Bormann, Martin (1900-45?), German head of the Nazi party chancellery during most of World War II and powerful associate of Adolf Hitler; imprisoned in 1924 for participation in politically motivated murder; released soon after and joined Nazi party; chief of staff to Rudolf Hess 1933; succeeded Hess as party head 1941; disappeared after Hitler's death; major advocate of extermination of Jews and Slavs; charged with war crimes by Nuremberg tribunal and sentenced to death in absentia; remains believed to have been found in West Berlin in 1972.

Eichmann, (Karl) Adolf (1906-62), Nazi official responsible for the murder of millions of Jews during World War II. Eichmann joined the Nazi secret police in 1934, and when the Germans annexed Austria in 1938, he was given the job of deporting Jews from that country, in accordance with Nazi anti-Semitic policy. During World War II he was in charge of "the final solution of the Jewish problem," in the course of which Jews from all over German-occupied Europe were sent to death camps to be exterminated. After the war Eichmann disappeared, but in 1960 Israeli agents located him in Argentina, abducted him, and took him to Israel. Tried in Jerusalem and convicted of crimes against humanity, he was hanged two years later.

Goebbels, Paul Joseph (1897-1945), German propagandist and politician, born in Rheydt, and educated at the universities of Bonn, Berlin, and Heidelberg. He joined the National Socialist (Nazi) party in 1922 and began directing the students who entered the organization. In 1925 Goebbels met the party leader Adolf Hitler. In 1926 he was made gauleiter, or party leader, for the region of Berlin, and in 1927 he founded and became editor of the official National Socialist periodical Der Angriff (The Attack). He was elected to the Reichstag, the German parliament, in 1928 and a year later was chosen as propaganda leader of the Nazi party, in which capacity he became the apostle of unreasoning hatred of the Jews and other "non-Ayran" groups such as the Slavs. His work as a propagandist materially aided Hitler's rise to power in 1933. In that year, Goebbels was appointed Reichsminister for propaganda and national enlightenment. From then until his death, Goebbels used all media of education and communications to further Nazi propagandistic aims, instilling in the Germans the concept of their leader as a veritable god and of their destiny as the rulers of the world. In 1938 he became a member of the Hitler cabinet council. Late in World War II, in 1944, Hitler placed him in charge of total mobilization. On May 1, 1945, as Soviet troops were storming Berlin, Goebbels committed suicide. The Goebbels Diary for 1942-43, found among his papers, was published in English in 1948.

Roehm, Ernest (or Ernst Rohm) (1887-1934), German army officer and Nazi official, born in Munich;Charged with conspiracy to overthrow Adolf Hitler as chancellor; executed by his order. An early associate of Hitler, Röhm commanded the SA (Sturmabteilung), or storm troops, the military arm of the Nazi party. After the failure of the Nazis to seize power in Bavaria (1923), he spent several years in Bolivia. At Hitler's request he returned home in 1931 and was again put in charge of the SA. When the Nazis won power in Germany in 1933, Röhm urged that the SA be given control of the German army a move opposed by the army's high command and sided with Nazi left-wing dissidents who antagonized wealthy conservative supporters of Hitler. In order to placate the army and the industrialists, Hitler had Röhm and other SA dissidents murdered in the Blood Purge also called Night of the Long Knives of June 30, 1934.

Himmler, Heinrich (1900-45), German officer and political leader, born in Munich, Germany; joined National Socialist party 1919; deputy leader 1927 and Reich leader of Schutzstaffel (SS) 1929; chief of Gestapo and carried out "purge" 1934; minister of interior and chief of Reich administration, also head of People's army; killed self when captured by British. German National Socialist (Nazi) official, notorious as the head of the Nazi police forces. He joined the party in 1925, and from 1926 to 1930 he was its director of propaganda. In 1929 he became chief of the Schutzstaffel (known as the SS, or Black Shirts), an elite military force of the party, and in 1934 he won control of the Gestapo (secret police). As head of all German police forces from 1936 to 1945 he carried out a ruthless program for the extermination of Jews and the suppression of all opposition to Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime. Hitler appointed him minister of the interior in 1943, and in 1944 Himmler became director of home-front operations and chief of the German armed forces operating within the borders of Germany. In April 1945 he was captured by the British army. He was scheduled to stand trial with the other German leaders as a major war criminal, but committed suicide shortly after his arrest.

