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WW2 category: Nuremberg Trials: Nazi War Criminals  -- See latest WWII news here.
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Nuremberg trial Interrogator John Dolibois recalls talks with Hitler's Inner Circle     cincinnati.com :: 2009-11-16
During Nuremberg trial John Dolibois looked into the eyes of evil as a top interrogator of the captured Nazi leaders. His mind is a warehouse stocked with memories - and later generations of U.S government Nazi hunters still pick his brain for information and interrogation techniques. After the war Dolibois gained the trust of some members of Adolf Hitler's inner circle: Hermann Goering, Rudolf Hess, Karl Doenitz, Julius Streicher and Albert Speer. Goering had "a terrific sense of humor. He was full of jokes. He would tell jokes about himself and other Nazis. He was easy to interrogate. He did not deny anything. He said 'Yes, we did that.'"    

Richard Sonnenfeldt was the principal interpreter for American prosecutors at the Nuremberg war crimes trials     telegraph.co.uk :: 2009-10-15
Richard Sonnenfeldt was a Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany who became the main translator for American prosecutors at the Nuremberg trials, helping to interrogate the leaders of the Third Reich. As a private in the US Army, Sonnenfeldt had fought at the Battle of the Bulge and was working in a vehicle maintenance pool, greasing an armoured car, when he came to the attention of General William "Wild Bill" Donovan, head of the OSS. Among the 21 men he questioned were Luftwaffe commander Hermann Goering; armaments minister Albert Speer; and Rudolf Hess, Hitler's deputy in the Nazi Party. He was one of the two men who served the indictments - as his autobiography "Witness to Nuremberg" reveals. [Buy from Amazon: US, UK, CA, DE, FR]    

One of the last of the prosecutors at the Nuremberg war crime trials passes away     watoday.com.au :: 2009-05-29
Henry King's death leaves just Whitney Harris and Ben Ferencz as the last of 200 American prosecutors who helped bring Nazi leaders to trial 1945-1949. King helped prosecute Walther von Brauchitsch, the commander of German armed forces and prepared the case against Field Marshal Erhard Milch, second-in-command of the Luftwaffe. King interviewed Speer and was impressed by his admission of guilt. King regarded Speer "the window into Hitler's soul", writing in his memoir, The Two Worlds of Albert Speer: "Speer closed his eyes to the world of humanity, and thus a concern for human ethics never intruded on his relentless drive as armaments minister."    

How a British lawyer beat Hermann Göring after he outsmarted American prosecutor Robert Jackson     dailymail.co.uk :: 2009-03-20
He was the most important Nazi leader to be captured by the Allies and face trial at the end of World War II. But Herman Goering, far from being broken by his downfall, was a formidable defendant at the Nuremberg hearings, outsmarting his U.S. prosecutor. During his cross-examination, Goering's mocking and evasive answers got the better of American prosecutor Robert Jackson, who became so angry that he refused to continue. It took a British lawyer to turn the tide against the overweight Luftwaffe chief, nicknamed 'fat boy' by his captors. Letters of prosecutor Sir David Maxwell Fyfe shed light on the historic face-off in 1946.     [Hermann Goering: Commander of Luftwaffe]

A pair of WWII veterans who guarded Nazi war criminals during the Nuremberg trials     vets4politics :: 2009-01-24
Bill Miller and Ken Fulkerson told of their time as guards during the Nuremberg Trials at the end of World War II. The two combat veterans were among the GIs who stood outside the cells of the 21 high-ranking Nazi officials. The most important of the Nazi captives was the most engaging: Hermann Goering, the Luftwaffe chief and No. 2 man in the Nazi regime. Fulkerson shed light on the question of how Goering got a cyanide capsule: "I know that he asked a second lieutenant to bring him a small bag when he needed it. The lieutenant brought the bag that day, and the capsule was in the bag." He said the lieutenant got a gold watch from Goering for his co-operation.    

