list of guards at nuremberg trials

By special arrangement with a guard or prison official, he gave his handwritten notes to be mimeographed and returned to him. These were people, Neurath reasoned, of whom Germany was cleansing the world.. On 1 October 1946, 12 death sentences were passed down by the judges of the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg on some of the most high-ranking and influential members of Nazi Germany. She kept a scrapbook which had photos of her group and many signatures of court officials and army officers commending them for their service. [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. The Nuernberg trial records include transcripts of proceedings . When he failed to respond to the periodic shouted challenges from the sergeant-of-the-guard, Prestianni was taken to a hospital in Nuremberg where he remained for two weeks before returning to duty. Prestianni never served in the trial courtroom, only in the cellblock. On October 1, 1946, the International Military Tribunal handed down its verdicts in the trials of 22 Nazi leaders - eleven were given the death penalty, three were acquitted, three were given life imprisonment and four were given imprisonment ranging from 10 to 20 years. John C. Woods, hangman at Nuremberg Anyone else might have been embarrassed about botching such a high-level execution. It was always a battle of authority. When I once asked him why he had done what he was convicted of doing, he replied that he only did what the Fatherland [Germany] instructed him to do. He was physically one tough guy, Prestianni offered. To move from one corridor to another, guards carried different colored passes. Gring enjoyed baiting his guards. [36][35] On 8 August, the Nuremberg Charter was signed in London. list of guards at nuremberg trialsdelpark homes sutton list of guards at nuremberg trials. Ribbentrop was held in low esteem by others close to Hitler due to his perceived ineptness in many areas. Prestianni said that during his guard duties he tried to adhere to his fathers advice. [71][72] The military leaders were Hermann Gring, Wilhelm Keitel, Alfred Jodl, Erich Raeder, and Karl Dnitz. Prestiannis assignment was over, and he was transferred to guard duty at a POW compound at Bamberg, Germany. [39] Besides legal professionals, there were many social-science researchers, psychologists, translators and interpreters, and graphic designers, the latter to make the many charts used during the trial. [2] German aggression was accompanied by immense brutality in occupied areas and the systematic murder of millions of Jews in the Holocaust. I never really got to know him very well during the few months before he was released, commented Prestianni, but at one time he tried to teach me an intricate German card game, but I never could catch on to it. My father Gordon Fitzgerald also spent several months as a guard there. While they walked, the prisoners were separated by a prescribed number of yards. [80][81] The aim was to have these organizations declared criminal, so that their members could be tried expeditiously for membership in a criminal organization. Twelve further trials were conducted by the United States against lower-level perpetrators, which focused more on the Holocaust. Seven defendants (Hess, Funk, Raeder, Dnitz, Schirach, Speer, and Neurath) were sent to Spandau Prison to serve their sentences. My father, Jack J. April 22, 2020. [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). My father Ed Rossi was also a guard at the Nuremberg trials. 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. A defendant was entitled to receive a copy of the indictment, to offer any relevant explanation to the charges brought against him, and to be represented by counsel and confront and cross-examine the witnesses. Courtroom MPs wore stylish white MP-emblazoned helmet liners and similarly labeled brassards. The Rome Statute establishing a permanent International Criminal Court (ICC), which had been proposed in 1953, was finally agreed to in 1998. They merely brushed the guilt away with self-serving claims that they were following orders from superiors or perhaps even from Hitler himself in an atmosphere where failure to do so often meant banishment to a concentration camp, Gestapo torture, or even a summary execution. Today these sketches are highly prized. [153] Midway through the trial, Winston Churchill's Iron Curtain speech denouncing the Soviet threat delighted the defense. All eight judges participated in the deliberations, but the alternates could not cast a vote. He often went for hours without speaking to anyone. The verdict was drafted by British alternate judge Norman Birkett. Alfried was tried in a separate Nuremberg trial (the Krupp Trial) for the use of slave labor, thereby escaping worse charges and possible execution; found guilty in 1948, pardoned and all property returned 1951. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). jkeller, Aug 11, 2010 #16. macrusk Proud Daughter of a Canadian WWII Veteran. [228] The most controversial charge was crimes against peace. [155] In the context of the brewing Cold War, the trial became a means of condemning not only Germany but also the Soviet Union. Your Moms birthday and maiden name. [55], The work of drafting the indictment was divided up by the national delegations. 