. ©MAZAL LIBRARY

NMT03-F003


. NUERNBERG MILITARY TRIBUNAL
Volume III · Page III
Previous Page Home PageArchive
 
PREFACE

In April 1949, judgement was rendered in the last of the series of 12 Nuernberg war crimes trials which had begun in October 1946, and were held pursuant to Allied Control Council Law No. 10. Far from being of concern solely to lawyers, these trials are of especial interest to soldiers, historians, students, of international affairs, and others. The defendants in these proceedings, charged with war crimes and other offenses against international penal law, were prominent figures in Hitler's Germany and included such outstanding diplomats and politicians as the State Secretary of the Foreign Office, von Weizsaecker, and cabinet ministers von Krosigk and Lammers; military leaders such as Field Marshals von Leeb, List and von Kuechler; SS leaders such as Ohlendorf, Pohl, and Hildebrandt; industrialists such as Flick, Alfried Krupp, and the directors of I.G. Farben; and leading professional men such as the famous physician Gerhard Rose, and the jurist and Acting Minister of Justice, Schlegelberger.

In view of the weight of the accusations and the far-flung activities of the defendants, and the extraordinary amount of official contemporaneous German documents introduced in evidence, the records of these trials constitutes a major source of historical material covering many events of fateful years 1933 (and even earlier) to 1945, in Germany and elsewhere in Europe.

The Nuernberg trials under Law No., 10 were carried out under the direct authority of the Allied Control Council, as manifested in that law, which authorized the establishment of the Tribunals. The judicial machinery for the trials, including the Military Tribunals and the Office, Chief of Counsel for War Crimes, was prescribed by Military Government Ordinance No. 7 and was part of the occupation administration for the American zone, the Office of Military Government (OMGUS). Law No. 10, Ordinance No. 7, and other basic jurisdictional or administrative documents are printed in full hereinafter.

The proceedings in these trials were conducted throughout in the German and English languages, and were recorded in full by stenographic notes, and by electrical sound recording of all oral proceedings. The 12 cases required over 1,200 days of court proceedings and the transcript of these proceedings exceeds 330,000 pages, exclusive of hundreds of documents books, briefs, etc. Publication of all this material, accordingly, was quite unfeasible. This series, however, contains the indictments, judgements, and

 
  
[Note: There is no Page II in Volume III of the IMT]
 
  
III
Next Page NMT Home Page