Nuremberg: Tyrants on Trial: Part 1 Quiz

Answer: Julius Streicher

Goering himself apparently used influence with Hitler to get Streicher removed from his post. Streicher, the editor of Der Stuermer, a highly pornographic newspaper, was a vulgar, rabid anti-Semite, possibly second only to Hitler. Even many of the other defendants at the trial tended to stay away from him, he was disliked so much.

Answer: 3

Martin Bormann, Hitler's Private Secretary, was tried in absentia. It is believed he committed suicide or was killed during the escape from Hitler's Bunker in early May of 1945. Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach, the armaments tycoon, was found to be medically unfit for trial, after suffering from a stroke and increasing senility. (His inclusion in the indictment was actually an error.

His son Alfried was supposed to have been tried, and later was.) Robert Ley, head of the Reich Labor Front, committed suicide on October 25, 1945 by tearing a towel into strips and hanging himself from an exposed pipe behind the toilet in his cell.

He had stuffed a rag in his mouth so that no one could hear him if he made any noise, then leaned forward and slowly strangled to death.

Answer: Ernst Kaltenbrunner

Kaltenbrunner took over as chief of Himmler's Reich Security Headquarters after the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich by Czech partisans in mid-1942. He was a latecomer to the procedings, having been hospitalized twice during the early stages of the trial for subarachnoid hemorrhages. Like Julius Streicher, the other defendants tended to avoid him.

Answer: Constantin von Neurath

According the Nuremberg judges it was stated that von Neurath intervened on behalf of many Czechs held by the Gestapo and Security Police. He was also personally told by Hitler that he was not being harsh enough with the Czech population during his time as Protector of Bohemia and Moravia.

This was a direct result of a complaint sent to Hitler by Neurath's deputy, Karl Frank, a fanatical Nazi. Neurath later pleaded with Hitler not to send Reinhard Heydrich to take his place. When this failed, he tried to resign, but this was not accepted.

In the end, he merely left, his resignation finally becoming official in 1943. The revelation of these events saved his life.

Answer: 3

Wilhelm Keitel, Alfred Jodl, and Hermann Goering, the "Military" men, all stated to the prison psychologist after their sentences were read that they knew death was coming, but did not expect to go out in such an undignified manner. They also submitted petitions to the court asking that they be shot as soldiers, rather than hung.

Answer: Baldur von Schirach

Henriette Hoffmann and Schirach had three sons and a daughter during their marriage, yet she divorced him a few years into his twenty-year sentence. He did not contest the divorce. When he was released from Spandau in 1966, his son Robert described him as a "Half-blind, broken man". Robert also said he never really forgave his mother for abandoning his father when he needed her the most.

I've seen footage of Schirach with his sons on his release, and he almost looked older than Albert Speer. Robert's description of his father seemed pretty accurate.

Answer: The atrocity film introduced by the Russians was started upside down.

Whoever was behind the projector during this part of the trial did indeed start the film upside down. A shot of the defendants in the dock showed that even the ones who were trying to absolve themselves and remain serious, such as Frank and Speer, were laughing. Rosenberg and Ribbentrop were both almost doubled over, even Hess, who was still in his state of "amnesia" was seen smiling and wiping his eyes. Fortunately for the prosecutors, when the film was righted, the defendants found that what was being shown was nothing to laugh about. Schacht refused to watch, Funk was seen openly crying, and Speer and Fritzsche were doing their best to hold back tears. Even their own lawyers seemed horrified at that they were viewing.

Lord Justice Lawrence was the presiding judge at Nuremberg. It was actually Robert Jackson, chief US prosecutor, who ended up losing his temper with Goering during his cross-examination of him.

Answer: Hjalmar Schacht

Schacht, former Minister of Economics and President of the Reichsbank, had been implicated in the plot to assassinate Hitler in July of 1944, and was for a time held in Ravensbrueck, Flossenburg, and Dachau until the Allied liberation. Incredulous that he had even been put on trial in the first place, Schacht was acquitted of all charges and went on to become a highly successful financial advisor to developing coutries in Asia and South America, most notably Egypt's President Gamal Nasser. He lived to the ripe old age of 93, passing away in Munich in 1970.

Justice Jackson was said to have been incensed upon hearing the judges' decision to free him. He had desperately wanted to see Schacht convicted not only as part of his conspiracy case, but to also let the Russians know that the Western Powers would have no problems convicting a "capitalist". In the end, however, he had only been acquitted on a technicality. The four judges were deadlocked, and it had been decided early on that deadlocks would resolve in full acquittal. The American and Russian judges had voted for conviction, the French and British had voted against.

Answer: Martin Bormann

Bormann's eldest son, Martin Jr., was raised by various foster families along with his nine other siblings after their mother Gerda, who also converted to Catholicism, died of cancer. When his father's remains were positively identified, the family made the decision to cremate the bones and scatter the ashes into the sea, so that no shrine could be made by his grave, such as the one that stands by the Hess family plot. Bormann later left the priesthood and married a former nun, yet remained strong in both his Catholic faith and his love for his father. Keitel and Frick lost their sons to the war, while Hans Frank himself reconfirmed his Catholic Faith and received Holy Communion and Absolution before being led to the gallows.

Answer: Karl Doenitz

In September 1942 the RMS Laconia, which was carrying around 1,800 Italian prisoners of war, was torpedoed and sunk by a German U-Boat off the coast of West Africa. When the commander of the U-Boat realized that the majority of the passengers were allies of his country, he began rescue operations. Doenitz sent two U-boats to meet up with ships from the Vichy Regime for the rescue when they were attacked by US B-24 bombers. Even though the German and French boats had placed Red Cross banners around them, the senior US officer on duty gave the orders to the bombers to sink the submarines. Doenitz had decided that since the Americans were willing to attack even ships flying the Red Cross flag, any survivors of crippled ships were to be left in the sea (the "Laconia Order"). Nevertheless, at the trial, the judges stated: "The Tribunal is of the opinion that the evidence does not establish with the certainty required that Dönitz deliberately ordered the killing of shipwrecked survivors". Adding to that, Doenitz's lawyer also managed to obtain an affidavit from US Admiral Chester Nimitz, stating that he conducted the same form of "unrestricted submarine warfare" in his campaigns.