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). His name was David C. Porter from Pennsylvania. Twelve of the defendants were sentenced to death, three to life imprisonment, four to imprisonment ranging from 10 to 20 years, and three were acquitted. But Woods, an almost charmingly hapless man with a checkered. Many of the prisoners never accepted the fact that they were no longer on top of the world. Another, Hermann Goring, opted to commit . A mother of three small children, she would eventually serve as a guard at Auschwitz, Ravensbruck and Majdanek concentration camps. A huge crowd of soldiers stands at . [157] Over the course of the trial, crimes against humanity and especially against Jews (who were mentioned as victims of Nazi atrocities far more than any other group) came to upstage the aggressive war charge. Ribbentrop, Prestianni related, was a man without humor. [173] The war crimes and crimes-against-humanity charges held up the best, with only two defendants who were charged being acquitted on those charges. The United States and United Kingdom refused to endorse this proposal, citing the failure of war crimes prosecutions after World War I. Three of the defendants were acquitted. was on Court room duty. [146][147] Defense lawyer Alfred Seidl[de] repeatedly tried to disclose the secret protocols of the GermanSoviet pact. My mother gave the journal to my oldest brother who died in 1998. The guards at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials The guards at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials Accession Number 72-850 7.25x9.5 inches Black & White Printer-Friendly Version Order This Image Keywords Nuremberg Trial of Major German War Criminals, Nuremberg, Germany, 1945-1946 Soldiers HST Keywords Nurnberg Trials; Germany - Nurnberg [174] The judges interpreted crimes against humanity narrowly; they determined that crimes against German Jews before 1939 were not under the court's jurisdiction because the prosecution had not proven a connection to aggressive war. I have a brass pot, called an aspersorium, obtained by my father. End of the trial: Guardian report on the executions, 16 October 1946 Hermann Gring last night died by his own hand. Verdicts were handed down on October 1, 1946. Hans Frank, known as the Slayer of Poles, was small, outwardly arrogant, and had a cruel face, Prestianni revealed. Prestianni and another guard handcuffed Streicher and walked him silently to the gallows chamber, where they rapped on the door with their truncheons. Proposals for how to punish the defeated Nazi leaders ranged from a show trial (the Soviet Union) to summary executions (the United Kingdom). The United States delegation outlined the overall Nazi conspiracy and criminality of Nazi organizations. 3 Feb 1946. Some were convicted of historys most barbaric crimes against humanity. my father david c bergeron was a 1st LT with the guards at the war trials. [197] The trials heard 1,300 witnesses, entered more than 30,000 documents into evidence, and generated 132,855 pages of transcripts, with the judgements themselves totaling 3,828 pages. [172] All 22 defendants were charged with crimes against peace, and 12 were convicted. Give me information about your Dad and I will help you research about your fathers deployment to 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. Between 20 November 1945 and 1 October 1946, the International Military Tribunal (IMT) tried 21 of the most important surviving leaders of Nazi Germany in the political, military, and economic spheres, as well as six German organizations. He always was respectful, always the consummate gentleman. Speer was convicted and served 20 years in prison. To maintain the steady flow of Speer pencil sketches, guards always provided him with an adequate supply of paper and sharpened pencils. Yale Law School Lillian Goldman Law Library. Today, he carries on his World War II and Korean War heritage in various veterans organizations. [119] Unlike the British and American prosecution strategy, which focused on using German documents to make their case, the French prosecutors took the perspective of the victims, submitting postwar police reports and calling eleven witnesses. Prestianni also favorably related to Ernst Kaltenbrunner, the notorious chief of Germanys security police and a behind-the-scenes prime mover at the January 1942 Wannsee Conference where the proposed extermination of Jewry in central Europe was discussed by top Nazis. As a good military officer I was only following orders, he steadfastly maintained with quiet military bearing. [46], The French prosecutor, Franois de Menthon, had just overseen trials of the leaders of Vichy France;[37] he resigned in January 1946 and was replaced by Auguste Champetier de Ribes. I have searched photos of the trials to see if I could find my dad. This page was last edited on 8 October 2022, at 21:33. The purpose of the armored reinforcement was to prevent any possibility of attack by groups of still-fanatic Nazis. Gring was one of the surviving leaders of the Third Reich and the highest-ranking Nazi to be tried at the Nuremberg Trials where he was convicted of war crimes and sentenced to death. 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.. [94] All defendants pleaded not guilty. I never heard him speak, Prestianni remembered. [123] The next week, the Soviet prosecution suddenly produced former field marshal Friedrich von Paulus, captured after the Battle of Stalingrad, as a witness and questioned him about the preparations for the invasion of the Soviet Union. Master Sgt. Expressed repentance. This wasnt authorized, but it was done on occasion, Prestianni smiled. They were told they would be part of history. Raeder was sentenced to life imprisonment but was released for poor health on September 26, 1955. Those men who liberated the camps of the Holocau. My Dad Arthur Tacopino was a guard at The Nuremberg Trials. For the Tokyo Trial, see, International Military Tribunal for the Far East, Charter of the International Military Tribunal, List of defendants at the