming former
attorney general Francis Biddle as the American judge at Nuremberg.
Jackson, who does not think highly of Biddle, suggests alternatives, but Biddle
gets the appointment.
October 14, 1945
British representative Sir Geoffrey Lawrence is elected President of the
International Military Tribunal (IMT).
October 19, 1945
Indictments are issued against the major war figures.
October 25, 1945
Robert Ley, former chief of the German Labor Front and one of the prisoners
awaiting trial, commits suicide.
November 20, 1945
The trial of the major war criminals by the International Military Tribunal
begins at 10 a.m. in Nuremberg, Germany.
November 21, 1945
The defendants enter their pleas of "Not Guilty." Goering tries to make a
statement, but is prevented by the Court from doing so. Justice Robert Jackson
delivers his opening statement for the prosecution.
November 29, 1945
The prosecution introduces a film shot by Allied photographers in liberated
areas. The graphic footage of Nazi horrors causes weeping in the courtroom.
Some defendants appeared shocked by what they see; others seem bored.
December 13, 1945
The prosecution introduces grissly evidence from Buechenwald concentration camp.
Items include tattoed human skin (favored by the commandant's wife for use in
tablelamps and other household furnishings) and the head of an executed Pole
used as a paperweight by Commandant Karl Koch.
December 18, 1945
The prosecution begin introducing evidence to prove the criminality of seven
German organizations: the Nazi party leadership, the German High Command, the
SS, the SA, the SD, the Reich Cabinet, and the Gestapo.
January 4, 1946
Colonel Telford Taylor makes the prosecution case against the German High
Command. His impressive performance will help secure his appointment as
lead prosecutor in the subsequent Nuremberg trials.
January 8, 1946
The prosecution begin its case against individual defendants.
January 28, 1946
During the French phase of the prosecution, French journalist Marie Claude
Vaillant-Courturier provides heart-wrenching eyewitness testimony of atrocities
at Auschwitz.
February 11-12, 1946
Chief Soviet Prosecutor Roman Rudenko examines Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus,
who provides testimony relating to German activities in the eastern Europe that
incriminates Goering, Jodl, and Keitel.
February 16, 1946
The decision is made to end the practice of allowing all the defendants to eat
together on days the court is in session. From this date on, the
defendants eat in groups of four--except for Goering who is left to eat alone in
an attempt to reduce his influence over the rest of the defendants.
February 18, 1946
Russian prosecutors offer into evidence a 45-minute film, including footage from
captured German films, showing shocking evidence of atrocities.
March 5, 1946
In Fulton, Missouri, Winston Churchill delivers his famous "Iron Curtain" speech,
urging the West to unite against the Soviets.
March 6, 1946
The Soviets finish their presentation and the prosecution rests. The news
of Churchill's speech gives the defendants renewed hope.
March 8, 1946
The defense begins its case.
March 13, 1946
Goering begins his testimony.
March 18-22, 1946
Goering is cross-examined.
March 29, 1946
Robert Jackson appoints Telford Taylor to succeed him as chief prosecutor in the
subsequent Nuremberg trials.
April 1-2, 1946
Ribbentrop testifies.
April 11, 1946
Kaletenbrunner testifies.
April 1-, 1946
Rudolf Hoess (not to be confused with defendant Rudolf Hess), commandant at
Auschwitz concentration camp, provides graphic testimony of mass executions at
his camp.
April 18, 1946
Hans Frank testifies.
April 26, 1946
Julius Streicher testifies
April 30, 1946
Hjalmar Schact testifies.
May 3, 1946
Walther Funk testifies.
May 8, 1946
Grand Admiral Karl Donitz testifies.
May 20, 1946
Grand Admiral Erich Raeder testifies.
May 23, 1946
Baldur von Schirach testifies.
May 28, 1946
Fritz Sauckel testifies.
June 3, 1946
General Alfred Jodl testifies.
June 10, 1946
Arthur Seyss-Inquart testifies.
June 14, 1946
Franz von Papen testifies.
June 21, 1946
Albert Speer testifies.
July 4, 1946
Defense summations begin in the Major War Criminals Trial.
July 26, 1946
The prosecution begins its summation in the Major War Criminals Trial.
July 30, 1946
The defense of the seven indicted Nazi organizations begins.
August 20, 1946
Goering returns to the witness stand.
August 30, 1946
Testimony is completed in the Major War Criminals Trial.
August 31, 1946
Defendants make their final statements.
September 2, 1946
The justices meet to discuss verdicts in the Major War Criminals Trial.
October 1, 1946
The verdicts against the major war criminals are handed down by the
International Military Tribunal. Eleven of the twenty-one defendants are
sentenced to death.
October 13, 1946
The Allied Control Council--with the power to reduce or commute
sentences--rejects all appeal in the Major War Criminals Trial.
October 15, 1946
Goering commits suicide by swallowing a smuggled cyanide pill.
October 16, 1946
Ten of the war criminals are hanged in Nuremberg.
October 25, 1946
The United States Military Government for Germany establishes Military Tribunal
I, which will try twenty-three Nazi physicians in the first of eleven subsequent
trials in Nuremberg.
April 10, 1947
Military Tribunal II-A sentences twenty convicted defendants in the
Einsatzgruppen Trial. Fourteen of the defendants, members of German mobile
killing units, are sentenced to death.
August 21, 1947
Military Tribunal I sentences sixteen Nazi doctors found guilty in the Doctors
Trial. Seven doctors are sentenced to death.
December 4, 1947
Military Tribunal III sentences ten convicted officials in the Reich Ministry of
Justice and judges of the People's and Special Courts, as the Justice Trial
concludes.
April 13, 1949
Military Tribunal IV-A sentences nineteen defendants found guilty in the
Ministries Trial, a trial involving three Reich Ministers and eighteen other
members of the Nazi party hierarchry accused of war crims and crimes against
humanity. Although appeals continue in this case until January of 1951,
sentencing in the Ministries Trial brings an end to the four-year-long series of
Nuremberg trials.
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