She was released after four years and eventually committed suicide in a Bavarian prison. This is evidenced by the change of the guards uniforms back and forth from the heavier, darker, winter uniform to the lighter colored summer uniform. Female Nazi war criminals - Capital Punishment U.K It was in my family until the early 2000s. The culmination of the unprecedented War Crimes trials in the German city of Nuremberg, where the Nazis had staged their infamous pre-war rallies. list of guards at nuremberg trialsdelpark homes sutton list of guards at nuremberg trials. [94] All defendants pleaded not guilty. These were 60 year old Emma Zimmer, nee Mezel, and 36 year old . The purpose of the armored reinforcement was to prevent any possibility of attack by groups of still-fanatic Nazis. He didnt really talk to me very much. Proposals for how to punish the defeated Nazi leaders ranged from a . Proposals for how to punish the defeated Nazi leaders ranged from a show trial (the Soviet Union) to summary executions (the United Kingdom). Some were convicted of historys most barbaric crimes against humanity. [181] All three acquittals (Papen, Schacht, and Fritzsche) were based on a deadlock between the judges; these acquittals surprised observers. He was quiet by nature and spent much of his time writing his memoirs. Per newspaper accounts of the scene, when the inmates heard the news they "shouted with joy" and "chattering excitedly, hastily shed the red . John C. Woods, hangman at Nuremberg Anyone else might have been embarrassed about botching such a high-level execution. How Gring obtained the lethal capsule has never been firmly established. Between 1939 and 1945, Nazi Germany invaded many countries across Europe, inflicting 27 million deaths in the Soviet Union alone. SS members were generally frowned upon and can't imagine them having anything to do with the trials except sit in the dock. Several were militaristically aloof and looked down upon those they considered to be the mere political element. A. On October 15, 1946, guards and prisoners listened to the pounding of the gallows being constructed. Brush with infamy: Mercer man, 95, oversaw guards at Nuremberg trials [167] The judges were aware that both the Allies and the Axis had planned or committed acts of aggression, writing the verdict carefully to avoid discrediting either the Allied governments or the tribunal. [183][184] The judges proved their independence from the governments that appointed them, the defendants were seen as receiving due process, and the evidence of guilt amassed by the prosecution was overwhelming. [87][149] United States admiral Chester Nimitz testified that the United States had used the same methods of submarine warfare that the German admirals were accused of; Dnitz's counsel successfully argued that this meant that such actions could not be crimes. Nazi, Alfred Rosenberg, lies dead on a casket following his execution after the Nuremberg Trials. At least Im out here and you are in there, said the former guard. Did Hermann Gring have a defense attorney during the Nuremberg Trials [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. He was usually confrontational and argumentative with the other prisoners. Let me have that again, please. At the time, I saw these men only as individual prisoners, guilty of unknown crimes. At the wars end, he was assigned to the guard detail at Nuremburg. [99] According to historian Kim Christian Priemel, the conspiracy charge "invited apologetic interpretations: narratives of absolute, totalitarian dictatorship, run by society's lunatic fringe, of which the Germans had been the first victims rather than agents, collaborators, and fellow travellers". Three of the defendants were acquitted: Hjalmar Schacht, Franz von Papen, and Hans Fritzsche. Subsequent Nuremberg Trials (December 1946 - April 1949) My Dad Arthur Tacopino was a guard at The Nuremberg Trials. I have a brass pot, called an aspersorium, obtained by my father. [46] The British chief prosecutor was Hartley Shawcross, assisted by David Maxwell Fyfe, who had been the attorney general in Churchill's government. . [2] German aggression was accompanied by immense brutality in occupied areas and the systematic murder of millions of Jews in the Holocaust. I look forward to hearing from him. Guards were under strict orders never to respond to verbal abuse by prisoners, no matter how hateful it might be. My dad, Frederick M. Bencriscutto, was in the field artillery in the 1st Infantry Division during WWII. 