Episode 1A - 1946: The Nuremberg War Crimes Trials

From Boomers to Millennials: A Modern US History Podcast

This supplemental episode examines the post-World War II trials in Nuremberg, Germany, during 1946, where US Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson led the prosecution against prominent Nazi leaders such as Hermann Goering & Albert Speer. Some of the USA’s WWII allies had recommended executing or imprisoning these infamous figures without trial, but the Americans believed that it was important for them to get a fair trial that would publicly prove their guilt & expose their crimes. Dozens of high-ranking Nazi officials were charged with & convicted of waging aggressive war, violating laws of war, & engaging in atrocities against civilians (including the Holocaust). This podcast also gives an overview of the similar war crimes trials held in Tokyo that tried the Imperial Japanese military leaders. It concludes with a discussion of how the US federal government has given fewer legal rights to enemy suspects (such as suspected terrorists) during the 2000s than it did for Axis leaders during the 1940s.

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