Wwii war criminal trials

DP Wilhelm List et al. Microfilm Publication M Hostage Case. DP Ulrich Greifelt et al. DP Otto Ohlendorf et al. Case IX , Sep. Case X , Aug. DP Ernst von Weizsaecker et al. Case XI , Nov. Microfilm Publication M Ministries Case.

DP Wilhelm von Leeb et al. Case XII , Nov. DP Records of U. Reviews of U. Army War Crimes Trials in Europe, Alfons Klein et al. Microfilm Publication M Hadamar Case. DP Kurt Andrae et al. Microfilm Publication M Nordhausen Cases. DP Franz Auer et al. Microfilm Publication M Muehldorf Case. DP Juergen Stroop et al. DP Ernst Dura et al. DP Kurt Goebell et al. In Trophies of War , history professor James Weingartner states that mutilation was not uncommon. Charles Lindbergh was once asked if he was carrying bones on his way home from the Pacific.

The customs agent told him that the practice was so common that this had become a routine question. In February , British and American bombers started the Dresden bombing campaign, which lasted for three days and nights. While this was not the worst bombing mission of the war, 25, people were killed. Historians who believe the bombing of Dresden is a war crime point out that the target was civilians and done as a show of might to the Soviet Union. A British Royal Air Force memo which was issued to the bombers appears to support this theory.

The memo stated that the campaign would show the Russians what Bomber Command was capable of. The fact that industrial targets in the city were unscathed also lends credibility to this view.

There were two official inquiries by the United States into the bombing. Both found the action to be justified, but they are largely dismissed by scholars today. The reports are seen as a whitewashing of the bombing by one of the perpetrators.

The campaign went largely according to plan and international law. There is only one incident that went so far out of hand that it ended up being a war crime.

Davis, killing of the crewmen. All of the prisoners should have been sent to a prisoner of war camp, but 8 were pulled aside for interrogation. The 8 prisoners were repeatedly beaten, subjected to exhaustive physical strain, and placed in solitary confinement. The torture continued for over two weeks until Germany surrendered. After the surrender, the prisoners were moved to Fort Hunt where they were again subjected to harsh treatment and conditions.

Allied occupation officials saw the reconstruction of the German court system as an important step in the denazification of Germany. Allied Control Council Law No. In , Germany was formally divided into two separate countries. Both countries continued to hold trials against Nazi-era defendants in the following decades. Since , over proceedings trying defendants of National Socialist era crimes have been conducted by the Federal Republic of Germany meaning, West Germany before the fall of the Berlin Wall in and united Germany afterwards.

These proceedings have been criticized because most defendants were acquitted or received light sentences. In addition, thousands of Nazi officials and perpetrators never faced trial, and many returned to the professions they had practiced under the Third Reich. For example, former Nazi officials comprised the majority of judges in West Germany for several decades after the war. Many nations that Germany occupied during World War II or that collaborated with the Germans in the persecution of civilian populations, including Jews, also tried both German perpetrators and their own citizens who had perpetrated crimes during the war.

He was sentenced to death and hanged in the execution block at Auschwitz in April By , international concerns about the Cold War eclipsed interest in achieving justice for the crimes of World War II.

Trials outside of Germany largely ceased, and most of the convicted perpetrators who were not executed were set free during the s. Outside of Poland, crimes against Jews were not the focus of most postwar trials, and there was little international awareness or understanding of the Holocaust in the immediate postwar period. This changed in with the trial of Adolf Eichmann , chief administrator of the deportation of European Jews, before an Israeli court.

The Eichmann trial also brought attention to the presence of accused Nazi perpetrators in a number of countries outside Europe, because Eichmann had settled in Argentina after the war. A decade later, Australia, Britain, and Canada also sought to prosecute Nazi perpetrators living within their borders. The hunt for German and Axis war criminals has continued into the 21st century. The postwar prosecutions of Nazi crimes set important legal precedents. In , the United Nations unanimously recognized the crime of aggression, war crimes, and crimes against humanity as offenses under international law.

The UN subsequently recognized additions to international criminal law designed to protect civilians from atrocities. Since the end of the Cold War, a number of special tribunals have tried international crimes committed in specific countries, such as the genocide committed in Rwanda in In , a new, permanent International Criminal Court began to operate. Domestic courts in some countries also prosecute the perpetrators of international crimes. Although such prosecutions remain rare, today there is widespread agreement that states have a duty to protect civilians from atrocities and to punish those who commit them.

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