Subsequent Nuremberg Trials

Subsequent Nuremberg Trials
The judges in the Krupp trial; back to front: Daly, Anderson, and Wilkins
Court	Nuremberg
Full case name	Trials of War Criminals before the Nuremberg Military Tribunals
Indictment	9 December 1946, Nuremberg
Decided	13 April 1949 (last case)

The subsequent Nuremberg trials (formally the Trials of War Criminals before the Nuremberg Military Tribunals) were a series of twelve U.S. military tribunals for war crimes against members of the leadership of Nazi Germany, held in the Palace of Justice, Nuremberg, after World War II from 1946 to 1949 following the Trial of the Major War Criminals before the International Military Tribunal.

Although it had been initially planned to hold more than just one international trial at the IMT, the growing differences between the victorious allies (the United States, United Kingdom, France, and Soviet Union) made this impossible. However, the Control Council Law No. 10, which the Allied Control Council had issued on 20 December 1945, empowered any of the occupying authorities to try suspected war criminals in their respective occupation zones. Based on this law, the U.S. authorities proceeded after the end of the initial Nuremberg Trial against the major war criminals to hold another twelve trials in Nuremberg. The judges in all these trials were American, and so were the prosecutors; the Chief of Counsel for the Prosecution was Brigadier General Telford Taylor. In the other occupation zones similar trials took place.

The twelve U.S. trials before the Nuremberg Military Tribunals (NMT) took place from 9 December 1946 to 13 April 1949. The trials were as follows:

The Nuremberg process initiated 3,887 cases of which 3400 were dropped. Less than 500 cases (489) went to trial that involved 1672 defendants. 1416 were found guilty, but less than 200 were executed. Another 279 defendants were sent to life in prison but by the 1950s almost all of them have been released.

Many of the longer prison sentences were reduced substantially by decree of high commissioner John J. McCloy in 1951, and 10 outstanding death sentences from the Einsatzgruppen Trial were converted to prison terms. The same year, an amnesty released many of those who had received prison sentences.