list of guards at nuremberg trials

We jokingly told him the girls coveted the gifts American soldiers could offer and they had all forgotten his (Schirachs) Nazi National Socialism propaganda indoctrination. Postal Service. He greeted me in the morning and that was about it. [10][11], Of all the Allies, the Soviet Union lobbied most intensely for trying the defeated German leaders for aggression in addition to war crimes. On October 15, 1946, guards and prisoners listened to the pounding of the gallows being constructed. Guards gradually learned through everyday observation, however, that the prisoners collective makeup truly spanned a psychologically intricate cross-section of those who had served Hitler. Call us at (425) 485-6059. . I do remember that Schacht, like most of the others, steadfastly maintained his innocence, never admitting to guilt in any form. [195][196], These trials emphasized the crimes committed during the Holocaust. By far the most attention--not surprisingly, given the figures involved--has focused on the first Nuremberg trial of twenty-one major war criminals. Jackson. events, and resources, Michael Prestianni: Guarding the War Criminals at Nuremberg. He argued that he was being persecuted.. My father became an MP after the war. Ten of them Hans Frank, Wilhelm Frick, Julius Streicher, Alfred Rosenberg, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Fritz Sauckel, Alfred Jodl, Wilhelm Keitel, and Arthur Seyss-Inquart were hanged on October 16, 1946. Came back to the States in Jun 46. Conversation between guards was extremely limited or nonexistent. [2] They were indicted for: Each prisoners cell was equipped with a simple, bench-like bed against one wall adjacent to the cell door, a primitive commode, a wooden table to hold the few allowed pictures and other personal items, and a chair too rickety to support the weight of a standing man. There was no physical contact, and all conversation via microphone was closely monitored by a guard standing behind each prisoner. He looked like a gaunt corpse, like a ghost. I had no idea of the magnitude of what they had done. [233] In 1950, the International Law Commission drafted the Nuremberg principles to codify international criminal law, although the Cold War prevented the adoption of these principles until the 1990s. His remembrance of duty at Nuremberg remains vivid. Number 6 was Walther Funk, former minister of economics, and Number 7 was Rudolf Hess, once Hitlers private secretary and deputy fhrer. [234][235] Further developments in international criminal law in the aftermath of the trials included the Genocide Convention (1948) and the Fourth Geneva Convention (1949). My Dad was murdered, hanged, when I was 5 years old in 1965. The Nuremberg trials were held by the Allies against representatives of the defeated Nazi Germany, for plotting and carrying out invasions of other countries, and other crimes, in World War II.. The intentionally weakened table and chair, Prestianni said, prevented possible suicide attempts by hanging. BAY CITY . There was also a picture of him guarding Hitler. What was the name of that individual? "[1][163] The judges did not attempt to define aggression[164] and decided not to mention the retroactivity of the charges in the verdict. [116] In contrast to the other prosecution teams, the French prosecution emphasized how Nazi ideology and pan-Germanism had led to the Nazis' crimes, and delved into the Sonderweg theory of Germany's development in the nineteenth century. In return, he often was rewarded with cigarettes, pipe tobacco, or other small items he coveted. [66][67] The prosecutors wanted to try representative leaders of German politics, economy, and military; and the Americans had a list of 70 names at the London Conference. Today I found out that most of the soldiers who guarded the high ranking Nazi prisoners during the Nuremberg trials were in fact former members of Baltic SS . The Nrnberg trials were a series of trials held in Nrnberg, Germany, in 1945 and 1946 following the end of World War II. Also represented were some leaders of the German economy, such as Gustav Krupp (of the conglomerate Krupp AG) and former Reichsbank president Hjalmar Schacht. [192] 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;[193] 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. The Nazis constructed 20 main concentration camps in Germany, France, the Netherlands, Poland, Estonia, and Lithuania. Series of military trials at the end of World War II, This article is about the series of international trials. With the possible exception of Speer, none of them could rationalize that they, as individuals, had ever done anything morally wrong for the