Nuremberg Trial

Improved Essays
In the history of international law, few legal proceedings have been as criticized and discussed as the Nuremberg trials. Held between 20 November 1945 and 1 October 1946, they saw the action of the Allied forces against 23 of the most important political and military leaders of the Third Reich, indicted for crimes such as conspiracy, aggression, and crimes against peace and humanity. Considered a model for the following International Military Tribunal trials, they actually were morally and legally flawed.
Because they involved such a wide range of different countries and extraordinary circumstances, it is impossible to universally establish their legitimacy. However, one could say that the Nuremberg trials were more of a “victor’s justice” rather than a proper, impartial legal procedure.
The first concern many jurists such as Quincy Wright have is that, in this occasion, the common structure of trials and legal procedures, the hearth of any justice system, were deeply altered.
For starters, the
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Evidence of civil forced labor and deliberate starvation was found: in occupied territories, US military personnel were ordered to destroy or make inedible leftovers to avoid the local population eating them; unlike German officers, Soviet leaders weren’t punished for the invasion of Poland, even if the German-Soviet Non Aggression Pact of 1939 clearly illustrated their involvement. In the same way, Britain and Soviet Union were not tried for the invasion of Iran and Finland respectively. After the war, General Rudenko, the Chief Soviet prosecutor of the trials, became commandant of the former Nazi concentration camp of Sachsenhausen, where he imprisoned political opponents and anti-communists. The fall of the Berlin wall brought to light the bodies of more than 12,000 people who died there of malnutrition and

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