Speer, Albert (1905-81), German architect and public official, born in Mannheim; minister for armaments and war production during World War II (1943-45); received architectural license 1927; joined Nazi party 1931; soon after became personal architect to Adolf Hitler; designed parade grounds at Nuremberg for party rallies; as war minister, devised system of conscript and slave labor, mainly supplied by concentration camps; served 20 years in Spandau Prison, Berlin, after war; author of 'Inside the Third Reich' (1970).

Göring, Hermann Wilhelm (1893-1946), German field marshal, commander in chief of the German air force, and the second most powerful leader of Nazi Germany. Göring, whose last name was also spelled Goering, was born on January 12, 1893, in Rosenheim, Bavaria, and educated at the cadet college in Karlsruhe and the officers' school at Lichterfelde, near Berlin. During World War I he served in the German air force, and in 1918, upon the death of his squadron leader, Baron Manfred von Richthofen, he became squadron leader. Göring met Adolf Hitler in 1921 and a year later became a leader of the National Socialist (Nazi) party. He was wounded in the unsuccessful Munich beer-hall Putsch of 1923, and morphine given to ease his pain from the wound made him a permanent drug addict. After an exile in nearby countries for four years, he was elected a member of the Reichstag, the German parliament, in 1928 and became president of that body in 1932. Göring became Reich minister for air forces upon the National Socialist accession to power early in 1933; he also served as premier of Prussia and, for one year, as minister of the interior and head of all German police forces. In 1936 he became economic "dictator" of Germany. As commander in chief of the German air force, Göring planned much of the strategy, involving close and highly effective coordination between the German ground and air forces, that resulted in the rapid conquests of Poland, Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France in 1939 and 1940. He also devised the policy of terror bombing, whereby entire cities, such as Rotterdam, Holland, and Coventry, England, were nearly leveled by aerial bombardment as a means of subjugating their civilian populations. He used his position to enrich himself and systematically looted the art treasures of the Nazi-occupied countries for his private collection. Göring surrendered to U.S. forces in 1945 and was tried, with other German war leaders, by the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg. Found guilty on all counts and sentenced to death by hanging, he poisoned himself on October 15, 1946, hours before his scheduled execution.

In World War I Gustav Krupp provided many memorable contributions to Germany's arsenal. One, named in honor of his wife, was the 98-ton Big Bertha howitzer that shelled Liege and Verdun. Because the Germans lost, the war was, on the whole, bad business for Krupp. But with money earned from a prewar agreement with a British manufacturer of artillery shells (which placed him in the awkward position of having profited from Germany's war dead) and with subsidies from the German government, he began secretly rearming Germany. He then helped finance the Nazis' so-called "terror election" of 1933, which tightened Hitler's grip on the reins of government. As president of Germany's equivalent of the United States Chamber of Commerce, Krupp expelled all Jewish industrialists and became one of the country's most ardent Nazis. Meanwhile, the Krupps' oldest son, Alfried (born on Aug. 13, 1907, in Essen), had been a member of the Nazi elite since 1931. He devoted his time to improving an antiaircraft, antitank, antipersonnel 88-millimeter gun, a weapon that was first used in the Spanish Civil War and, a decade later, became the most famous artillery piece of World War II.

Even before 1939, the extent of the family's wealth had been staggering. Now Alfried augmented this empire by seizing property in every country conquered by Germany. When Robert Rothschild refused to sign over his French holdings to Alfried, Rothschild was sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp and murdered. It was incidents of this kind, together with his exploitation of slave labor, that put Alfried in the prisoners' dock at the Nuremberg war-crimes trials after the war.

The Nuremberg tribunal sentenced him to 12 years in prison and ordered him to forfeit all his property. However, in 1950 Krupp was granted amnesty by the United States high commissioner in American-occupied Germany and all of his holdings were restored. He rebuilt the family firm and by the early 1960s was worth more than a billion dollars. The firm became a corporation in January 1968. The dynasty that had ruled for almost four centuries had come to an end.

