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Subsequent Trials
In prosecuting the twelve subsidiary trials, the defendants were categorized by 'profession' - the doctors, the lawyers, the industrialists, and so on. The message for future generations was clear: if all corners of society are complicit, then all corners of society are potentially liable to give account for their actions and, if found guilty, to face the consequences.On March 29, 1946, Justice Jackson appointed Telford Taylor as Chief of Counsel for War Crimes for twelve subsequent trials, formally call the Trials of War Criminals before the Nuremberg Military Tribunals. The tribunals tried 185 leading participants in the political, economical, and social spheres of Nazi Germany for war crimes. The majority of the 142 defendants convicted received prison sentences, and twenty-four defendants were sentenced to death (eleven were later commuted to lifetime imprisonment).
- Professor Harry Reicher, University of Pennsylvania Law School
The first tribunal, known as the Doctors' Trial (Dec. 9, 1946 - Aug. 20, 1947), tried twenty-three physicians for performing medical experiments on prisoners of war and civilians without consent, and for participation in the mass murder of concentration camp inmates. All defendants pleaded not guilty. Sixteen defendants were convicted and seven were acquitted.
Three of the twelve tribunals tried leading officials of major industrial companies for their participation in the enslavement of concentration camp inmates, civilians, and prisoners of war on a gigantic scale, and for mistreatment, terrorization, torture, and murder of enslaved persons. At the IG Farben Trial (Aug. 27, 1947 - Jul. 30, 1948), thirteen of the twenty-four directors tried of the large conglomerate were convicted of using slave labor to support the German war effort. In the Krupp Trial (Dec. 8, 1847 - Jul. 31, 1948), Alfred Krupp and ten others were convicted of the same charges, having used an estimated 100,000 civilians and prisoners of war for slave labor.
The other tribunals tried and convicted members of the Einsatzgruppen, officials responsible for implementing and enforcing racial cleansing policies, and members of the German armed forces for the ill-treatment and murder of civilians and prisoners of war.