The idea of ​​responsibility for war crimes has been a major issue in the 20th century. Many trials have focused on the personal responsibility of war criminals. The Tokyo military tribunal after World War II, the trials to persecute war criminals in the former Yugoslavia, and the trials in Rwanda are all examples of such trials. Since the Nuremberg trials of 1945, which focused on the responsibility of Nazi war criminals, the denial of personal responsibility for war crimes was no longer accepted. Although the Nuremberg Trials introduced new laws and policies, it was a poorly conducted trial with unreliable prosecutors. At the end of the Nuremberg trials, the new laws and policies that are still used today were the end result of the trials. The trials forever changed war and accountability for war crimes. Eleven of those tried were sentenced to death. Compared to the 6 million Jews killed, justice was certainly not one of the end results of the Nuremberg trials. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an Original Essay To understand the Nuremberg trials and the concept of justice, one must know the events leading up to the trial. In July 1941, Adolf Hitler began implementing what he called the Final Solution. The final solution to the Jewish question was the code name given by the German bureaucracy to the annihilation of the Jews. Concentration camps and extermination camps were built for the sole purpose of quickly and easily eliminating human life. The Nazi executioners used every method imaginable until the most efficient and effective way to exterminate the Jews was found. In most camps the use of gas chambers was common, while in other camps prisoners were lined up and shot in hundreds at a time. When Jews were brought to the extermination camps of Auschwitz, Belzec and Birkenau, most were taken directly to the gas chambers after a physical examination by a doctor to deem them suitable for forced labor. Those who were not, as well as young children and babies, were taken to the gas chambers. Nazi executioners told prisoners that they were going to take their obligatory delousing shower. Almost all prisoners realized what was happening when the water stopped coming out of the showers and when they noticed that there was no drain in the floor. For those who were not sent to the gas chambers, life was even worse. Prisoners had to work from sunrise to sunset, with very little food and very poor weather conditions. If anyone tried to escape, they were immediately shot and the other prisoners had to stay outside all night as punishment for disobedience. Another special group of Jews was designated to be part of the Sonderkommando. These were Jewish inmates who were promised life and adequate food in exchange for carrying out the most dreadful job of all. They had to first remove the blood, then remove the dead from the chamber using nooses and hooks. Next, they had to search for gold teeth or fillings that would be removed from the mouths of the dead. They then had to load the bodies into a wagon which took them to the furnaces. Hitler's ideas about the extermination of the Jews began in a German prison. Hitler was convicted of harboring Nazi revolutionary ideas. During his one-year sentence, he wrote his famousautobiography, Mein Kampf (My Battle). There he openly revealed his sinister political intentions. He wanted to rebuild the National Socialist Party and gain power legally. We will have to hold our noses and enter the Reichstag, he declared, finally showing his disgust for Germany's current political situation. Besides his various political views, Hitler also addressed many racial issues. His description of the Jews is as follows: The Jewish people, despite all their apparent intellectual qualities, are devoid of any real culture of their own. Because the false culture that the Jew possesses today is the property of other peoples, and it is largely ruined in his hands. It is and remains the typical parasite, a gypsy moth which, like a harmful bacillus, continues to spread as soon as a favorable environment invites it to do so. And the effect of its existence also resembles that of spongers: wherever it appears, the people who welcome it die after a more or less long period of time. Hitler saw the Jews as the source of all evil, misfortune and tragedy. He also preached this to his followers, who in turn put Hitler's suggestion of racial cleansing and purification into practice. His supporters possessed many of the same qualities as Hitler. The dream of a perfect state, in which all people would be of pure German ancestry, was constantly sought after. Each of these followers was also responsible for some aspect of the Holocaust. Whether operating death camps, conducting experiments on humans, or manufacturing the weapons used to kill six million Jews, these men were all personally responsible in one way or another . This idea of ​​personal responsibility was strictly enforced during the 1945 Nuremberg Trials, which aimed to bring some sort of justice to the families, as well as the victims of the Holocaust. The Nuremberg Trials began on November 22, 1945 in Nuremberg. , Germany. An international military tribunal met in Nuremberg to try former Nazi leaders. Of the millions responsible, twenty-two men were tried in ten months. To open the trial, representatives from the United States, Great Britain, France and the Soviet Union had to define the crimes over which the court had jurisdiction. They retained three main categories into which the numerous crimes committed by the Nazi leaders could be classified. They are as follows:1. Crimes against peace which included the planning, preparation, initiation or conduct of a war of aggression, or war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances.2. War crimes that included violations of the laws or customs of war. Such violations include, but are not limited to, the killing, ill-treatment or deportation for slave labor or any other purpose of the civilian population of or in the occupied territories, the killing or ill-treatment of prisoners of war or persons at sea, murder of hostages, pillage of public or private property, wanton destruction of towns or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity.3. Crimes against humanity which include murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation and other inhumane acts committed against any civilian population, before or during war, or persecution on political, racial or religious grounds. Once these types of crimes were defined, the prosecution teams It took nearly four months to present their case, but once it was complete, the defendants and their lawyers realized they faced a growing body of evidence much more important than they had imagined or believedpossible. The defense attorneys' argument rested entirely on disputing that the laws that would decide the fate of their defendants were created at the start of the trial. They argued that laws would only be credible if declared criminal by a law already in force. This argument was rejected, but defense lawyers replaced it with a new one. The new argument was that the Nazis were not alone in their criminal activities, as many other countries had participated in World War II. Once again, the defense arguments were rejected out of court. The trial itself was very poorly conducted. Throughout the proceedings, the credibility of the prosecution was called into question due to the creation of three classifications of war crimes. The defense argued that because these classifications were not in place at the time the crimes actually occurred, they should not be considered during the defendants' trial. The court's motion was denied, but among defense attorneys, the court's decision sparked more criticism and discontent than approval. The defense argument that the Nazis were following superior orders was also rejected, with the court stating that the real test, found to varying degrees in the criminal law of most countries, is not is not the existence of order, but moral choice. was actually possible. They decided that the moral choice was definitely possible and that these men must be personally responsible for their actions. Throughout the trial, the defense made many other arguments like these that were consistently dismissed or ignored. Some of the defendants also disrupted the trial. Hermann Göring repeatedly tried to stand up and read a prepared statement in the middle of the debates. Each time he was asked to sit down without further punishment. He charmed the guards and members of the court. He attempted to create a united front among the accused, but he realized that his accomplices were ashamed of their actions and did not want to be associated with the horrors of concentration camps, massacres and forced labor. He was methodical, evil and extremely ruthless. During his cross-examination, he showed no emotion and gave soft and calm responses. This was because court translators were very slow. As they translated the question into German for the German-speaking members of the court, Göring formulated an answer and delivered it perfectly. For example, Jackson tried to persuade Goring to admit that the Nazi plan to occupy the Rhineland without warning in 1936 was a Nazi secret, hidden from other countries. Göring replied bluntly: “I don't think I remember reading in advance the publication of the preparations for mobilization of the United States. » Such responses were common. The prosecution also made many more mistakes in its actions in court. After Robert H. Jackson, an American attorney, based his questions on a poorly translated document, Goring corrected it. As he appeared to be getting closer to Goring, Jackson suddenly changed the subject. The records of the Nuremberg trials were very poorly recorded. Written reports were often incomplete, due to confusion in the courtroom. The translator's constant dialogue confused the stenographers, who therefore missed many important parts of the proceedings. The visual recordings were also of poor quality. Camera angles were awkward and the videotape often ran out, unbeknownst to the camera operators. The horrors of the Holocaust were projected, uncensored, into the courtroom. Filmed evidence showing.