Nuremberg Trials: A History from Beginning to End by Hourly History

Author:Hourly History [History, Hourly]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-11-15T06:00:00+00:00

Chapter Four

The Trial Begins

“This trial, which is now to begin, is unique in the annals of jurisprudence.”

—Sir Geoffrey Lawrence

After the indictments had been delivered, the stage was set for the trials to begin. The courtroom was waiting for the pantheon of Nazi defendants who began the day in a manner far removed from what they would have when they were leaders in the Nazi Party. The defendants, once the masters of their regime, were awakened at six o’clock on the morning of November 20, 1945, had a breakfast of oatmeal and coffee, shaved and dressed. Their garb for court consisted of uniforms minus the pageantry of insignias for the military defendants and suits and ties for the civilians. At nine in the morning, they were taken through the prison’s covered walkway to an elevator that opened into the prisoners’ dock in the courtroom. There, they were seated in the order that their names appeared on the indictment.

At 9:30 that morning, 250 journalists entered the courtroom, representing 23 different countries. The journalists who gathered in Nuremberg included some of the media’s most celebrates names: Walter Cronkite for the United Press, Howard K. Smith and William L. Shirer for CBS radio, Janet Flanner and Rebecca West for the New Yorker, Drew Middleton for The New York Times, Marguerite Higgins representing the New York Herald Tribune, Wes Gallagher for the Associated Press, and John Dos Passos for Life.

At 10:00 am, the International Military Tribunal court convened. The judges representing Great Britain, France, the United States, and the Soviet Union took their seats at the bench. The president of the tribunal, Sir Geoffrey Lawrence of Great Britain, rapped his gavel and the trial was underway. The American Francis Biddle had wanted to be the chief judge, but Robert Jackson wished to counter the perception that the Americans were playing an outsized role in the proceedings and he pressed Biddle to support the naming of Lawrence to the position, which came to pass with votes from the British, French, and Americans.

Not long after Lawrence rapped the oak gavel to open the proceedings, his gavel was actually stolen. Lawrence had to restore order in the courtroom by tapping a pen or pencil for the duration of the trial.

The first day of the trial was spent almost entirely on the reading of the indictments. Before lunchtime on the second day, the defendants entered their pleas of “not guilty.” Hermann Goering, who had written a speech to go with his plea, was cut off from speaking by Lawrence.

Rudolf Hess was much more concise, simply yelling, “Nein!” (“No!”) when it was his turn to speak.

That afternoon, Robert Jackson, who headed a legal team made up of more than 640 lawyers, researchers, secretaries, and guards, delivered the opening statements of the trial, speaking for over five hours. Jackson used the writings from the Nazis, who had been such sticklers for documentation, to build his case.

One of the prosecution staff observed, “The documentary evidence . . . is just unbelievable. Their

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