Fatherland. You can contact me via email at RebeccaLeuchter@aol.com. [142] In contrast, most defendants avoided incriminating each other. Today, he carries on his World War II and Korean War heritage in various veterans organizations. Some of these camps, such as Treblinka, were death camps, intended to kill every prisoner that passed through their gates. Jodl, one of 10 prisoners hanged, was another who never admitted to any personal guilt. [67] Former Nazis were allowed to serve as counsel[45] and by mid-November all defendants had lawyers. Im always looking for pictures of the guards and hoping one day I will see him as a young soldier. Each of the governing countries, the United States, England, France, and Russia, had its own interpretation of punishment. He has little or no memory of the six remaining defendants, Hitler Youth leader Baldur von Schirach, Labor Front head Robert Ley, Minister of Economics Walther Funk, Plenipotentiary for Labor Deployment Fritz Sauckel, propagandist Hans Fritzsche, or Artur Seys-Inquart, the administrator of the occupied Netherlands. [189], 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 the Foreign Office. Unbelievable but true - an entire unit of former Waffen-SS Grenadiers were retrained and deployed by the Americans to help guard the Nuremberg Trials in 1946-49. After 216 court sessions, on October 1, 1946, the verdict on 22 of the original 24 defendants was handed down. Examine some of the collection's most-accessed trial topics. Below are facts about what has been called the greatest trial in history. My father Gordon Fitzgerald also spent several months as a guard there. Two and a quarter hours before he was to be executed he took poison under the. Kaltenbrunner had perpetrated extreme barbarism in the extermination of Jews through the planning and execution of the Final Solution. [202] All four powers later fought independence movements using methods that had been ruled illegal at Nuremberg. [190][191] Also on trial were industrialistsin the Flick trial, the IG Farben trial, and the Krupp trialfor using forced labor, looting property from Nazi victims, and funding SS atrocities. He, like the others, was always bumming cigarettes or cans of Prince Albert tobacco for his pipe. [231], The International Military Tribunal for the Far East (Tokyo Trial) borrowed many of its ideas from the IMT, including all four charges. [236][237], The trials were the first use of simultaneous interpretation, which stimulated technical advances in translation methods. He didnt really talk to me very much. All eight judges participated in the deliberations, but the alternates could not cast a vote. Nazi, Alfred Rosenberg, lies dead on a casket following his execution after the Nuremberg Trials. Streicher had published Der Sturmer, a widely read newspaper filled with pornography, ethnic hate, and anti-Jewish cartoons to enflame the German population. Franz von Papen helped pave the way for Hitlers ascension to power in 1933. Three were sentenced to life imprisonment. [210] As the Cold War began, the rapidly changing political environment began to affect the effectiveness of the trials. [200] The case law of the trials fleshed out the skeleton provided by the Nuremberg charter and the IMT verdict. After one of those accused, Robert Ley, former director of the nations Labor Front, hanged himself from a drain pipe with a torn towel, prisoners were kept under constant visual surveillance by guards, and while sleeping were forced to do so with their faces and hands exposed above their blankets at all times. Before and during the war crimes trial, they were to be considered still innocent, Andrus drummed into the military personnel under his command. [87] In France, some verdicts were met with outrage from the media and especially from organizations for deportees and resistance fighters, as they were perceived as too lenient. [161][162], The International Military Tribunal agreed with the prosecution that aggression was the gravest charge against the accused, stating in its judgement that because war in general is evil, "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 the whole. Other absent and dead men including Himmler, Reinhard Heydrich, Adolf Eichmann, and Bormann were also blamed. [64] 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. Courtesy Emily Aho Around Memorial Day of 2000, Emily Aho took her then 75-year-old father, Emilio "Leo". my father david c bergeron was a 1st LT with the guards at the war trials. The names were -- Wippern, Hahnefeld and myself carried out the checking. Popular radio commentator; head of the news division of the Nazi Propaganda Ministry. During his service in Korea, Prestianni