From World War to Cold War

Ch. 31, Sec. 5

Aftermath of World War II

• Holocaust horrors uncovered

• United Nations (UN) formed

• Breakup of wartime alliances

• New conflicts develop– Cold War: communism vs. capitalism– U.S. vs. U.S.S.R.

Nuremberg Trials• In May 1945, Winston Churchill, Harry S. Truman,

Joseph Stalin and Charles De Gaulle agreed that an international military tribunal should try the leaders of Nazi Germany for war crimes.

• It was decided to charge the men and women on four counts:

1. Crimes Against Peace (planning and making war)2. War Crimes (responsibility for crimes during war)3. Crimes Against Humanity (racial persecution)4. Conspiracy to Commit other Crimes.

Nuremberg Jail

Nuremberg Bench

The Nuremberg judges.

Nuremberg Trials• Allied leaders had agreed to punish those

responsible for “crimes against humanity”.

• 12 Trials were held in Nuremberg, Germany, from Nov. 1945 through Sept. 1946.

• Hitler was already dead, but 22 surviving Nazi leaders were tried.

• Some received the death penalty; others were imprisoned.

• Similar trials were held in Japan and Italy.

Defendants

Nuremberg: Revealed the Nature of Evil

No trial provides a better basis for understanding the nature and causes of evil than do the Nuremberg trials from 1945 to 1949. 

Those who come to the trials expecting to find sadistic monsters are generally disappointed. What is shocking about Nuremberg is the ordinariness of the defendants: men who may be good fathers, kind to animals, even unassuming--yet who committed unspeakable crimes.

Of 22 major defendants, 12 were sentenced to death.

One of these was Hermann Göring, considered to be the most important surviving official after Hitler's death.

Convicted of Crimes Against HumanityHermann Göring Death Original head of the Gestapo before turning it

over to the SS in April 1934. Originally Hitler's designated successor and the second highest ranking Nazi official. By 1942, with his power waning, Göring fell out of favor and was replaced in the Nazi hierarchy by Himmler. Committed suicide the night before his execution.

Rudolf Hess Life Imprisonment Hitler's Deputy Führer until he flew to Scotland in 1941 in attempt to broker peace with Great Britain. After trial, committed to Spandau Prison; died in 1987.

Ernst Kaltenbrunner Death Highest surviving SS-leader. Chief of RSHA 1943–45, the Nazi organ made up of the intelligence service, Secret State Police, Criminal Police and had overall command over the Einsatzgruppen. Executed by hanging on Oct. 16, 1946.

Hideki Tojo- As Prime Minister of Japan during most of WWII, he

was directly responsible for the attack on Pearl Harbor, although planning for it had begun before he entered office.

- At the end of the war, Tojo was arrested, sentenced to death for Japanese war crimes by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East and was hanged in December 1948.

What about Japan???

“By the judgment of the Nuremberg Tribunal, October 1, 1946, it was established that the

highest officials of a government are answerable before the bar of international courts for committing war crimes, crimes against peace, and—in connection with

either of these—crimes against humanity.”

- Harry S. Truman

Leaders CAN be held accountable for their actions during war!!!

Nuremberg InfluenceThe Nuremberg trials had a great influence on the development of international criminal law.

The Conclusions of the Nuremberg trials served as models for:

• The Genocide Convention, 1948.

• The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948.

• The International Criminal Court (headquartered at the Hague

in Netherlands).

Genocide• Genocide is defined as "the deliberate and

systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group”.

• At the Nuremberg trials, defendants claimed they had violated NO laws!

• As a direct response, in 1948, the UN Passed the Genocide Convention which made genocide a crime.

Genocide Convention, 1948Adopted by the United Nations• It defines genocide in legal terms• Defined acts punishable as genocide:

(a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the

group;(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life

calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

In an effort to maintain peace, the Allies formed the United Nations, which

officially came into existence on October 24, 1945, and adopted The Universal

Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, as a common standard for all member

nations.

United Nations

Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948

• The Declaration arose directly from the experience of the Second World War and represents the first global expression of rights to which all human beings are inherently entitled.

• http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/index.shtml

The Hague

• Establishment of a permanent International Criminal Court.

• The Nuremberg trials initiated a movement for the prompt establishment of a permanent international criminal court, eventually leading over fifty years later to the adoption of the Statute of the International Criminal Court.

• FDR dead, Churchill out of office as Prime Minister, Stalin only original.

• Germany would undergo demilitarization and denazification.

• Stalin set himself up to take ALL of East Germany ……….the Cold War begins.

Prime Minister President Joseph Clement Atlee Truman Stalin

Potsdam Conference: July, 1945

The U.S. & the U.S.S.R. emerged as the

Two Superpowers of the late 20th century