Description of the event

Already in 1943, when the destiny of the conflict begins to turn to Allies’ own advantage, Allied countries start discussing about establishing Court to punish Nazi crimes. During the meeting in Yalta (February 1945) Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill decide to establish an international military Court, with residence in Nuremberg. This city, one of the more representative of the Reich, has been given hospitality from 1933 to 1938 to the oceanic parades for Reichsparteitag (the annual national gathering of Nazi party).
The trial starts in Nuremberg on November 20th, 1945, with a Court composed by American, USSR, English and French judges (presided by a prestigious English judge, lord Lawrence). This trial represents, in reality, a second period in the punishment process of Nazi crimes. Already during the previous year, have taken place summary procedures against SS and commander of lagers liberated by the Red Army troops (as happened in the Nazi's Polish camp of Majdanek).
In the mind of the winning countries, the Nuremberg trials should have got over the logic of a summary process, in favour of longer procedures with more warrants to the defence. In front of the US Head Procurator, the Supreme Court judge Robert H. Jackson, who opens the trial, on November 20, 1945, with a heavy bill of indictment, doesn’t seat the three main authors of the Nazi disaster: Adolf Hitler, Heinrich Himmler and Joseph Göbbels, who committed suicide before the surrender of Germany. However at the bar are called 24 men, representing politic, administrative, military and economic vertices of Nazi Germany. Among these Martin Bormann, Secretary of the Chancellory, is tried and sentenced by default; we will never have any news about him. Gustav von Bohlen und Haldbach Krupp, owner of the most important German mechanical firm, on the contrary, is not tried (although inserted in the list), due to his old age and bad conditions. The third, and last, among them who are not tried is Robert Ley, Head of the “Front of the Work”, who suicided before the starting of the hearing.
The trial, which involves a thousand of employers and will produce five million papers of documents, lasts nine months. This is the first occasion in which are shown images filmed by Allied soldiers of Nazi’s concentration camps, to prove unequivocally the defendant’s responsibilities. These images should serve first of all to demonstrate the count of indictment of crimes against mankind, figure absolutely new in the international judicial outline. War crimes and crimes against the peace were the two other counts of indictment raised against the defendants.
On October 1st, 1946, sentences are passed. Are sentenced to death, by hanging: Hermann Göring, number two of the Reich and Commander in Chief of the Luftwaffe, Wilhelm Keitel ed Alfred Jodl, the two higher officials of the supreme Command of the Army (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht – OKW), Hans Frank, governor of occupied “Generalgouvernement" of Poland, Alfred Rosemberg, theorist of the Nazi party and of anti-Jewish racial hatred, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, head of the Reich’s high department for security (Reichsicherhetishauptamt – RSHA) and number two of Heinrich Himmler, Arthur Seyss-Inquart, Austrian nazi’s leader and governor of the Netherlands, Julius Streicher, director of the magazine “Der Stürmer” and among the more fanatical anti-Jewish orators, Fritz Sauckel, plenipotentiary for forced labour, Wilhelm Frick, Home Secretary and governor of several territories and finally Joachim von Ribbentrop, Secretary of State. Death penalties are executed on October 16th; Göring doesn’t go to the scaffold because the night before, mysteriously, manages to suicide swallowing a cyanide capsule.
Erich Räder (one of the higher officials of the Navy), Rudolph Hess (lieutenant and former designated successor of Hitler, who since 1941 has been in Scotland in still mysterious circumstances) and Walther Funk (former director of the Reichsbank) are sentenced to life imprisonment. Architect Albert Speer, Secretary of Arming as well as inventor of all Hitler’s pharaonic exploits, is sentenced to 20 years of imprisonment, as well as Baldur von Schirach (the youngest defendant), head of the “Youth of Hitler” (Hitlerjugend). To 15 years of imprisonment is sentenced Constantin von Neurath, diplomatic and former Secretary of State, while Admiral Karl Dönitz gets off with 10 years.