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. Prompt medical attention was readily available to all prisoners. The United States and United Kingdom refused to endorse this proposal, citing the failure of war crimes prosecutions after World War I. Recently one of our readers in the US contacted us with a photo of a pair of sunglasses that were in a box in his grandfather's garage. [65], Some of the most prominent NazisAdolf Hitler, Heinrich Himmler, and Joseph Goebbelshad committed suicide and therefore could not be tried. Raeder kept to himself, voraciously reading and writing his memoirs, but when he interacted with the others, it was often to lash out in anger. I had no idea of the magnitude of what they had done. The tribunal was given the authority to find any individual guilty of the commission of war crimes (counts 13 listed above) and to declare any group or organization to be criminal in character. Former field marshal Keitel, another prisoner who was eventually executed, gradually alienated himself from the other prisoners. Guards gradually learned through everyday observation, however, that the prisoners collective makeup truly spanned a psychologically intricate cross-section of those who had served Hitler. Others subjected inmates to horrific experiments and torture. There was a large clock on the wall that was above his right shoulder. My father was also a guard, but he said he always was on the outside guarding. One can only imagine the effect the pounding had on the condemned prisoners, now with only one more day to live. [214] By then, the Americans were hoping to use the offer of pardon to convicted war criminals in order to bind West Germany to the Western Bloc. As a good military officer I was only following orders, he steadfastly maintained with quiet military bearing. Most of the time the prison was dank, uncomfortably cold, and forbidding, especially during the winter months. He was sent to Nuremburg and stood guard at the Judges quarters. Batya. [132] The inclusion of Katyn in the charges undermined the credibility of Soviet evidence in general. [227] The main legal criticisms of the trial focused on questions of retroactivity, selectivity, and jurisdiction. Many of the prisoners never accepted the fact that they were no longer on top of the world. 1 Feb 1946. Ribbentrop was held in low esteem by others close to Hitler due to his perceived ineptness in many areas. [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. Each watch was of two hours duration, standing almost motionless looking in the cell door openings. The Nazi Defendants in the Major War Criminal Trial in Nuremberg Courtroom MPs wore stylish white MP-emblazoned helmet liners and similarly labeled brassards. Because of his moral corruption, the other prisoners shunned him. [124] Paulus incriminated his former associates, pointing to Keitel, Jodl, and Gring as the defendants most responsible for the war. [67] Former Nazis were allowed to serve as counsel[45] and by mid-November all defendants had lawyers. War Crime Trials - The Wiener Holocaust Library These were the intellectuals; the ramrod-stiff military officers; the cunning politicians; the worlds most vicious, depraved, notorious mass murderers; an architect; a filthy-minded and sex-obsessed anti-Semitic newspaper publisher; a gentle writer of poetry; the bombastic bullies; an unrepentant, ghost-like figure; the subservient military lackeys; and even their self-appointed leader, a bloated, drug-addicted former war hero. Immediately following the end of the IMT, the American military government held twelve more war crimes trials in Nuremberg. Jackson. Prestianni did not recall any such instances. Dnitz remained an unrepentant Nazi until his death in 1980. During his three-month tour of duty at Nuremberg prison, Prestianni was assigned to 16 different prisoners. [17] On 8 May, Germany surrendered unconditionally. Text Size:thredup ambassador program how to dress more masculine for a woman. Her last name was Marsico (cant recall her first name} and she was from Montgomery, WV. [144] Most defendants argued their own insignificance within the Nazi system, but Gring took the opposite approach, presenting himself as Hitler's loyalist and expecting that while he would be executed, the German people would eventually appreciate his loyalty. Prestianni particularly liked Speer, Hitlers architect and the designer of many of Berlins most spectacular buildings and later minister of armament and munitions. [62] Vyshinsky demanded extensive corrections to the crimes-against-peace charges, especially regarding the role of the GermanSoviet pact in starting World War II. [74], Although the list of defendants was finalized on 29 August,[75] as late as October, Jackson demanded changes and expansion of the defendants list, but this was rejected. Convicted and hanged, Rosenbergs ideology led to an appointment as minister of the occupied eastern territories in 1941. [83] The American and British prosecutors focused on documentary evidence and affidavits rather than testimony from survivors, as the latter was considered less reliable and more liable to accusations of bias, but at the expense of reducing public interest in the proceedings. The Nazi war criminal, Arthur Seyss-Inquart, after execution at Nuremberg. Join historians and history buffs alike with our Unlimited Digital Access pass to every military history article ever published (over 3,000 articles) in Sovereigns military history magazines. [48] The French