Nuremberg August 31, 1946 - The last stand for Hitler's henchmen     timesonline.co.uk :: 2009-01-11
A bitter, defiant attack on the prosecution by Hermann Goering, an incoherent monologue from Rudolf Hess and a dramatic warning of the horrors of the next war from Albert Speer were the highlights of the final plea by the 21 Nazi defendants. All looked smartly groomed: their clothes and uniforms had been brushed and pressed for the occasion. Goering stated: "What Germany did in France, Belgium, Holland, Norway and Greece bears no comparison with what the occupying powers are doing in Germany now - dismantling industry, confiscating the money of millions and gravely interfering with the people's freedom."     [Nuremberg Trials: Nazi War Criminals]

The Nuremberg trials team drank champagne, dined on veal and danced until the small hours     scotsman.com :: 2008-07-11
By day they led the Nuremberg courtroom, overseeing duels with the architects of the Third Reich and founders of the gas chamber. But by night they drank champagne, dined on veal and danced until the early hours of the morning - while Germans struggled on meagre rations. The Nuremberg trials have been shown in a new light by a cache of documents - now for sale. The invitations and photos of secretary Kathleen Kentish reveal how staff lived lavishly, as she attended cocktail parties at the private residence of the Russian prosecutor and enjoyed a buffet supper and dancing with the American team.    

Nazi trials court reporter Nancy Kenaston shares story     dothaneagle :: 2008-02-26
Nancy Kenaston tells of her time in postwar Germany because of a history textbook she saw: It was lacking a meaningful representation of the Nuremberg Nazi war crimes trials, an event that Kenaston recalls vividly 63 years later. Her first time in hearing about the terrors almost drove her to return home. Most of the Nazis took the trials for a trivial exercise and were outspoken about the atrocities, because they were sure that they were going to be executed anyway. Not all of her story is bleakness, humorous side of military life often involved alcohol: "I don't want you to think we were drunkards, but there wasn't anything else to do."    

He guarded top Nazis at Nuremberg trials     seattlepi :: 2007-11-09
Jack Carver was a third-year history major in 1945 and World War II was in its final months when he was assigned to serve as an infantry platoon leader with the 3rd Division. When WWII ended, many soldiers headed home, but Carver was assigned guard duty at the prison attached to the Nuremberg Palace of Justice. On his first day in August 1946, fellow guard Lt. Jack "Tex" Wheelis took him down to the yard where the "Big 21" were pacing in a circle. Jack waited until one in particular came around. "Howdy," he said to the man who was Hitler's No. 2 in command. "This is Hermann Goering." ... "We gave him a psychological test. Of the 21, he scored the third-highest."    

Witness to WWII trials talks to historical society     tonganoxiemirror :: 2007-05-31
Article no longer available from the original source.
In 1945 Pat Barelli, then a captain in the U.S. Medical Corps, was witness to Nuremburg trials and was a physician to some of the most notorious men of the 20th century. One of only a handful of firsthand witnesses of the trials still living, he recalled what he saw when he arrived at the 385th Station Hospital in Nuremberg after 92% of the city was destroyed from Allied bombings and 65% of the city's population had either perished or fled. "They all claimed there were innocent. They blamed Adolf Hitler; of course, he was dead. They blamed (the head of the Gestapo) Heinrich Himmler; of course, he was dead."     [Nuremberg Trials: Nazi War Criminals]

Richard W. Sonnenfeldt - Chief American interpreter in Nuremberg     northjersey :: 2007-05-05
Even after six decades, Richard W. Sonnenfeldt is struck by some of the statements from nazi leaders when he was chief American interpreter at the war crimes trials in Nuremberg. There was the way Rudolf Hoess, commandant of Auschwitz, angrily denied that he'd exterminated 3.5 million people there: "He said, 'Oh, no, it was only 2.5 million" adding that the rest died of "other causes." And Hoess' almost surreal reaction to being asked if he, like some of his S.S. men, had ever stolen gold from the teeth and jewelry of those they'd gassed. "He said, 'What kind of man do you think I am?'"    

Defending Nazis - Lt. Col. Douglas Bates Jr had unique assignment     tennessean :: 2007-04-08
In 1945 Lt. Col. Douglas Bates Jr. stepped involuntarily onto the world's stage. He was the chief defense counsel at the Dachau Military Tribunal, the first judicial proceeding of its kind in the wake of WWII. 40 Germans, numerous officers and 4 physicians, were among his "clients." They were accused of atrocities at Dachau camp. 36 were sentenced to the gallows. "After the court adjourned the defendants filed by and shook our hands, thanking us for the fight we lost. Strong German men with tears in their eyes and streaming down their cheeks, telling us American officers that they could not have had a better defenders."    

Bernard Meltzer - Labor Expert and Nuremberg Prosecutor, Dies     nytimes- :: 2007-01-06
Bernard D. Meltzer, a professor who helped bring clarity to labor-management at a time of great change in the field, who was a prosecutor at the Nuremberg war crimes trials and who helped draft the UN Charter, died at 92. In 1943, he joined the Navy and was assigned to the OSS (Office of Strategic Services). He led a team who gathered evidence against executives who had financed the Nazi war machine. He conducted the pretrial interrogation of Hermann Göring, and presented the case against Walther Funk. In describing the record-keeping that the Nazis employed for their system of death camps: "It was a lawyer's dream, but a humanist's nightmare."    

