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Judges' TrialThe Judges' Trial (or the Justice Trial, or, officially, The United States of America vs. Josef Altsttter, et. al.) was the third of the twelve trials for war crimes the U.S. authorities held in their occupation zone in Germany in Nuremberg after the end of World War II. These twelve trials were all held before U.S. military courts, not before the International Military Tribunal, but took place in the same rooms. The twelve U.S. trials are collectively known as the "Subsequent Nuremberg Trials" or, more formally, as the "Trials of War Criminals before the Nuremberg Military Tribunals" (NMT). The defendants in this case were 16 German jurists and lawyers. Nine had been officials of the Reich Ministry of Justice, the others were prosecutors and judges of the Special Courts and People's Courts of Nazi Germany. They were—amongst other charges—held responsible for implementing and furthering the Nazi "racial purity" programme through the eugenic and racial laws. The judges in this case, heard before Military Tribunal III, were Carrington T. Marshall (presiding judge), former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Ohio, James T. Brand from Oregon, Mallory B. Blair from Texas, and Justin Woodward Harding as an alternate judge. Marshall had to retire dure to illness on June 19, 1947, at which point Brand became president and Harding a full member of the tribunal. The Chief of Counsel for the Prosecution was Telford Taylor; his deputy was Charles M. LaFollette. The indictment was presented on January 4, 1947; the trial lasted from March 5 to December 4, 1947. Ten of the defendants were found guilty; four received sentences for lifetime imprisonment, the rest prison sentences of varying lengths. Four persons were acquitted of all charges. Indictment - Participating in a common plan or conspiracy to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity;
- War crimes through the abuse of the judicial and penal process, resulting in mass murder, torture, plunder of private property.
- Crimes against humanity on the same grounds, including slave labor charges.
- Membership in a criminal organization, the SS or the NSDAP leadership corps.
Count 4 applied only to Altsttter, Cuhorst, Engert, Joel (with respect to the SS) and to Cuhorst, Oeschy, Nebelung, and Rothaug concerning the NSDAP leadership. Both organizations had been found criminal previously by the IMT. Count 1 was dropped: the court declared the charge to be outside its jurisdiction. Judge Blair filed a dissenting opinion that stated that the court should have made a statement that the Military Tribunals of the NMT in fact did have jurisdiction over charges of "conspiracy to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity". All defendants pleaded "not guilty". Defendants | lign="left"|Sentence | | a href="/encyclopedia/Josef-Altsttter" title="Josef Altsttter">Josef Altsttter | 5 years, incl. time already served | | a href="/encyclopedia/Wilhelm-von-Ammon" title="Wilhelm von Ammon">Wilhelm von Ammon | 10 years, incl. time already served | | a href="/encyclopedia/Paul-Barnickel" title="Paul Barnickel">Paul Barnickel | acquitted | | a href="/encyclopedia/Hermann-Cuhorst" title="Hermann Cuhorst">Hermann Cuhorst | acquitted | | a href="/encyclopedia/Karl-Engert" title="Karl Engert">Karl Engert | mistrial declared due to illness | | a href="/encyclopedia/Gnther-Joel" title="Gnther Joel">Gnther Joel | 10 years, incl. time already served | | a href="/encyclopedia/Herbert-Klemm" title="Herbert Klemm">Herbert Klemm | lifetime imprisonment | | a href="/encyclopedia/Ernst-Lautz" title="Ernst Lautz">Ernst Lautz | 10 years, incl. time already served | | a href="/encyclopedia/Wolfgang-Mettgenberg" title="Wolfgang Mettgenberg">Wolfgang Mettgenberg | 10 years, incl. time already served | | a href="/encyclopedia/Gnther-Nebelung" title="Gnther Nebelung">Gnther Nebelung | acquitted | | a href="/encyclopedia/Rudolf-Oeschey" title="Rudolf Oeschey">Rudolf Oeschey | lifetime imprisonment | | a href="/encyclopedia/Hans-Petersen" title="Hans Petersen">Hans Petersen | acquitted | | a href="/encyclopedia/Oswald-Rothaug" title="Oswald Rothaug">Oswald Rothaug | lifetime imprisonment | | a href="/encyclopedia/Curt-Rothenberger" title="Curt Rothenberger">Curt Rothenberger | 7 years, incl. time already served | | a href="/encyclopedia/Franz-Schlegelberger" title="Franz Schlegelberger">Franz Schlegelberger | lifetime imprisonment | | a href="/encyclopedia/Carl-Westphal" title="Carl Westphal">Carl Westphal | committed suicide after the indictment, but before the beginning of the trial. | The highest-ranking officials of the Nazi judicial system could not be tried: Georg Thierack, Minister of Justice since 1942, had committed suicide in 1946, and Roland Feisler, the President of the People's Court since 1942, was killed in 1945. All convicts were found guilty on all charges brought before them, except Rothaug, who was found guilty only on count 3 of the indictment, while he was found not guilty on counts 2 and 4. However, the court commented in its judgement that - "... Oswald Rothaug represented in Germany the personification of the secret Nazi intrigue and cruelty. He was and is a sadistic and evil man. ... In his case we find no mitigating circumstances; no extenuation." —http://www.mazal.org/archive/nmt/03/NMT03-T1156.htm
The public considered the sentences generally too low. Most of the convicts were released already in the early 1950s; some (Lautz, Rothenberger, Schlegelberger) even received retirement pensions in West Germany. The guide to German law entitled Das Recht der Gegenwart is still being published under the name Franz Schlegelberger (ISBN 3-800-62260-2). The Judges' Trial was the inspiration for the 1961 movie Judgment at Nuremberg, starring Spencer Tracy, Burt Lancaster, Marlene Dietrich, Maximilian Schell, and Judy Garland. References
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