What would be your verdict today

Knowing what we know today of the Nuremberg Trials what sentence would you pass down on the defendants?

Or so as a flash back what sentence would Robert Ley may had got if he did not commit suicide?

Too answer my second question I'm not to sure so I would say any where from 20 years to life.

I shall be back to post my findings on the others.

 

I know time makes one feel somewhat less hard about things but still, these are the people who were part of the machine that created Holocaust etc. So I guess I would not really lower the sentences, actually if I had to decide again, I might wonder about Speer whether he would have deserved a death sentence.

I´m happy I don´t have to make the decisions again but I don´t feel that the death penalties should have been turned to life imprisonment sentencies, and we know those guys knew it as well when they were in court.

People like Göring and Himmler thought they would be part of the new government of Germany but once they were taken prisoner and taken to court they knew their game was over.

 

I agree with you Kai about todays thinking, so I am going by the evidance against them and the greater knowledge we have today.

Here goes.

The following are unchanged -

Karl Donitz
Han Frank
Hans Fritzsche
Walter Emanuel Funk
Hermann Göring
Ernst Kaltenbrunner
Alfred Rosenberg
Fritz Sauckel
Arthur Seyss-Inquart
Julius Streicher
Alfred Jodl
Wilhelm Keitel
Franz von Papen
Joachim von Ribbentrop
Martin Bormann
Wilhelm Frick
Konstantin von Neurath

The following are changed -

Rudolf Hess - life imprisonment in a mental/psychiatric hospital
Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach - Guity on count 4 crimes against humanity sentance death
Erich Raeder - 30 years
Hjalmar Schacht - Guity on count 1 Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of crime against peace
sentance 10 years
Baldur von Schirach - 30 years
Albert Speer - 50 years

 

Very interseting

 

Comparing Sauckel and Speer. How did Speer survive...

Nuremberg War Crime Trials

EXTRACT of the Judgment against Sauckel as it was pronounced.

"...Shortly after Sauckel had taken office, he had the governing authorities in the various occupied territories issue decrees, establishing compulsory labor service in Germany... That real voluntary recruiting was the exception rather than the rule is shown by Sauckel's statement on March 1, 1944 that 'out of 5 million workers who arrived in Germany, not even 200,000 came voluntarily.' ...His attitude was thus expressed in a regulation: 'All the men must be fed, sheltered, and treated in such a way as to exploit them to the highest possible extent at the lowest conceivable degree of expenditure.' The evidence shows that Sauckel was in charge of a program which involved deportation for slave labor of more than 5 million human beings, many of, them under terrible conditions of cruelty and suffering."

EXTRACT of the Judgment against Speer as it was pronounced.

"The evidence introduced against Speer under counts 3 and 4 relates entirely to his participation in the slave labor program... As Reich Minister for Armaments and Munitions and General Plenipotentiary for Armaments under the Four Year Plan, Speer had extensive authority over production... The practice was developed under which Speer transmitted to Sauckel an estimate of the total number of workers needed, Sauckel obtained the labor and allocated it to the various industries in accordance with instructions supplied by Speer. Speer knew when he made his demands on Sauckel that they would be supplied by foreign laborers serving under compulsion... Sauckel continually informed Speer and his representative that foreign laborers were being obtained by force... (However) It must be recognized that...in the closing stages of the war he was one of the few men who had the courage to tell Hitler that the war was lost and to take steps to prevent the senseless destruction of production facilities..."

 

Unchanged

Martin Bormann
Karl Donitz
Hans Frank
Wilhelm Frick
Hans Fritzsche
Hermann Goering
Ernst Kaltenbrunner
Wilhelm Keitel
Joachim von Ribbentrop
Alfred Rosenberg
Fritz Sauckel
Arthur Seyss-Inquart

Changed

Walter Funk, 20 years imprisonment
Rudolf Hess, 20 years in a mental/psychiatric ward
Alfred Jodl, life imprisonment
Gustav Krupp, 10 years imprisonment
Robert Ley, death by hanging, if he hadn't committed suicide
Constantin von Neurath, 10 years imprisonment
Franz von Papen, 5 years imprisonment
Erich Raeder, 20 years imprisonment
Hjalmar Schacht, 15 years imprisonment
Baldur von Schirach, 30 years imprisonment
Albert Speer, imprisonment for life
Julius Streicher, 15 years imprisonment

 

Speer had a lenient sentence to say the least.

 

Just a handy site for the personages of the Third Reich, and their positions within the hierarcy. This site also includes the charges against them, and the verdicts handed down as well.

See:

Bioprofiles

 

I am a little indecisive, even after six months, so I think I'll re-review the list again.

Unchanged

Hermann Goering: He embodied the Teutonic chivalry of folklore and his megalomania warranted the death sentence.

Joachim von Ribbentrop: A callous, avaricious, pompous man with as much integrity as a washrag.

Wilhelm Keitel: A tragedy to see a soldier of Prussian bearing to be reduced to a "yes man", yet his authority over the Night and Fog decree was enough to hang him.

Ernst Kaltenbrunner: The Grand Inquisitor of police oppression and death camps. What can be said in mitigation of his sentence?

Hans Frank: A Greek tragedy to see a cultured, brilliantly academic mind interpret and wield malfeasance and dread upon a whole nation. Penitent, Frank may have been, but his sentence was fitting to the crimes committed under his administration.

Hjalmar Schacht: On reinspection I rule Schacht to be a scoundrel of financial wizardry and political ambition, but legally speaking, his acquittal was appropriate.

