MS 200 Papers of the International Military Tribunal and the Nuremberg Military Tribunals

International Military Tribunal

The International Military Tribunal (IMT) was established in consequence of the London Agreement of 8 August 1945, which dealt with the punishment of the war criminals of the European Axis. The IMT was composed of representatives of France, Great Britain, the USA and the USSR under the Allied Control Commission and its purpose was to try the major war criminals. Even before the war had ended, the American and British armies had established special investigating teams whose purpose was to collect documentary evidence of war crimes. The material was then sorted and the most significant documents were transmitted to Nuremberg. An opening session of the IMT was held at Berlin on 18 October 1945; the tribunal convened at Nuremberg on 14 November 1945 and concluded its business with the passing of sentence on twenty-two defendants on 1 October 1946. These defendants were Hermann Wilhelm Goering, Rudolf Hess, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Wilhelm Ketel, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Alfred Rosenberg, Hans Frank, Wilhelm Frick, Julius Streicher, Walter Funk, Karl Doenitz, Erich Raeder, Baldur von Schirach, Fritz Saukel, Alfred Jodl, Arthur Seyss- Inquart, Albert Speer, Constantin von Neurath, Martin Bormann, Hjalmar Schact, Franz von Papen and Hans Fritzsche.

Nuremberg Military Tribunals

The Nuremberg Military Tribunals (NMT) or 'subsequent proceedings' were tried by the United States in pursuance of the Allied Control Commission Law 10, which empowered the commanding officers of the four allied zones of occupation to conduct criminal trials on charges of aggression, war crimes, crimes against humanity and membership of an organisation aiming at such crimes. President Truman took the decision to prosecute, through the Office of the United States Goverment for Germany (OMGUS), over one hundred and seventy more Germans. Evidence was provided by the Office of the US Chief Counsel and its chief counsel, Joseph T.McNary, established six US military tribunals which conducted the twelve trials held before the NMT. The trials ran from 26 October 1946 to 14 April 1949 and the defendants included high-ranking officials, among them cabinet ministers, diplomats, military and SS leaders, industrialists, physicians who had been involved in medical crimes, as well as middle-ranking SS officers who were implicated in crimes at concentration camps or in genocide in German occupied areas. Although the trials were military, they were conducted before American civilian judges, on indictments filed by Brigadier General Telford Taylor, United States Chief of Counsel for War Crimes, acting on behalf of the USA.

About the collection

The documentation is divided up to reflect the twelve cases:

Case 1 (Medical): charged twenty-four defendants with performing medical experiments on concentration camp inmates and other living human subjects

Case 2 (Milch): charged Erhard Milch with the exploitation of slave labour and carrying out medical experiments on concentration camp inmates

Case 3 (Justice): charged sixteen defendants with war crimes and crimes against humanity through abuse of the judicial process and the administration of justice

Case 4 (Pohl): charged eighteen defendants with running concentration camps or economic enterprises of the SS using slave labour

Case 5 (Flick): charged six defendants with criminal conduct in relation to slave labour, the spoliation of property in occupied France and the USSR, and the `aryanisation' of Jewish industrial and mining properties

Case 6 (Farben): charged twenty-four senior executives of I.G.Farben with spoliation of property in occupied countries and participation in a slave labour programme

Case 7 (Hostage): charged twelve generals assigned to South East Europe with criminal disregard of the rules of warfare in respect to the treatment of hostages and civilians

Case 8 (Rusha): charged fourteen officials in the race and settlement office of the SS with carrying out systematic programmes of genocide

Case 9 (Einsatzgruppen): charged twenty-three officers of the SS in charge of extermination squads with the murder of 2,000,000 people

Case 10 (Krupp): charged twelve executives of the Krupp industrial concern with using slave labour and spoliation

Case 11 (Ministries): charged twenty-one defendants with playing an important part in the political and diplomatic preparation for war, violation of international treaties, economic spoliation and diplomatic implementation of the extermination programme

Case 12 (High Command): charged fourteen defendants who held high command or staff positions in the armed forces of ordering the killing and mistreatment of prisoners of war and of deporting or abusing civilians in occupied territories

The documents collected by the special investigation units were classified and numbered. Those used for the NMT cases were registered in four principal series: NG, `Nuremberg Government', documents relating in the main to government agencies of the Third Reich; NI, `Nuremberg Industrial', documents principally dealing with industry and finance (some were further designated NID, for the operations of the Dresdener Bank, or NIK, for the activities of the Krupp organisation); NO, `Nuremberg Organisations', documents connected with the various organisations of the Nazi party; and NOKW, `Nuremberg Oberkommando der Wehrmacht', documents concerned primarily with the High Command of the German Army.

The documentation for both the IMT and NMT was reproduced, either as mimeographs or as carbon copies, and was distributed by the Office of the Chief of US Counsel for War Crimes, Document Division. Official publications were prepared of much of the IMT material, and of some sections of the NMT.

Material relating to the IMT

Approximately 40 boxes of official transcripts of court proceedings, 21 Nov 1945-30 Sep 1946; document books (incomplete series)

The transcripts were printed in three series (blue, red and green) of Trial of themajor war criminals before th International Military Tribunal. Details of the documents are given in J.Robinson and H.Sachs The Holocaust: the Nuremberg evidence. Part one documents (Jerusalem, 1976) and in the Green Series, volume 15, pp. 1229-31.

Material relating to the NMT

Approximately 460 boxes of official transcripts of the court proceedings; summaries of interrogations; document books containing compilations and translations of the evidence

Date range:

1945-1949

Size:

c.500 boxes