The Numerberg Trials: A Victors Justice

The Numerberg Trials Were Unfair

After World War II, the victorious Allies decided to hold a trial for the defeated Nazis. These trials lasted from November 20, 1945 till October 1, 1946. Although the victors claimed that they would give the accused a fair trial, upon closer inspection we can see that in reality, these trials were biased and were a “victor’s justice.”

After the war, each of the Allies leaders had their own idea for how they should deal with the Nazi’s. Stalin suggested that they should have trials, but here everyone is guilty and afterwards is shot. What then would be the point of having a trial then? It would just appear as a ‘play’ before they would perform their actual intentions. He may have suggested this also so that he could say that they were fair because they gave them a trial-but what sort of trial? Churchill even said that they should just be lined up and shot. If the leaders of the Allies were saying such things, how could we even expect the trials to be unbiased then? Each allied country had its own persecutors. All the judges at the trials came from the victorious countries as well. Most of the judges were American or Russian.

During the trials, the Americans put American justice over International Justice. It was wrong and unfair however to do such a thing because those who were guilty didn’t even come from the United States? Since the trials were supposed to be international in scope, they shouldn’t be following the justice of one country, but rather international justice. Although the Americans were applying “American justice” to the trials, they didn’t even follow their constitution while doing so. The US constitution states that laws cannot be made post-facto, but in Nuremberg, they created these laws (for example, crimes against humanity, and waging aggressive war) after the Germans had “committed” them. It is wrong however to charge defendants with crimes that didn’t exist in anyone’s books at the time they were committed. Although some might say that these crimes are “common knowledge,” they may in fact be only common knowledge to you. Not everyone in the world views things in the same way you might. John F. Kennedy even said about the Nuremberg trials that “The Constitution was not a collection of loosely given political promises subject to broad interpretation. It was not a list of pleasing platitudes to be set lightly aside when expediency required it…[and] discard these Constitutional precepts in order to punish a vanquished enemy.