Franz von Papen: A German of traditional class and a political animal to be certain, but not a major war criminal.

Arthur Seyss-Inquart: He presents a contentious argument, on the one hand he acknowledged and declared the atrocities committed under his administration to be abhorrent and ignored the Nero Decree, but on the other, Seyss-Inquart decimated Netherland's Jews and fervently advocated the use of oppression, deportation and execution of hostages, so I acknowledge his sentence to be just.

Hans Fritzsche: Shouldn't have been there in the first place.

Changed

Rudolf Hess: Suspended sentence and psychiatric care in a health institution. The "conspiracy" charge was always a little tenuous in his case.

Alfred Rosenberg: Imprisonment for life. His fate was divided by the judges back then, but Biddle yielded and finally sealed his fate.

Wilhelm Frick: Imprisonment for life. A colourless bureaucrat with little artistic imagination, only devoted to efficiency.

Julius Streicher: A vulgar philistine, but really nothing more than a propagandist. 15 years.

Walter Funk: 20 years.

Karl Doenitz: Acquitted. A hypocritical sentence imposed by the British, and naturally, supported by the Draconic Russian justices.

Erich Raeder: 10 years. Life imprisonment because he attended the Hossbach Conference was ridiculous.

Baldur von Schirach: Imprisonment for life.

Fritz Sauckel: 20 years imprisonment. Sauckel merely provided the labour necessary to meet the quotas in armament and labour camps.

Alfred Jodl: 20 years imprisonment. His sentence was disproportionate to his crimes.

Albert Speer: Imprisonment for life.

Constantin von Neurath: 5 years.

 

I could be comfortable with life for all. What they cost for Europe ( and elsewhere ) to feed their pride and greed is unacceptable in any light. Theirs was not an ordinary crime by any means.

 

I think many got away too lightly personally...Goering should never have been able to be given the cianide pill and take it...the security surrounding him was pathetic. Albert Speer was asked by a journalist in the 70s how he managed to avoid the death sentence and receive a realtively short custodial sentence...he said something along the lines of "never underestimate the power of charisma"...and winked at him! The trial and supprters were hoodwinked by him during the trial, his was a masterly display of manipulation. Given the MASSIVE death toll and the incalculable damage done by this cabal, i would have sentenced them all to death, unless any could prove duress.
As always, this was a political trial as much as anything.

 

I just finished a book about the Nuremberg trials and am currently reading Albert Speer: His Battle with Truth by Gitta Sereny. The Trials book was Nuremberg:Infamy on Trial by Joseph E. Persico.
Regarding Streicher, I definitely do not think the death penalty was proper. Honestly, I don't even know that prison time was warranted, as he simply put out a newspaper. Albeit, his newspaper was awful and he was clearly a paranoiac. I guess I'm saying that writing and publishing garbage shouldn't be considered a crime.
Of course, it's easy to look at things today without the perspective of the time.
The Speers/Sauckel sentences are awfully hard to reconcile, as well. Persico puts forth the theory that it was class-based(at least partially). I would imagine that Speers' "charisma" helped with it quite a bit as well. The Army psychiatrists seemed to be taken in by him more so than any of the other defendants. At the very least, I would say that Sauckel should have gotten the same sentence as Speers.
I would have to think the other ones over. I have been pondering it quite a bit. It's a very interesting question.

 

For all? Including people that only served the armed forces and followed orders? Or do you mean, everybody that participated in the planning of the holocaust?

I would give the death penalty on everyone that planned the holocaust. However, people that only followed orders shouldn't be punished, like those generals that fought in the frontlines.

Speer is an example of someone that deserved the death penalty.

 

For those names listed in post 6, yes. Had all of them fallen into Soviet hands it would have been death after a 1 week trial. The western judges were keen to show to the people of a defeated Germany as well as the world that a 'Fair' trial would be held in order to demonstrate that the Allied cause was just.

 

What's with all the Speer hating? He was an architect...

 

Two things kept Germany in the war after 1943, the sacrifice of her soldiers, and Speer getting as much production out a flawed industry. He acomplished this by relying heavily upon forced or slave labor, including concentration camp inmates. He claimed to know little or nothing about this but he did know.

 

Hermann Goering: Death
Ernst Kaltenbrunner: Death
Hans Frank: Death
Arthur Seyss-Inquart: Death
Fritz Sauckel: Death
Albert Speer: Death
Walter Funk: Death for robbing hundreds of millions of people
​

Alfred Rosenberg: Life
Joachim von Ribbentrop: Life

Wilhelm Frick: 40 years
Alfred Jodl: 30 years
Wilhelm Keitel: 25 years
Baldur von Schirach: 15 years
Konstantin von Neurath 5 years
​

Hjalmar Schacht: Nothing
Franz von Papen: Nothing
Julius Streicher: Nothing - He was a combination of Hearst and Guccione
Hans Fritzsche: Nothing
Rudolf Hess: Nothing
Karl Doenitz: Nothing
Erich Raeder: Nothing

There's nothing worse than an artistic planner with unlimited power.

​

 

"There's nothing worse than an artistic planner with unlimited power" - Never a truer word spoken....Just look at our major cities these days...(No such thing as an architect these days) BS artisitic planners...

 

I never understood why they let the Japanese Emperor off scott free

 

I still don't see how all this is Speer's fault. He was the minister of armaments, and I don't believe he introduced the slave labor system itself.