The concept of 'crimes against humanity' didn't exist in law before this trial. Four countries that had never agreed on anything had to invent international justice from scratch — while the men who ran the Holocaust sat in the dock.
When World War II ended in Europe in May 1945, the Allied powers faced an unprecedented problem: what do you do with the leaders of a regime that had committed industrialized mass murder? There was no legal framework for it. The idea of putting heads of state on trial for war crimes was itself a novelty — and all four powers (U.S., Britain, France, Soviet Union) had to negotiate the terms before a single charge could be filed.
The Nuremberg Charter, agreed at the London Conference in summer 1945, created three new categories of crime: crimes against peace (planning and waging aggressive war), war crimes, and crimes against humanity. That third category — crimes against humanity — was invented specifically to prosecute acts that had technically been legal under German law. The principle that there are moral standards above national law, enforceable by an international court, was born at Nuremberg.
Twenty-two surviving Nazi officials faced trial. Notably absent were Hitler, Himmler, and Goebbels, all of whom had killed themselves. The defendants included Hermann Göring (head of the Luftwaffe), Joachim von Ribbentrop (Foreign Minister), Albert Speer (Minister of Armaments), and Rudolf Hess (Hitler's former deputy, who had flown to Scotland alone in 1941 in a bizarre solo peace mission).
The prosecution presented 110,000 captured German documents, along with film footage of the concentration camps, photographs, and witness testimony. The Nazis had meticulously documented their own crimes — a fact that haunted the defense. One of the most damning moments was the screening of footage from the camps, which reportedly caused several defendants to look away.
Hermann Göring, the highest-ranking defendant, was defiant throughout — performing for the gallery, arguing points of law with prosecutors, and reportedly dominating the defendants' lunch table. He was convicted and sentenced to death by hanging. The night before his scheduled execution, he swallowed a cyanide capsule that had been smuggled into his cell. Where it came from was never definitively established.
The verdicts came in October 1946: twelve death sentences, seven prison terms, and three acquittals. The executions were carried out by an American sergeant, John C. Woods, who was later described as incompetent by witnesses — several of the hangings were botched and the men died slowly. The bodies, including Göring's, were cremated and the ashes scattered in the Isar River to prevent any site from becoming a shrine.
Nuremberg established the foundation for modern international criminal law. It created the precedent that individuals — including heads of state — can be held personally responsible for atrocities, and that 'following orders' is not a legal defense. These principles were later codified in the Geneva Conventions and eventually led to the creation of the International Criminal Court in 2002.