1. © HarperCollins Publishers 2010 Significance What happened in Nuremberg?

2. © HarperCollins Publishers 2010 Significance Objectives In this activity you will: Discover what happened to leading Nazis after World War Two. Assess why Nuremburg is relevant today.

3. © HarperCollins Publishers 2010 Significance What is going on in the photograph? Who do you think the people are?

4. © HarperCollins Publishers 2010 Significance What happened at Nuremburg? At the end of the war, the Allies met to plan what should happen next. One issue to resolve was how to treat war criminals. They decided to set up an International Criminal Court in Nuremburg. Nuremburg was chosen because the Court Buildings were large enough and relatively undamaged by Allied bombing. There was also a large prison to hold the defendants. Nuremburg was the site of the annual Nazi Party rallies and so symbolically a good place to bring Nazism to an end.

5. © HarperCollins Publishers 2010 Significance What happened at Nuremburg? There were trials between 1945-49. First were the major war criminals, and then others followed, such as members of the extermination squads and doctors from the Death Camps. Not all Nazi leaders were tried. Some, for example Hitler, committed suicide in the final days of the war. Others were killed, and some escaped.

6. © HarperCollins Publishers 2010 Significance What happened at Nuremburg? Former Nazis were charged with one or more of four crimes: 1.Conspiring to wage war. 2.Planning and waging wars of aggression and committing other crimes against peace. 3.Crimes against humanity (including the newly defined crime of genocide). 4.War crimes (abuse and murder of prisoners, use of slave labour and killing of civilians).

7. © HarperCollins Publishers 2010 Significance To get you thinking… What do you think should have happened to former Nazis at the end of World War Two? Why? Should these people have been dealt with by their own country rather than an International Court of Justice? Can there ever be ‘rules’ in warfare?

8. © HarperCollins Publishers 2010 Significance Escaping justice? Some of the Nazis who were not tried included some Germans who were protected by the Allies because of their scientific knowledge. One example was Werner von Braun. He worked on developing the V2 rockets that were used to attack Britain from September 1944. Over 5000 were launched at London, with 2,700 people being killed and 6,000 injured as a consequence. At the end of the war he surrendered to US forces. He and forty other rocket scientists were then moved to the USA where they began new lives and worked on developing ballistic missiles. Braun also worked on the space program, developing the Saturn rocket that took men to the moon in 1969.

9. © HarperCollins Publishers 2010 Significance By committing suicide, did Hitler ‘escape justice’? Were the British and Americans right to ‘protect’ such people as Werner von Braun? Why/why not? Be prepared to share your views. To get you thinking…

10. © HarperCollins Publishers 2010 Significance In what ways is Nuremburg significant? Of those convicted, eleven people were sentenced to death. The rest were sentenced to imprisonment. Nuremburg is seen as significant because it set a precedent for future conflicts. The International Court of Justice at The Hague is its modern descendent.