THE MAJOR WAR CRIMINALS TRIAL: 1945-46

The best-known of the Nuremberg trials was the Trial of Major War Criminals, held from November 20, 1945, to
October 1, 1946. The format of the trial was a mix of legal traditions: There were prosecutors and defense
attorneys according to British and American law, but the decisions and sentences were imposed by a tribunal
(panel of judges) rather than a single judge and a jury. The chief American prosecutor was Robert H. Jackson
(1892-1954), an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Each of the four Allied powers supplied two
judgesa main judge and an alternate.

Twenty-four individuals were indicted, along with six Nazi organizations determined to be criminal (such as the
Gestapo, or secret state police). One of the indicted men was deemed medically unfit to stand trial, while a
second man killed himself before the trial began. Hitler and two of his top associates, Heinrich Himmler (190045) and Joseph Goebbels (1897-45), had each committed suicide in the spring of 1945 before they could be
brought to trial. The defendants were allowed to choose their own lawyers, and the most common defense
strategy was that the crimes defined in the London Charter were examples of ex post facto law; that is, they
were laws that criminalized actions committed before the laws were drafted. Another defense was that the trial
was a form of victors justicethe Allies were applying a harsh standard to crimes committed by Germans and
leniency to crimes committed by their own soldiers.

As the accused men and judges spoke four different languages, the trial saw the introduction of a technological
innovation taken for granted today: instantaneous translation. IBM provided the technology and recruited men
and women from international telephone exchanges to provide on-the-spot translations through headphones in
English, French, German and Russian.

In the end, the international tribunal found all but three of the defendants guilty. Twelve were sentenced to
death, one in absentia, and the rest were given prison sentences ranging from 10 years to life behind bars. Ten
of the condemned were executed by hanging on October 16, 1946. Hermann Gring (1893-1946), Hitlers
designated successor and head of the Luftwaffe (German air force), committed suicide the night before his
execution with a cyanide capsule he had hidden in a jar of skin medication.

Tokyo trials
Kki Hirota ( Hirota Kki , 14 February 1878 23 December 1948) was a
Japanese diplomat and politician who served as the 32nd Prime Minister of Japan from 9 March 1936 to 2 February
1937. Originally his name was Jtar ( ). He was executed for war crimes committed during World War II.
?

Baron Hiranuma Kiichir After the war, he was arrested by the American Occupation Authorities and was convicted
by International Military Tribunal for the Far East as a Class A War Criminal and given alife sentence. However, he
was paroled in early 1952, and died shortly afterwards. His grave is at Tama Cemetery, outside of Tokyo.
Naoki Hoshino ( Hoshino Naoki , 10 April 1892 26 January 1978) was a bureaucrat and politician who
served in the Taish and early Shwa period Japanese government, and as an official in the Empire of Manchukuo.
?

Marquis Kichi Kido ( Kido Kichi , July 18, 1889 April 6, 1977) served as Lord Keeper of the Privy
Seal from 1940 to 1945, and was the closest advisor to Emperor Showa throughout World War II.
?

Toshio Shiratori ( Shiratori Toshio , June 8, 1887 June 3, 1949) was

the Japanese ambassador to Italy from 1938 to 1940, adviser to the Japanese foreign minister in 1940 and one of
the 14 Class-A war criminals enshrined at Yasukuni.
?

Shigenori Tg ( Tg Shigenori ) (Korean: , Hanja: , Pak Mudk, 10 December 1882 23

July 1950) wasMinister of Foreign Affairs for the Empire of Japan at both the start and the end of the JapaneseAllied conflict during World War II. He also served as Minister of Colonial Affairs in 1941, and assumed the same
position, renamed the Minister for Greater East Asia, in 1945.
?

Mamoru Shigemitsu ( Shigemitsu Mamoru , July 29, 1887 January 26, 1957) was a Japanese diplomat
and politician in the Empire of Japan, who served as the Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs at the end of World
War II and later, as the Deputy Prime Minister of Japan.
?

Okinori Kaya ( Kaya Okinori , January 30, 1889 - May 9, 1977) was the Japanese finance minister
between 1941 and 1944. In 1945, he was captured by the Allies, tried by the International Military Tribunal for the
Far East and sentenced to 20 years imprisonment. Paroled in 1955, he later served as justice minister from 1957
until 1960.
?

Ysuke Matsuoka ( Matsuoka Ysuke , March 3, 1880 June 26, 1946) was a Japanese diplomat
and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Empire of Japan during the early stages of World War II. He is best known for
his defiant speech at the League of Nations in 1933, ending Japan's participation in that organization. He was also
one of the architects of the Tripartite Pact and the JapaneseSoviet Neutrality Pact in the years immediately prior to
the outbreak of war.
?