After World War I, the world powers met at Geneva to formalize a set of international standards for the proper conduct of war. The major nations of the world, including Germany, subscribed to the standards regarding Slavery (CONVENTION TO SUPPRESS THE SLAVE TRADE AND SLAVERY, 25 Sep 26) and forced labor (CONVENTION CONCERNING FORCED OR COMPULSORY LABOUR, 28 Jun 30). An earlier convention at the Hague in 1899 (cf., especially Chapter had attempted to establish international rules regarding the treatment of prisoners of war. It is of singular importance to remember that Germany was a party to these agreements and a member of the League of Nations which sanctioned them. Together, these international agreements served as the legal basis upon which Nazi war criminals could be brought to trial for violations of International Law. However, one of the glaring weaknesses of the League of Nations was its lack of enforcement powers. It remained for the new United Nations to provide the organizational authority for the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials. (cf. Marian Mushkat, "Nuremberg Trial," in Israel Gutman, Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, New York: Macmillan, Vol. 4, 1990:1489-1494

During World War II, the Allied powers made it clear that upon the conclusion of the war the perpetrators would be tried for war crimes. Several official declarations were made between 1942 and the close of the war. The most important of these was the London Agreement which was signed on August 8, 1945. At that conference the charter for the International Military Tribunal was drawn up and signed by the United States, Great Britain, France and the Soviet Union.

The famous trials conducted at Nuremberg between Oct0ber 20, 1945 and October 1, 1946 were not the first or the last trials of Nazi war criminals. The first trials were held in the Soviet Union in the city of Krasnodar on the northeastern edge of the Black Sea from July 14 to July 17, 1943. Thirteen Soviet citizens were tried for over 7,000 acts of murder committed by an auxiliary unit of Einsatzgruppen D under the command of Kurt Christmann. Using gas vans, the unit exterminated all the patients in the municipal hospital, a convalescent home and a children's hospital. Eight of the accused were hanged and three were sentenced to 20 years imprisonment.

Following the trials at Nuremberg, numerous trials of war criminals were held in the British, French, American and Soviet sectors of Germany, on Austria, at Bergen-Belsen, Auschwitz (1947), in many other places where the crimes took place, in France, Italy and in Israel. Most of the trials subsequent to 1946 involved lower-ranking officials, camp guards, Einsatzgruppen officers, medical doctors, etc. Far more war criminals, however, were never brought to justice.

Conot, Robert E. Justice at Nuremberg. New York: Harper and Row, 1983.

Goldhagen, Daniel Jonah. Hitler's Willing Executioners. New York: Alfred E. Knopf, 1996.

Michman, Jozeph. "Artur Seyss-Inquart," in Israel Gutman, ed. Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, New York: Macmillan, Vol. 4, 1990:1346ff.

Meltzer, Milton. Never To Forget: The Jews of the Holocaust. New York: HarperCollins, 1976.

Mushkat, Marian. "Nuremberg Trial," in Israel Gutman, Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, New York: Macmillan, Vol. 4, 1990:1489-1494.

Taylor, Telford. The Anatomy of the Nuremberg Trials. New York: Alfred E. Knopf, 1992.