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Why Were The Nuremberg Trials Controversial?

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Why the Nuremberg Trials controversial? Were they fair? Edward Le Brocque

The Nuremberg Trials were held in Nuremberg, Germany from the 20th of November 1945 to the 1st of October 1946, 24 of the Nazi leaders were tried for their crimes against humanity, however only 22 trials were officially carried out due to Robert Ley committing suicide and Gustav Krupp von Bohlen deemed unfit for trial before their hearing. It was considered to be controversial as all Nazi officials at one time claimed that they were simply following orders from a higher power and that they weren’t to blame for their crimes because they were acting in self defence. Hermann Göring also committed suicide the day before his scheduled execution. Also a few of Hitler’s accomplices committed suicide before they had a chance to be trialled. These adjustments to the expected outcome of the Nuremberg Trials caused controversy amongst everyone who knew of the Nazi’s treatment of others, especially Jews. There was also some bias towards the Nazi party from the people conducting the trial as they were mostly from Allied descent and had personal reasons to persecute Nazis simply because they were Nazis without fairly considering their crimes against humanity.

It didn’t go how it was supposed to …show more content…

As some trials only resulted in a 10 or 20 year imprisonment, and 3 of the defendants were eventually acquitted of all punishment. The families of people that were killed by the Nazi Party believed that “they should not be allowed to escape with the plea Macbeth offered for Banquo’s murder”, meaning that the Nazi leaders should all suffer for the pain that they have

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