judges were Henri Donnedieu de Vabres, a professor of criminal law, and alternate Robert Falco, who had represented France at the London Conference. These were people, Neurath reasoned, of whom Germany was cleansing the world.. [79] Initially, the Americans had planned to try fourteen organizations and their leaders, but this was narrowed to six: the Reich Cabinet, the Leadership Corps of the Nazi Party, the Gestapo, the SA, the SS and the SD, and the General Staff and High Command of the Wehrmacht. [195][196], These trials emphasized the crimes committed during the Holocaust. During numerous argumentative discussions, Neurath referred to the Polish population and others that were slaughtered by German troops as untermenschen, the German expression for inferior beings. Strict attention was always paid to the prisoners. [28] The charter limited the jurisdiction of the court to Germany's actions because the Allies did not want to answer to an international court for their own actions;[29] only Germans could be tried. The Nuremberg Trials: Table of Contents | Indictments | Defendants & Verdicts Click Left/Right to Scroll American guards maintain constant surveillance over Nazi war criminals in the Nuremberg prison. During watch on one bitter cold night, Prestianni contracted pneumonia and collapsed, unconscious. In the prison cellblock, each single-occupant cell had two parallel heating pipes beneath a single, heavily scratched, plastic-covered window, the top half of which could be tilted open for limited ventilation. StoryCorps: Nuremberg Trials Guard Dies Of COVID-19 : NPR 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. . The two men were deep in the Palace of Justice in Nuremberg, Germany, venue for the Nuremberg War Crimes trials of Germany's Nazi leaders. Again, without a word being spoken, the door was slammed shut. If an organization was found to be criminal, the prosecution could bring individuals to trial for having been members, and the criminal nature of the group or organization could no longer be questioned. [224][225][226] During the two decades after the trial, opinions were predominantly negative. Twelve of the defendants were sentenced to death (Gring, Ribbentrop, Keitel, Kaltenbrunner, Rosenberg, Frank, Frick, Streicher, Sauckel, Jodl, Seyss-Inquart, and Bormann). After encountering a you tube video by accident I have a different answer. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. Other generals were tried in the High Command Trial for plotting wars of aggression, issuing criminal orders, deporting civilians, using slave labor, and looting in the Soviet Union. The Wiener Holocaust Library's holdings on war crime trials largely pertain to those crimes committed by the Nazis and their allies during the Second World War. To some, he was demeaned as the foreigner., I didnt like his looks at all. [143] Although a few defense lawyers inverted the arguments of the prosecution to assert that the Germans' authoritarian mindset and obedience to the state exonerated them from any personal guilt, most rejected such arguments. [211] The educational purpose of the Nuremberg Military Tribunals was a failure, in part because of the resistance to war crimes trials in German society, but also because of the United States Army's refusal to publish the trial record in German for fear it would undermine the fight against communism. 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. 23rd September 2021 at 5:18pm. American chow was prepared for the guards and other Army personnel. [30] Article 7 prevented the defendants from claiming immunity for their actions under the act of state doctrine,[31] and the plea of acting under superior orders was left for the judges to decide. The British government was still opposed, unable to see the benefit of such a trial and preferring summary execution of Nazi leaders. The Nuremberg Trials were a series of trials that occurred in post-World War II Germany to provide a platform for justice against accused Nazi war criminals. New Patient Forms; My father Ed Rossi was also a guard at the Nuremberg trials. Before his execution, he aligned himself with Jodl and, to a lesser extent, Raeder and Dnitz, the military clique. [141] The defendants tried to blame their crimes on Hitler, who was mentioned 1,200 times during the trialmore than the top five defendants combined. Your Moms birthday and maiden name. [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. After his release from prison in Nuremberg, a Stuttgart court sentenced him to eight years in a work camp. The ensuing trial pitted U.S. chief prosecutor and Supreme Court judge Robert Jackson against Hermann Gring, the former head of the Nazi air force, whom Adolf Hitler had once named to be his. Prisoners and guards were forced to wear heavy scarves to ward off the penetrating cold. Examine some of the collection's most-accessed trial topics. In July 1945 the 98 th set up operations in a hospital in Munich, and several months later Col. Burton C. Andrus, prison commandant at the Nuremberg Palace of Justice, requested Gerecke's service. All war crimes prisoners ate from a single German menu. [52][46] The Soviet personnel's lack of knowledge of English, lack of interpreters, and unfamiliarity with diplomacy and international institutions also limited their influence. Nazi Ravensbrck camp: How ordinary women became SS torturers Koch was later tried at Buchenwald and sentenced to life imprisonment. Speer spent much of his time drawing exquisite pencil sketches ranging from landscapes to magnificent buildings to quaint German villages. