Courtroom 600 - Project "Memorial Nuremberg Trials"

The Follow-up Trials

The "Nuremberg Trial" was not the only effort made to deal with Nazi crimes on the basis of criminal law. Numerous further trials of war criminals were held by military tribunals of the various occupying powers and in countries formerly occupied by Germany.

Between 1946 and 1949, 177 high-ranking medical doctors, legal professionals, industrialists, SS and Police commanders, military personnel, civil servants and diplomats were tried in Nuremberg by US Military Tribunals in 12 follow-up trials. These proceedings document to which extent the German leading classes had contributed to the rise and to the functioning of the NS regime of terror.

24 of the 177 defendants were sentenced to death, 20 to life imprisonment and 98 to long-term prison sentences. The military judges acquitted 35 defendants. After pardons in the 1950s, many of the sentenced NS criminals were released from prison before they had served their full sentences.