Nuremberg -- Just don't mention the flaws     timesonline :: 2006-10-01
The Nuremberg trial was more deeply flawed than we care to remember. It was mounted with haste, just six months after the WWII and when little was known about the inner workings of Hitler's regime. Many of the key nazi figures were dead: Hitler, Himmler, Goebbels. Someone was needed to stand for nazi propaganda, and the only prisoner who fitted the bill was Hans Fritzsche, who was almost no one's idea of a leading war criminal. Yet he now found himself fighting for his life. Someone, too, was needed to stand for anti-Semitism, so Julius Streicher, who had taken no part in the war itself, was selected.    

Memorial out of Nuremberg room 600 where Nazi leaders stand     dpa :: 2006-09-29
Only a few makeshift signs in the Nuremberg's Palace of Justice direct visitors and History buffs to the courtroom that 60 years ago was the venue of the trials of the main war criminals of Nazi Germany. A committed group that includes Oscar Schneider, wants to turn room 600 into a national memorial and museum. One-way glass would allow a view of trials in progress in the courtroom where Reich Marshal Hermann Goering, Adolf Hitler's deputy Rudolf Hess, and 19 other Nazi leaders were made to answer for their crimes.    

The problem of how to deal with the leaders of Nazi Germany     timesonline :: 2006-09-26
As the Allies began to triumph at the end of the World War II, the problem of how to deal with the leaders of Nazi Germany was raised. Stalin did not think this was a difficult issue: At the Tehran Conference in 1943, he proposed a toast "I drink to the justice of the firing squad." By the time of the Yalta Conference in 1944, Stalin's position had changed: he insisted that "the grand criminals should be tried before being shot". When the British Cabinet considered the problem, the Lord Chancellor Lord Simon could not see the point of a trial to establish the obvious guilt of Nazi leaders. "Fancy 'trying' Hitler," he joked.    

Young Kiwi unimpressed by Hermann Goering, Julius Streicher     nzherald :: 2006-08-13
Nazi leaders such as Hermann Goering and Julius Streicher did not impress a young Colin Aikman who saw part of their war crimes trial. "With the possible exception of Goering and von Ribbentrop, they are a very ordinary-looking set of old buffers. Only Chief of Staff Wilhelm Keitel, Wehrmacht Operations section chief Albert Jodl and Goering are in uniform, and the fact that some are in flannels doesn't help them impress. Goering is a person of considerable personality. As a general impression, they are a bunch of second-rate men whom opportunism and the accidents of history have put in a position to perform first-rate atrocities."    

Vet who guarded Hitler's No. 2 man during the Nuremberg     thestarpress :: 2006-07-04
Article no longer available from the original source.
After fighting in World War II, Army Staff Sgt. Warren J. Miller remained in Europe, where he breathed down the necks of Nazi leaders. He was a security guard during the first of the Nuremberg trials. The 22 defendants at the first trial included Rudolf Hess, deputy to the fuhrer, and Reich Marshal Hermann Goering. Miller stood at attention, with his arms behind his back, for 8 hours a day throughout the trial. Miller said he mostly guarded Goering, and he still has the handcuffs he used to restrain Goering. "Hess read a book during the whole trial."    

British navy before nazi trial: We had similar tactics     reuters :: 2006-06-01
Britain told prosecutors after World War Two not to press charges against Nazis for sinking ships on sight because the British navy had similar tactics. Admiralty voiced the worries in an secret 1945 letter: "We have to bear in mind the fact that ultimately, by way of reprisal, we ourselves adopted a total sink-at-sight policy in prescribed areas. British naval officials were concerned about the trials of German naval commander Erich Raeder and his successor Karl Doenitz: "We have been a little anxious concerning the possibility that the trials of Doenitz and Raeder might involve a controversy concerning legal principles of maritime warfare."    

BBC to show Nuremberg trial drama     bbc :: 2006-05-08
The drama documentary will mark the 60th anniversary of the execution of the top Nazi criminals at Nuremberg. The Nuremberg Trial: Inside the Nazi Mind, will be broadcast on BBC Two later this year. Producer Detlef Siebert said the series would reveal what top Nazis, including Rudolf Hess, Albert Speer and Hermann Goering, revealed as they were interrogated.    