In a little restaurant where a handful of young people sat around a half-broken gas lamp the party was formed . This little band was the German Workers' party. Guided by "intuition," Hitler joined as its seventh member. He soon took the lead. Then a Reichswehr officer, Capt. Ernest Roehm, saw the party as a possible means of overthrowing the liberal Bavarian republic. Like other officers, Roehm had built one of the private "volunteer" armies, which grew up as arms of the Reichswehr in defiance of the Versailles Treaty. Roehm assigned his arrogant, iron-hard Brown Shirt army to aid the Workers' party. Bulwarked by these armed ruffians, Hitler became the orator of the group. In 1920 the name changed to Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (National Socialist German Workers' party), abbreviated to Nazi. The flamboyant spirit of the growing Nazi party now began to attract the varied restless men who were to become its core. They included chiefly Alfred Rosenberg, Russian-born engineer and "philosopher," anti-Jew, and anti-Christian; Rudolf Hess, Egyptian-born mathematician and geographer; Hermann Goering, Bavarian combat pilot; Gen. Erich von Ludendorff, war hero; and Maj. Gen. Franz von Epp, Bavarian infantry commander. All helped to persuade Communist-fearing German industrialists to give money to the party, for Hitler assured them that "we combat only Jewish international capital." An established Munich journal, Volkischer Beobachter (National Observer) was bought to spread Nazi influence. For his followers Hitler adopted the ancient swastika (hooked cross) as the party emblem and designed the Nazi red banner with the black swastika. He saluted his comrades with raised stiff arm and was greeted by the word Heil! Emerging from prison in 1924, Hitler once again seemed destined to failure. The government had banned the Nazi party, and only a handful of the members clung together. For months Hitler took little interest. At length Roehm, Hess, and a newcomer a small, lame enthusiast named Joseph Paul Goebbels

Organizational Terms 

SS or Schutzstaffel (protective corps), German Nazi military organization formed by Adolf Hitler about 1927; headed by Heinrich Himmler 1929-45; known popularly as the SS and in World War II as Elite Guard. declared criminal by the war Tribunal

Gestapo, (Geheime Staatspolizei, or Secret State Police), German secret police organized by Adolf Hitler 1933 and headed by Heinrich Himmler 1934-45 common designation of the terrorist political police of the Nazi regime in Germany from 1933 to 1945; technically, however, the term refers only to its executive branch. declared criminal by the war Tribunal 

SD or Sicherheitsdienst, ( "Security Service")declared criminal by the war Tribunal 

Kripo or Kriminalpolizei,( Criminal Police), a detective service aimed against nonpolitical criminals, run from 1936 to 1945 by Artur Nebe (1896?-1945). declared criminal by the war Tribunal 

RSHA or Reichssicherheitshauptamt, ( State Security Head Office) state security police central staff

Of the seven organizations indicted by the war crimes tribunal, the tribunal declared criminal the Leadership Corps of the National Socialist Party, the SS, the SD (Sicherheitsdienst, Security Service"), and the Gestapo.

The Gestapo was founded by Hermann Göring, one of Adolf Hitler's lieutenants, in April 1933. As a nucleus he used the political section of the police of the Weimar Republic, but he extended it greatly, removed from it all legal and constitutional restraints, and gave the organization its name. Its new purpose was to persecute all political opponents of the Nazi regime (including dissenting Nazis), not only defensively, in cases of oppositional acts, but also preventively, in cases of suspected or potential opposition. In this role, the Gestapo was to collaborate with the SD (Sicherheitdienst, or Security Service), a organization of the Nazi party. Suspects were arrested and usually placed in concentration camps. It was at the Gestapo's discretion whether or not the arrested were brought to trial and whether or not they were released if acquitted. In April 1934, Göring's rival, Heinrich Himmler, who headed the paramilitary SS (Schutzstaffel, or Defense Squads; also called Black Shirts), won control over the Gestapo, a step in his ascendancy that in June 1936 carried him to the command of all German police forces. The SS then gradually infiltrated the police, which was reorganized in two divisions: the regular and the security police. The latter, the political police headed until 1942 by Reinhard Heydrich (1904-42) and thereafter by Ernst Kaltenbrunner (1902?-46) then included the SD, also run by Heydrich; the Gestapo, led from 1936 to 1945 by Heinrich Müller; (b. 1901?); and the Kripo (Kriminalpolizei, or Criminal Police), a detective service aimed against nonpolitical criminals, run from 1936 to 1945 by Artur Nebe (1896?-1945). In September 1939, after the outbreak of World War II, the security police received a central staff, the RSHA (Reichssicherheitshauptamt, or State Security Head Office), thus preparing it to serve as a nearly omnipotent tool for Hitler's racist and terrorist plans in Nazi-controlled Europe, including extermination policies against Jews and other "undesirables." Rivalries between the various branches nonetheless continued. Thus, the concentration camps, including the death camps, were actually run by the SS, although technically they were under the control of the Gestapo. After the war, the Gestapo was dissolved and declared a criminal organization. 