International Military Tribunal, SS Main Economic and Administrative Office, mass expulsion of millions of Germans from central and eastern Europe, confrontation with the concentration camps, Journal of International Criminal Justice, "Notre combat pour la paix: la France et le procs de Nuremberg (1945-1946)", "Le procs de Nuremberg: retour sur soixante-dix ans de recherche", "German Participation in the Nuremberg Trials and Its Implications for Today", "Imperfect Justice at Nuremberg and Tokyo", Trial of the Major War Criminals before the International Military Tribunal, International Military Tribunal (Nuremberg Trials), International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, Special Panels of the Dili District Court, International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals, List of major perpetrators of the Holocaust, Nazis and Nazi Collaborators (Punishment) Law, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nuremberg_trials&oldid=1142633133, International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg, Courts and tribunals disestablished in 1946, Short description is different from Wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 3 March 2023, at 14:39. During his three-month tour of duty at Nuremberg prison, Prestianni was assigned to 16 different prisoners. We were given strict orders to have no contact whatsoever with these women, no conversation, no nothing and to stay well away from them, noted Prestianni. 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. [85] After the American prosecution flooded the trial with untranslated evidence, the judges insisted that all of the evidence be read into the record, which slowed the trial. [76] Of the 24 men indicted, Martin Bormann was tried in absentia, as the Allies were unaware of his death; Krupp was too ill to stand trial; and Robert Ley committed suicide. Many of the worst offenders were not prosecuted, for logistical or financial reasons. I do have a photo of my Dad standing behind the German prisoners. [177] In the latter case, the Wehrmacht leadership was not considered an organization within the meaning of the charter;[177][178] but this verdict was later misrepresented as an acquittal of the criminality of the Wehrmacht, forming one of the foundations of the clean Wehrmacht myth. Koch was later tried at Buchenwald and sentenced to life imprisonment. Series of military trials at the end of World War II, This article is about the series of international trials. Twelve of the defendants were sentenced to death (Gring, Ribbentrop, Keitel, Kaltenbrunner, Rosenberg, Frank, Frick, Streicher, Sauckel, Jodl, Seyss-Inquart, and Bormann). It was an appointment that, when coupled with his Baltic origin, brought him into sharp conflict with most of those in Hitlers entourage. Other prisoners were outspoken in their condemnation of Hess as a traitor to the Fatherland when he flew to England in May 1941, ostensibly to arrange a peace between Hitlers Germany and Great Britain. The most infamous of the female prisoners during Prestiannis tour of duty was Ilse Koch, known to guards as the Bitch of Buchenwald. With her husband, Karl Koch, the camp commander, Ilse often rode a horse through the camp compound, whipping prisoners. [186] These trials were held under Law No. Those incarcerated at the Palace of Justice in Nuremberg were allowed very limited and sporadic visitation rights with lawyers and family members. . [44] As the numerically strongest delegation, it would take on the bulk of the prosecutorial effort. Some of these camps, such as Treblinka, were death camps, intended to kill every prisoner that passed through their gates. -. Prestianni did not recall any such instances. [59] The conspiracy charge was used to charge the top Nazi leaders, as well as bureaucrats who had never killed anyone or perhaps even directly ordered killing. [136][137] The Soviet prosecution case was generally well received and presented compelling evidence about the suffering of the Soviet people and the Soviet contribution to victory. He was a man of some stature with flowing white hair, but he would still never be noticed much in a crowd. I could never beat him in checkers. He was not tall at all and didnt really stand out in any way from the others, Prestianni said. Keitel was one of ten defendants hanged in the Palace of Justice in the early morning hours of October 16, 1946. The Nuremberg trials were a series of 13 trials carried out in Nuremberg, Germany, between 1945 and 1949 to try those accused of Nazi war crimes. Does anyone know where I can read about the nuremberg trials from the guards perspective? The Russians always were a problem and only cooperated with the other countries about 10 percent of the time. . Institutional rivalries hampered the search. [152] The defendants' witnesses sometimes managed to exculpate them, but other witnessesincluding Rudolf Hss, the former commandant of Auschwitz, and Hans Bernd Gisevius, a member of the German resistanceeffectively incriminated the defendants. [92], The International Military Tribunal began trial on 20 November 1945,[93] after postponement requests from the Soviet prosecution, who wanted more time to prepare its case, were rejected. I wish peace to the world. An excerpt from The Post of Oct. 16, 1946: Nuernberg (Wednesday), Oct. 16 (AP). All guards were forced to stand practically motionless at parade rest behind their assigned prisoner seated before them in the dock. I never treated him differently than I did the others I guarded..

Strong Heart In Different Languages, University Of Georgia Land Acknowledgement, Husky Cabinet Accessories, American Express Personal Savings Login, Paine Construction Knoxville, Articles L