was wounded twice and decorated for valor numerous times. But the Nuremberg Trials showed contempt for the only-obeying-orders position, and we hold it in contempt too.". There was a constant, steady flow of rules and regulations, many of them meaningless, while others tended to be more punitive, he said. The Nuernberg trial records include transcripts of proceedings . [182] Nikichenko released a dissent approved by Moscow that rejected all the acquittals, called for a death sentence for Hess, and convicted all the organizations. [121], On 8 February, the Soviet prosecution opened its case with a speech by Rudenko that covered all four prosecution charges, highlighting both aggressive war and the devastation of Eastern Europe[122] and listing many crimes committed by the German occupiers against the Soviet people. Join historians and history buffs alike with our Unlimited Digital Access pass to every military history article ever published (over 3,000 articles) in Sovereigns military history magazines. I have a brass pot, called an aspersorium, obtained by my father. One of the new USA light tanks (M24) on guard outside the courthouse at Nuremberg. [1] Most of the defendants were also charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity. [215] Early releases of those convicted by the Nuremberg Military Tribunals began in 1949;[216] and in 1951, High Commissioner John J. McCloy overturned most of the sentences. The Federal Research Division (FRD) is a fee-based research and analysis unit within the Library of Congress that produces world-renowned and nonpartisan products to support research-informed policy- and decision-making. Among those brought to trial were. Minister of Foreign Affairs 193238, succeeded by Ribbentrop. These visits usually were brief, and participants were separated by a screen. [156], On 31 August, closing arguments were presented. However, fraternization did occur on a regular basis and, for the most part, went unpunished by the prison administration. She was released after four years and eventually committed suicide in a Bavarian prison. The International Military Tribunal set up by the . The whole focus was on keeping the prisoners under surveillance through the opening in the cell doors, Prestianni said. The only part of the French charges that were accepted by the judges was the deportation of Jews from France and other parts of Western Europe. [172] All 22 defendants were charged with crimes against peace, and 12 were convicted. Many of the prisoners never accepted the fact that they were no longer on top of the world. Although controversial at the time for their use of ex post facto law, the trials' innovation of holding individuals responsible for violations of international law established international criminal law. [168], The judgment found that there was a premeditated conspiracy to commit crimes against peace, the goals of the conspiracy being "the disruption of the European order as it had existed since the Treaty of Versailles" and "the creation of a Greater Germany beyond the frontiers of 1914". [153] Midway through the trial, Winston Churchill's Iron Curtain speech denouncing the Soviet threat delighted the defense. My mothers cousin was a WAC serving in England during WW2. [145], Despite the fact that the charter did not recognize a tu quoque defense, such arguments were repeatedly raised during the trial. His face had an animal look to it, Prestianni stated. Ten of themHans Frank, Wilhelm Frick, Julius Streicher, Alfred Rosenberg, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Fritz Sauckel, Alfred Jodl, Wilhelm Keitel, and Arthur Seyss-Inquartwere hanged on October 16, 1946. Dads birthday. He was a true Nazi all the way in every way, Prestianni recalled. SS members were generally frowned upon and can't imagine them having anything to do with the trials except sit in the dock. Despite this precaution, such limited, semiamicable relationships did exist. [240] The IMT is one of the most well-studied trials in history, and it has also been the subject of an abundance of books and scholarly publications, along with motion pictures such as Judgment at Nuremberg (1961) and The Memory of Justice (1976). The small letters, tav, shin, and zayin in the list of Haman's ten sons (Esther 9), with the combined numerical value of 707, are seen as a "prophetic" code hinting to the future hanging of the ten Nazis convicted at the Nuremberg trials in the year 5707, which Julius Streicher declared as "Purimfest 1946" before he was hanged. 