The International Military Tribunal pronounced sentence for the Nazi criminals in Nuremberg: Hermann Göring, Martin Bormann (in absentia), Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Wilhelm Keitel, Alfred Rosenberg, Hans Frank, Wilhelm Frick, Julius Streicher, Fritz Sauckel, Arthur Seyss-Inquart and Alfred Jodl were sentenced to death by hanging. Rudolf Heß, Walther Funk and Erich Raeder were sentenced to life imprisonment. Baldur von Schirach and Albert Speer were sentenced to 20 years of imprisonment. Konstantin von Neurath was sentenced to 15 years of imprisonment. Karl Dönitz was sentenced to 10 years of imprisonment. Hans Fritzsche, Franz von Papen and Hjalmar Schacht were acquitted.
The Nuremberg trial lasted 316 days and involved examining 100,000 documents, almost 19 miles of film footage and 25,000 photographs. The prosecution and the defence made 30,000 photocopies and printed 50,000,000 pages of text. The transcripts of the trial proceedings were the most important primary sources about the Nuremberg trial, the English version of the transcripts of 403 sessions consisted of about 17,000 pages. The complete transcript was published in the four official languages of the Tribunal in 42 volumes: 22 volumes of the transcripts and 20 of evidence presented to the Tribunal formed “the Blue Series”.
The USSR member of the Tribunal, Supreme Court judge, Major-General Iona Nikitchenko, objected to the acquittal of von Papen, Fritzsche and Schacht and - as the Soviet sidefelt - the extremely lenient punishment for Hess (for whom the Soviet judge demanded the death penalty). Besides, he was dissatisfied with the Tribunal’s refusal to declare the high command and the general staff of the German Armed Forces to be criminal organisations.
At the press conference held after the verdict had been delivered, the chief US prosecutor, Robert H Jackson, expressed his approval of the final decision although he was disappointed with the acquittal of Papen and Schacht. The Austrian Minister of Justice demanded Papen’s extradition to Vienna. Many had the false impression that the tribunal had acquitted the Wehrmacht, although the judges had specifically noted that the guilt of the High Command of the Third Reich was obvious.
Source:
Alexander Zvyagintsev. The Nuremberg tocsin. Reporting from the past, addressing the future. Moscow: OLMA Media Group, 2006
