Adolf Hitler's Crimes Against Humanity

Towards the end of 1943, Leaders of the Allies began to think about the fate of the Nazi leaders after the war was over. Leaders were torn between trials for Nazi leaders or just going straight to execution. By 1945, Great Britain, the United States, and the Soviet Union came to the decision that they would hold trials for the major criminals. The charges were categorized into four different categories: common conspiracy, crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. Common conspiracy charges were also known for the use of government power to plan foreign aggression. The crimes against peace were also known as the planning and waging of wars against aggression. War crimes were also known as the murder of civilians and prisoners of war. The last category which was crimes against humanity was also known as the deliberate extermination of people on political, religious, or racial terms. (Spielvogel, 285) In 1945, Nazi Germany admitted total defeat. The Germans held out for as long as they could but knew that a defeat was inevitable. The German forces began to diminish in 1944. By the second half of 1944, there was no central …show more content…
Historians have debated about the significance of the Nazi era in German history. At the time, no one read Hitler’s works in depth and many overlooked a crucial aspect of Hitler and the Nazi Party. Mein Kampf might have been dreadfully written but many forgot, while reading his works, that “the way people view their world often determines the world they try to create” (Spielvogel, 287). Hitler’s views of the world were based on struggle being a way of life and the Germans needing a leader who would help create an Aryan racial state that would control and dominate Europe and quite possibly, the world. In opposing movements many other countries believed in, Nazism was expressing its contempt for shared values of western