1. At least 30,000 women died here. [124] Paulus incriminated his former associates, pointing to Keitel, Jodl, and Gring as the defendants most responsible for the war. They were not to be shown disrespect. He did mention seeing the prisoners in their cells. Sentenced to death, Reich Law Leader 193345 and Governor-General of the, Hitler's Minister of the Interior 193343 and. [94] All defendants pleaded not guilty. Nrnberg trials, Nrnberg also spelled Nuremberg, series of trials held in Nrnberg, Germany, in 194546, in which former Nazi leaders were indicted and tried as war criminals by the International Military Tribunal. He was physically one tough guy, Prestianni offered. Where the convicted were housed on the ground floor, lower-tier cellblock, the main corridor was 60 meters (195 feet) long, lined by 16 cells on each side, and constantly patrolled by 1st Division guards. The Nuremberg Trials ended on October 1, 1946. [87][149] United States admiral Chester Nimitz testified that the United States had used the same methods of submarine warfare that the German admirals were accused of; Dnitz's counsel successfully argued that this meant that such actions could not be crimes. [102] Jackson's focus was on the aggressive war charge, which he described as the root of the crimes against humanity and of war crimes. I would have kept my distance from them.. These were people, Neurath reasoned, of whom Germany was cleansing the world.. Today these sketches are highly prized. 18008 Bothell Everett Hwy SE # F, Bothell, WA 98012. [115], From 17 January to 7 February 1946, France presented its charges and supporting evidence. Hess, former deputy fhrer of the Nazi party and Hitlers private secretary during the early years of the National Socialist movement, was sentenced to life imprisonment and served every day of it to the age of 92 when he died in 1987 under mysterious circumstances in Berlins Spandau Prison. [5] Soviet jurist Aron Trainin developed the concept of crimes against peace (waging aggressive war) which would later be central to the proceedings at Nuremberg. He used to tell me he always did what he thought was right for the Fatherland but that just too much came to light during the trial.. Let me have that again, please. Movement was extremely restricted and closely monitored, even for the guards. National Archives Collection of World War II War Crimes Records (Record Groups 153, 238 and 549) The United States conducted war crimes trials in Europe under three jurisdictions: the International Military Tribunal (IMT) at Nuernberg (RG 238), U.S. military tribunals at Nuernberg (RG 238) and U.S. Army courts (RG 153 & RG 549). This page was last edited on 8 October 2022, at 21:33. Twelve of the defendants were sentenced to death by hanging. Three of the defendants were acquitted. Pre-war president of the. At this time, 24 former Nazi leaders were charged with the perpetration of war crimes, and various groups (such as the Gestapo, the Nazi secret police) were charged with being criminal in character. [12] The United States insisted on a fair trial as a means of reforming Germany. The note said, To a good man in remembrance of my going forth to death., Prestianni said, I have no idea why he gave it to me. Later 19 other nations accepted the provisions of this agreement. The material which the Library possesses on this topic can be loosely divided into the following sections: Nuremberg Trial. He remained bombastic and arrogant right up to the end, all the while looking upon the other prisoners as inferior beings., Ribbentrop, another of Prestiannis checker opponents, was vainglorious, almost constantly given to pompous bragging and considered stupid by the other prisoners. The Ugly Truth About the Nuremberg Tribunals. [150] The judges barred most evidence on Allied misdeeds from being heard in court. Schirach, who had been replaced by Hitler as head of the youth movement in 1940 and drafted into Army service where he saw considerable combat on the Eastern Front, maintained his decorum and seldom responded to the teasing. He was not tall at all and didnt really stand out in any way from the others, Prestianni said. Efficiency Report for Henry F. Gerecke, 7/1/1945, NAID 6016856. [224][225][226] During the two decades after the trial, opinions were predominantly negative. [160] 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. Corrections? [212], The German churches, both Catholic and Protestant, were vociferous proponents of amnesty,[213] which had cross-party support in West Germany, which was established in 1949. One can only imagine the effect the pounding had on the condemned prisoners, now with only one more day to live. [38], In early 1946, there were a thousand employees from the four countries' delegations in Nuremberg, of which about two-thirds were from the United States.

Selling Photocards On Mercari, Articles L