Winston Churchill was the first in early 1941, launching the idea to launch a major lawsuit to prosecute those responsible for the maximum of the Nazi regime, its institutions and organizations. Punishment for crimes should take place at the time ending the conflict, said then the British prime minister.
On 7 October 1942 he established the United Nations Commission for War Crimes, whose principal aim is develop a list of officials who should be tried at the end of World War II.
Even the Americans, through the Departments of State for Defense and Justice, have not ceased to develop, throughout the conflict, a comprehensive study that would be analyzed and discussed at the Yalta Conference held in 1945.
That same year, the American judge Samuel I. Rosenman was appointed official representative of the United States of America with a mission to reach an agreement on how the trial would result.
Controversy surrounding the process
The disagreements over how the process unfolded are still not resolved.
If the Secretary of State Hull defended the U.S., a view shared by other important personalities of the Allied States, that the defendants should be tried by a Military Court in Board of War, Churchill was in favor of summary execution of Nazi leaders.
Judge Rosenman presented the United Nations meeting held in San Francisco, the Foreign ministers of Russia, Britain and France a consensus proposal. But the vote this proposal was postponed, and it is hoped the report prepared by the Attorney General of the United States, Robert H. Jackson, which would be officially presented on June 7, 1945.
Negotiations between the United Kingdom, France, the United States and the USSR ended August 8, 1945 with the signing in London, an arrangement that created an International Military Tribunal, on behalf of 26 nations that fought against Germany , judging 24 leaders and six Nazi organizations.
Terms of the charge
The terms of the Writ of Indictment were made during a public session held on 18 October 1945 in Berlin, consisting of her list of the following crimes:
- Conspiracy against peace, resorting to such a common plan to seize power and establish a totalitarian regime, with the deliberate aim of making a war of aggression.
- Attacks against the peace and acts of aggression.
- War crimes and violation of the Hague and Geneva Conventions.
- Crimes against humanity, persecution and extermination.
The Russians intend to conduct the trial in Berlin, a desire that would be impractical due to the former capital of the Reich does not exist a single intact building capable of housing the court.
The alternative would be to Nuremberg, a city deeply connected to the regime and the Nazi ideology and that, moreover, had a court and a prison appropriate to accommodate the several hundred people in one way or another, were involved in process.
The Palace of Justice, in the west of Nuremberg, had, on the second floor, a spacious living room with capacity for 600 people, equipped with an elevator that allowed the accused to carry without them pass through the halls it was in the press, avoiding statements that could affect the course of the work. Another advantage was that the Court have a direct connection with the arrest, she also large.
The room was equipped with microphones and earphones, bearing in mind that the trial would take place in four languages ??(English, Russian, French and German) has been constituted a team of translators specialized in legal terminology.