In practice, war crimes are offenses charged against the losers by the victor. During World War II three types of offenses against the law of nations were stated by the Allied powers. One, the so-called London Agreement, was signed by representatives of the United States, Great Britain, France, and the USSR in London on August 8, 1945; the other, Law No. 10, was promulgated by the Allied Control Council in Berlin on December 20, 1945.

These offenses were:

(1) crimes against peace, which include planning, preparing for, and starting a war of aggression in violation of treaties, agreements, or other assurances;
(2) such violations of the customs of war as murder, ill treatment, or deportation of civilian populations; ill treatment of prisoners of war; the killing of hostages; plunder of public or private property; the wanton destruction of cities and towns; and any unjustified military devastation; and
(3) crimes against humanity including murder, enslavement, or deportation and persecution on racial, political, or religious grounds either before or during a war. These definitions are based on a long series of international declarations and acts, culminating in the Pact of Paris (1928), which was ratified by Germany and other states. Efforts to bring officials of the Central Powers to trial after World War I proved generally ineffective. When trials were eventually held in Leipzig, Germany, the majority of the defendants were acquitted. By World War II a determination emerged among the Allies especially Great Britain, the United States, and the Soviet Union to apprehend and bring to trial those responsible for the war both in Germany and in Japan. Beginning early in the war several pronouncements were made concerning the intention of the Allies to punish those guilty of war crimes. Among these were the Declaration of St. James (Jan. 13, 1942), the Moscow Declaration (Nov. 1, 1943), and the Potsdam Declaration (July 5, 1945). In October 1943 the United Nations War Crimes Commission was formed in London. On Aug. 8, 1945, representatives of the United States, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and France signed the London Agreement, which included a charter for an international military tribunal to try the major war criminals of Germany and Japan. Trials of Nazi leaders began in Berlin on Oct. 18, 1945, but were soon moved to Nuremberg, where they lasted for more than ten months. Trials of Japanese leaders began in Tokyo on May 3, 1946, and ended on Nov. 12, 1948. More than 2,000 lesser trials were held in the zones of Germany occupied by the United States, Britain, and France. An unknown number of others took place in the Soviet zone. Most of the defendants were convicted, and many were executed.

On October 18, 1945, the chief prosecutors lodged an indictment with the tribunal charging 24 individuals with a variety of crimes and atrocities, including the deliberate instigation of aggressive wars, extermination of racial and religious groups, murder and mistreatment of prisoners of war, and the murder, mistreatment, and deportation to slave labor of hundreds of thousands of inhabitants of countries occupied by Germany during the war. Among the accused were the Nationalist Socialist leaders Hermann Göring and Rudolf Hess, the diplomat Joachim von Ribbentrop, the munitions maker Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach, Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, Grand Admiral Erich Raeder (1876-1960), and 18 other military leaders and civilian officials. Seven organizations that formed part of the basic structure of the Nazi government were also charged as criminal. These organizations included the SS (Schutzstaffel "Defense Corps"), the Gestapo (Geheime Staatspolizei, "Secret State Police"), the SA (Sturmabteilung, Storm Troops"), and the General Staff and High Command of the German armed forces. The trial began on November 20, 1945. Much of the evidence submitted by the prosecution consisted of original military, diplomatic, and other government documents that fell into the hands of the Allied forces after the collapse of the German government. The judgment of the International Military Tribunal was handed down on September 30-October 1, 1946. Among notable features of the decision was the conclusion, in accordance with the London Agreement, that to plan or instigate an aggressive war is a crime under the principles of international law. The tribunal rejected the contention of the defense that such acts had not previously been defined as crimes under international law and that therefore the condemnation of the defendants would violate the principle of justice prohibiting ex post facto punishments. It also rejected the contention of a number of the defendants that they were not legally responsible for their acts because they performed the acts under the orders of superior authority, stating that "the true test . . . is not the existence of the order but whether moral choice (in executing it) was in fact possible."