Three discharges: Franz von Papen, former Chancellor during the Weimar Republic who has then espoused Nazism, Hjalmar Schacht, former director of the Reichsbank and Hans Fritzsche, the most important radio-speaker in Nazi Germany.

Adolf Eichmann was born in Solingen (Austria) on March 19th, 1906. He doesn’t finish his studies and, after a short period of apprenticeship, works from 1925 to 1933 as a seller and a commercial traveller. On April 10th, 1932 joins the Austrian Nazi party and the SS. After the Austrian Government’s prohibition on these two organisations (June 19th, 1933), Eichmann moves to Germany, where attends military training courses together with Austrian members of the SS; a few time later asks to enter the Security Service. Since October 10th, 1934 is assigned to the Central Office of the Reich’s Security Office (Sicherheits Dienst-SD) in Berlin; head of this office is R. Heydrich. In the department where works, Eichmann attends immediately to the “Jewish question”; for this works he is expected to take a census and to mantain under control Jewish organisations in Germany and abroad, to plan a forced emigration of Jews from Germany and to study repressive measures. On 1938, during the annexation of Austria to the Reich (Anschluss), takes part in a special group of the SD and runs, in Wien, the new-born Central Office for Jewish emigration (Zentralstelle für Jüdische Auswanderung). His role consists in force to emigration Austrian Jews, in advance sacked of all they had.
Eichmann is so brutal and successful that Heydrich considers his praxis as a model, to use in German territory too. On April 1939 Eichmann is moved to Prague and charged with organisation and starting of Czech Jews emigratio from their land. On late 1939 moves again to Berlin, where is assigned to the General Department for Reich’s Security (RSHA), becoming the man in charge of the new “Evacuation” sector (December 21st, 1939). During an activity sharing plan on February 5th, 1940, the "Emigration and Evacuation" sector appears for the first time with the famous abbreviation “IV B 4”.
During Worl War Two, after further sharings in his office, Eichmann increases his tasks, becoming a real specialist in moving people, for whom destinies he didn’t care at all. The Nazi invasion of the USSR, which begins on June 22nd, 1941, and the decision, taken during the Wannsee conference (January 1942) , to exterminate all the Jews in Europe, mark a determinant turning in his activity. Until 1944 he is a model of bureaucrat of the extermination, then is put at the head of a special office, expected to organize and carry out, directly there, the deportation to Auschwit oh the Hungarian Jews. So he moves to Budapest.
During the Nuremberg trials, Eichmann’s name is made several times; nevertheless they are used to think that he died in the last days of the war. In reality, on May 1945, Eichmann abandoned the SS uniform and dressed as an aviator. Escaping from Germany to Austria, was captured and, as he said during his trial, recognised as a SS thanks to the mark branded on his armpit. Carried to a special camp, manages as well to escape, in the early 1946. By this moment hids himself in the desolate forest of Luneburg, working as a woodman until 1950. He wants however to join his family, so takes the decision to leave Germany. He chooses Argentina as a destination, after being informed – and that means he was in contact with some Nazi leaders – that many Nazi refugeed there, living with a false identity. On 1950 passes through Austria and reaches Italy, and in Genoa sails for Buenos Aires with a passport registred under the name of Ricardo Klement. Two years later his family joins him, while he was working in a Mercedes factory in Buenos and living in the suburbs of this city. On May 11th, 1960 is intercepted by the Israeli secret services and 11 days later carried clandestinely to Israel.
On February 10th, 1961 are notified him the imputations; his defense is taken by the same lawyer who defended Fritz Sauckel in Nuremberg. The trial in the Jerusalem Law Court lastes from April 10th to August 14th, 1961. On December 15th, the judges pass the sentence, which implied the death penalty by hanging. The Court of Appeal, on March 29th, 1962, doesn’t modify the sentence.
On May 31st, 1962, after that his petition for mercy is refused, Eichmann is hanged.