Re-creation of one Nazi's day in Nuremberg court     timesleader :: 2006-04-22
Hugh Taylor knows he doesn't have grim Nazi eyes and he hasn't quite nailed the accent, but he did find a uniform. In recent weeks he has been memorizing Nuremberg trial transcripts, practicing his German and hunting down an original Nazi SS uniform. He found it from a WWII collector and promptly drove down to get his picture taken in the outfit. "The photos were primarily for evidence. I thought it would be a nice touch to enter them as exhibits." Taylor's commitment to detail is typical of the group of lawyers and judges who will re-create the Nuremberg trial of Nazi SS commander Otto Ohlendorf.    

Former Nuremberg prosecutor discusses Trials' dramatic moments     advance :: 2006-04-18
Whitney R. Harris told that "an especially dramatic moment" of the trial was the cross-examination of Luftwaffe commander Hermann Goering, the highest-ranking Nazi official to be brought before the tribunal. "Among the issues we raised was Goering's role in the terrible program of Nov. 9, 1938, which has come to be known as Kristallnacht," Harris said.    

Journey to Justice documentary: Jewish refugee who became a translator at trials     heraldtribune :: 2006-03-31
It couldn't have been easy for Howard Triest to keep his emotions in check as he questioned Hermann Goering, Joachim von Ribbentrop and the other Nazi leaders in their Nuremberg jail cells. After all, if Triest had not fled Germany as a teenager in 1939, he likely would have been sent to a death camp, as his parents were. In 1945, Triest was hired to serve as a translator during the Nuremberg war crimes trials. Triest never lost his composure during his many conversations with the defendants. Not when Julius Streicher, the founder of the notorious anti-Semetic newspaper Der Stuermer, mistook Triest for an Aryan and told him that "I can smell a Jew from a mile away."    

Ben Ferencz prosecuted the largest murder case in history     radionetherlands :: 2006-03-30
In 1947, Ben Ferencz prosecuted the largest murder case in history: the trial of the Nazi mobile murder units in Nuremberg. When US entered WWII, Ben fought as a foot soldier, but his background in law brought him to the allied forces tasked with liberating the camps. "We'd come into the camps with the tanks, the inmates are lying everywhere; you don't know if they are dead or dying. The inmates are catching the guards... and burning them to death. It was my job to ... gather evidence." Ben realised that while the Nazis were to blame, ultimately war itself was the cause of these atrocities. And the only way to avoid them was to make war illegal.    

Brady Oliver Bryson, 90, lawyer at Nuremberg trials     sun :: 2006-02-17
Brady Oliver Bryson, a lawyer who had been a member of the prosecution team at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trial, died. He joined the Navy in 1944 and was assigned to an intelligence unit that specialized in breaking Russian codes. At the end of the war, he was sent to Nuremberg to serve as liaison between US and Soviet legal staffs. Later Mr. Bryson was put in charge of a small team assembling documentary material and preparing a trial brief on the persecution of Jews. When that job was completed, he joined the trial team that prepared the case against Hjalmar Schacht, the former Reich minister of economics and president of the Reichsbank.    

The Nuremberg Trials     pioneerlocal :: 2006-02-10
Article no longer available from the original source.
The conduct of the Nazi party during WWII was considered so reprehensible that the Allied victors decided to prosecute the Nazi regime as a meticulously planned and brutally executed conspiracy. The trials were held at the Palace of Justice in Nuremberg, Germany, the birth center of the Nazi party. The Allies indicted 22 Nazi leaders on 4 counts: Conspiracy to wage aggressive war, crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity. Adolf Hitler and propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels had committed suicide, making Hermann Wilhelm Goering the most prominent surviving member of the Third Reich.    

Hangman Waits: Nuremberg TV Special     bloomberg :: 2006-01-31
Saddam Hussein's trial is a twopenny farce compared with Nuremberg, where the Third Reich's major criminals played their final performances to a disgusted audience. "The Nuremberg Trial," chilling one-hour PBS special, focuses on the battle between chief prosecutor Robert Jackson and Hermann Goering, commander of the Luftwaffe and the highest ranking Nazi to survive the war. Goering, a malignant blowfish of a man with a ready smile, was a shrewd opponent. When he surrendered May 6, 1945, he brought along 17 truckloads of personal necessities and the expectation of being treated like royalty.    