With respect to war crimes and crimes against humanity, the tribunal found overwhelming evidence of a systematic rule of violence, brutality, and terrorism by the German government in the territories occupied by its forces. Millions of persons were destroyed in concentration camps, many of which were equipped with gas chambers for the extermination of Jews, Gypsies, and members of other ethnic or religious groups. Under the slave-labor policy of the German government, at least 5 million persons had been forcibly deported from their homes to Germany. Many of them died because of inhuman treatment. The tribunal also found that atrocities had been committed on a large scale and as a matter of official policy.

Of the seven indicted organizations, the tribunal declared criminal the Leadership Corps of the National Socialist Party, the SS, the SD (Sicherheitsdienst, "Security Service"), and the Gestapo.

Twelve defendants were sentenced to death by hanging, seven received prison terms ranging from ten years to life, and three, including the German politician and diplomat Franz von Papen and the president of the German Central Bank Hjalmar Horace Greeley Schacht, were acquitted. Those who had been condemned to death were executed on October 16, 1946. Göring committed suicide in prison a few hours before he was to be executed.

After the conclusion of the first Nuremberg trial, 12 more trials were held under the authority of Control Council Law No. 10, which closely resembled the London Agreement but provided the war crimes trials in each of the four zones of occupied Germany.

About 185 individuals were indicted in the 12 cases. Those indicted included doctors who had conducted medical experiments on concentration camp inmates and prisoners of war, judges who had committed murder and other crimes under the guise of the judicial process, and industrialists who had participated in the looting of occupied countries and in the forced-labor program. Other persons indicted included SS officials, who had headed the concentration camps, administered the Nazi racial laws, and carried out the extermination of Jews and other groups in the eastern territories overrun by the German army; and high military and civilian officials who bore responsibility for these and other criminal acts and policies of the Third Reich. A number of doctors and SS leaders were condemned to death by hanging, and approximately 120 other defendants were given prison sentences of various durations; 35 defendants were acquitted.

Another war crimes trial was held under international authority in Tokyo. The International Military Tribunal for the Far East was constituted under the authority of a charter promulgated on January 19, 1946, by General Douglas MacArthur, supreme commander for the Allied Powers. Many provisions of the charter were adapted from those of the London Agreement. The Tokyo trial opened on May 3, 1946, and held its final session on November 12, 1948. The conclusions reached by the 11-nation tribunal were generally parallel to those embodied in the judgment given in Nuremberg. Of the 28 defendants named in the indictment, 7 were condemned to death by hanging, and all but 2 of the others were sentenced to life imprisonment. Many other trials of alleged war criminals were held by tribunals constituted by the governments of the countries that had been occupied in whole or in part by Germany or Japan during World War II. In addition, military tribunals in the British and American zones of occupation in Germany tried Germans under the laws of war. Numerous trials of Japanese military officers were held also in the Philippines and Australia and by American military courts on Japanese territory. For the most part, these trials were based on alleged violations of the laws and customs of war and did not involve the crimes against peace and crimes against humanity that had constituted an important part of the Nuremberg proceedings. Alleged war criminals were being brought to trial long after the end of World War II. In 1960 the Nazi official Adolf Eichmann, who had been a member of the German SS and an organizer of anti-Semitic activities, was captured as a war criminal in Argentina by Israeli agents. Taken to Jerusalem, he was tried and condemned the following year and executed in 1962.

The Nuremberg and other war crimes trials were a notable step in the evolution of international penal law. The standing of the trials suffered sharply, however, because the proceedings were carried out under auspices of victorious powers and the charges were brought only against the nationals of vanquished Germany and Japan. Nevertheless, the principles applied in the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials helped to strengthen international law and the judicial mechanisms for its enforcement. Also, the United Nations has ratified the general principles of the trials.