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. "[1][163] The judges did not attempt to define aggression[164] and decided not to mention the retroactivity of the charges in the verdict. In rendering these decisions, the tribunal rejected the major defenses offered by the defendants. The food, prepared in an American-staffed kitchen, offered identical German menus for each prisoner. [106][107] The Americans summoned Einsatzgruppen commander Otto Ohlendorf, who testified about the murder of 80,000 people by those under his command, and SS general Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski, who admitted that German anti-partisan warfare was little more than a cover for the mass murder of Jews. Had been imprisoned since then. One spoon has a carving of a skeleton key on its handle, the other an engraving of N 19 P. I could never determine the significance of the latter carving. Updated on January 22, 2020. The intentionally weakened table and chair, Prestianni said, prevented possible suicide attempts by hanging. He had been instrumental in establishing a totalitarian state. Many were resistance fighters or political opponents. Prestianni never served in the trial courtroom, only in the cellblock. 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. Later. I do remember that Schacht, like most of the others, steadfastly maintained his innocence, never admitting to guilt in any form. But Woods, an almost charmingly hapless man with a checkered. [50][51] Because the Soviet Union expected a show trial, its appointees were familiar with this form. [67] Also prosecuted were leaders of the German economy, such as Gustav Krupp (of the conglomerate Krupp AG), former Reichsbank president Hjalmar Schacht, and economic planners Albert Speer and Walther Funk, along with Speer's subordinate and head of the forced labor program, Fritz Sauckel. When the needling did not abate and became somewhat annoying, Prestianni said he used to give the former World War I ace his own version of a little dig in return. His remembrance of duty at Nuremberg remains vivid. Waffen-SS Soldiers Guarded the Nuremberg Trials - YouTube [116] In contrast to the other prosecution teams, the French prosecution emphasized how Nazi ideology and pan-Germanism had led to the Nazis' crimes, and delved into the Sonderweg theory of Germany's development in the nineteenth century. Omissions? [102] Jackson's focus was on the aggressive war charge, which he described as the root of the crimes against humanity and of war crimes. [21] At the conference, it was debated whether wars of aggression were prohibited in existing international customary law; regardless, before the charter was adopted there was no law providing for criminal responsibility for aggression. Each prisoners cell was equipped with a simple, bench-like bed against one wall adjacent to the cell door, a primitive commode, a wooden table to hold the few allowed pictures and other personal items, and a chair too rickety to support the weight of a standing man. [105] The American prosecutors were not any more effective when presenting documentary evidence on the conspiracy to commit crimes against humanity, and ended up reaching a "saturation point of horror" by their indiscriminate selection and disorganized presentation of evidence without tying it to specific defendants. He was released in 1966. The IMT focused on the crime of aggressionplotting and waging aggressive war, which the verdict declared "the supreme international crime" because "it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole". The . [233] In 1950, the International Law Commission drafted the Nuremberg principles to codify international criminal law, although the Cold War prevented the adoption of these principles until the 1990s. [159] During the closing statements, most defendants disappointed the judges by their lies and denial. Streicher, for reasons never made known, was photographed clothed and then naked and again in death. On October 1, 1946, the verdicts on 22 of the original 24 defendants were handed down for the Nrnberg trials. [9] The prosecutors attempted to substitute his son in the indictment, but the judges rejected this due to proximity to trial. [103], Much of the American case focused on the development of the Nazi conspiracy before the outbreak of war. I sure would like to find out more about his service. Nazi war criminals sentenced at Nuremberg - HISTORY