Resident recalls his role in the Nuremberg trial     palmbeachpost :: 2006-01-30
The Nazi was ranting again. Isolated in a dark cell at Nuremberg, Julius Streicher easily became enraged. The founder of the anti-Semitic newspaper Der Stürmer launched into another tirade as soon as Howard Triest entered the cell. As an interpreter helping psychiatrists interview the prisoners, Triest had the run of the prison, and had become accustomed to Streicher's outbursts. Streicher had some very important personal papers and would entrust them only to a "good German," like the blond-haired, blue-eyed interpreter. He reached past the psychiatrist and handed the papers to Triest. He never learned that the interpreter was Jewish.    

Art of Justice: The Filmmakers At Nuremberg     washingtonpost :: 2005-11-29
Years before he wrote "On the Waterfront," and before he earned the ire of many colleagues by testifying during the Hollywood communist witch hunt, writer Budd Schulberg had the distinct honor of arresting Leni Riefenstahl. He was in Germany, assembling a film to be used at the Nuremberg trials as evidence against the Nazis. Riefenstahl, the legendary director and propagandist for Hitler, knew where the skeletons were. So Schulberg, dressed in his military uniform, drove to her chalet on a lake in Bavaria, knocked on her door, and told the panicked artist that she was coming with him.    

The Nuremberg Interviews: Psychiatrist's Conversations with the Defendants     jsf :: 2005-11-24
Goldensohn was a prison psychiatrist at the Nuremberg in 1946. While there, he interviewed 33 high-ranking Nazi war criminals. He asked Rudolf Hoess to tell him how many people were executed at Auschwitz. 'Hoess: 'About 2.5 million.' Goldensohn: 'What do you think of it?' Hoess (looking blank and apathetic): 'I had my personal orders from Heinrich Himmler.' 'Did you ever protest?' 'I couldn't do that.' 'Don't you have a mind or opinion of your own?' 'Yes, but when Himmler told us something, it was so correct and so natural we just blindly obeyed it.'    

Allied prosecutors recall the horror     Independent :: 2005-11-21
Markus Wolf, the former head of Communist East Germany's intelligence service, covered the Nuremberg trials for a German radio station in 1945. "Perhaps I was naive, but I had seen the photographs of all these Nazi leaders in all their pomp and glory. Then in Nuremberg, I saw normal people sitting in the dock. They seemed like staff in a railway station." Mr Wolf recalled how Goering and Speer turned their heads away as the court was shown documentary evidence of the death camps. "In just the same way, many Germans did not want to hear anything about the concentration camps.".    

World: Nuremberg Trial Hopes Unfulfilled After 60 Years     RFE :: 2005-11-18
20 November marks the 60th anniversary of the Nuremberg trials, which were an attempt to bring to account the key actors responsible for unleashing the bloodiest conflict in history and carrying out unprecedented atrocities. One of the most important trials in modern history got under way in the bombed out city of Nuremberg. 24 of the highest-ranking captured Nazi leaders - including Hermann Goering, founder of the Gestapo; Alfred Rosenberg, the chief Nazi racial theorist; and Joachim von Ribbentrop, the Nazi foreign minister - were charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity.    

Interview With Nuremberg Prosecutor Whitney Harris     Spiegel :: 2005-11-18
Harris: The whole court case was a huge challenge. I was assigned to the case of Ernst Kaltenbrunner, meaning I had to investigate the murder of millions. Kaltenbrunner took over from Reinhard Heydrich as the head of Reich security and was in charge of tens of thousands of Gestapo agents, police and security forces. I did not have the slightest idea of the scale of genocide that had taken place in Germany.    

60th anniversary of the beginning of the Nuremberg Trials     TracyPress :: 2005-11-06
Bill Miller and Ken Fulkerson were U.S. Army guards at the Nuremberg prison where the top Nazis were housed, and on a daily basis they looked directly into the eyes of Hermann Göring, Joaquim von Ribbentrop, Rudolf Hess, Gen. Wilhelm Keitel and 18 other indicted World War II war criminals. 'Göring was the most open and friendly of the bunch,' Miller recalled. 'He would talk to you about a lot of things, but he never talked much about himself or about politics.' Fulkerson also guarded Göring's cell on occasion and gained the same impression of the No. 2 man in the Nazi hierarchy. 'I remember Göring most of all,' he said. 'He was very natural and friendly.'    

See also:
'WWII tours'
'WWII Footage'
'Nazi Memorabilia'
'Nazi Hunters'
'How nazis escaped'
'Holocaust Archives'
'Most wanted Nazis'
'WW2 Stamps'.

Although the articles linked from Adolf Hitler's Third Reich 1933-1945 and World War II in the News are reviewed and specially selected, they do not necessarily represent the views of the editor, who is not responsible for the content of any external sites. This service is © Joni Nuutinen 2005-2010. All rights reserved.