Two dozen Nazi leaders were put on trial in Nuremberg, Germany.
Following Germany’s defeat in World War II, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill planned to shoot top Nazi military leaders without a trial, but Henry Stimson, the U.S. secretary of war, pushed President Roosevelt to consider holding an international court trial.
Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson headed the prosecution team. The four countries pressing charges were Great Britain, the United States, Russia and France.
The defendants were accused of numerous war crimes including the massacre of 30,000 Russians and the massacre of thousands of others in the Warsaw Ghetto.
The defendants included Hermann Goering, the designated successor to Hitler, and Rudolf Hess, Hitler’s personal secretary. One of the defendants demanded that an anti-Semitic lawyer represent him. Hess feigned amnesia to escape responsibility while Goering was attacked by fellow defendants for refusing to take responsibility for anything.
Nineteen defendants were convicted: 12 were sentenced to hang. One man escaped the hanging by remaining at large while Goering committed suicide using cyanide the night before his execution.
