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During January I worked through the documents and corresponding trial transcript for the defense of Alfred Jodl, the head of the military operations staff, and began work on the documents of Artur Seyss-Inquart, the Austrian Nazi who played a role in the German takeover in 1938 and served as the German governor of the Netherlands during the war. Strategy, or lack of it: Jodl argued that he had no role in setting military strategy during …

During December I completed the analysis of the prosecution documents on the "slave labor" program (the prosecution's term for the use of conscripted civilians from occupied territories and POWs in Germany's war economy) and the supplemental prosecution evidence used when Fritz Sauckel and Albert Speer presented their defense cases. Speer apparently made a good impression on several of the IMT judges (and much of the public then and later) as a very intelligent and talented …

During November I completed the analysis of Fritz Sauckel's defense documents and began work on the prosecution's documents on what it called the "slave labor" program (this falls under the "forced labor" heading in our database list of trial issues). Sauckel's background, as he testified, included a major fact that affected his approach to the use of several million foreign workers in Germany's war economy: During World War I he had been a POW in …

During October I completed the analysis for Baldur von Schirach's defense documents and worked through the corresponding part of the trial transcript, and started work on the defense documents of Fritz Sauckel, who led the labor procurement operation during the war. Schirach's defense included some surprising material. Fighting words? The prosecution tried to portray Schirach's Hitler Youth program as a premilitary organization preparing boys to fight wars of conquest, which would make Schirach complicit in …

During August I analyzed the defense documents in five of Admiral Raeder's six document books. In the middle of the month I reached and then passed one round number: 5000 IMT trial documents organized and analyzed. In slightly rounded numbers we now have: 100 pre-trial and administrative documents 3710 prosecution documents 1235 defense documents (so far) The final total for the full trial can't be predicted; we won't know until we're done. Good information, bad …

During July I finished the analysis of the IMT defense documents for Admiral Doenitz, and most but not all of the corresponding transcript work. The transcript is slow going for Doenitz's material because it went through four steps once the four document books were assembled: the prosecution objected to many of the documents, the defense argued for their inclusion, the tribunal ruled on which documents were rejected or accepted, and finally the defense presented those …

During June I analyzed the defense documents of Walther Funk and one-third of the documents of Admiral Doentiz. This ended one year's work on the IMT following the COVID related "pause," and also one year with the defense material. During the year I worked through the documents of defendants Frank, Frick, Funk, Goering, Hess, Kaltenbrunner, Keitel, Ribbentrop, Rosenberg, Schacht, and Streicher, amounting to slightly more than 1000 documents. One discovery was that it takes considerably …

During May I analyzed the defense documents of Julius Streicher, the antisemitic propagandist, and Hjalmar Schacht, the regime's banker in the 1930s. Streicher was the most repulsive of the defendants and Schacht the most sympathetic. I expected Streicher's material would be difficult to deal with and Schacht's to be dull (considering his role as a banker), but Streicher's documents were dull and Schacht's were surprisingly interesting. Defense of a terrible client: Streicher hoped to argue …

During April I finished the analysis of Hans Frank's fourth and fifth document books, and then analyzed Wilhelm Frick's defense documents. Frick, the Interior Minister, presented a more compact defense than the other high-level defendants, relying on his record as a bureaucrat who had no role in the planning of the war and no control over the activities of the SS. The occupier as dairy farmer: As governor of occupied Poland, Frank described his strategy …

During March I began work on the defense documents of Hans Frank, who was prosecuted mostly for his activities as governor of occupied Poland (the Government General). I worked through three of his five document books. Pluribus aut unum (many or one): On 24 April 1946 Frank's attorney formally introduced his exhibits, most notably this one (paraphrased): "Exhibit ten is a set of extracts from Frank's official diary, assigned evidence code number PS 2233 by …

During February I spent the first third of the month catching up on the transcript work for Keitel's and Kaltenbrunner's defense presentations, noting when new documents were entered and documents presented earlier were discussed. Even though these defendants presented few documents themselves compared to Ribbentrop (1/10th as many for Keitel and 1/20th for Kaltenbrunner), they testified at length and many documents came up for review. Among them were the prosecution exhibits on the killing of …

During January I worked through the IMT prosecution's rebuttal to Ribbentrop's defense, Keitel's defense documents, and Kaltenbrunner's defense documents. Kaltenbrunner's document book supplement included a bonus of sorts: a set of 15 prosecution documents concerning the killing of captured Allied airmen in mid-1944 (either by the "lynch law" of civilians or by the security police). This is the first time that a group of prosecution documents has turned up in a defense file and not …

December is a short work-month at HLS, so this is early. During the month I finished analyzing Ribbentrop's last three defense document books, his attorney's final argument, and the affidavit he prepared just before his execution for a Japanese diplomat facing trial at the IMT Far East. His documents covered 1940-41 with a now-familiar theme: how Germany was flanked by enemies (the USSR and America) and had to fight a defensive war on all sides. …

During November I worked through three of Ribbentrop's nine defense document books, two of them on Poland, to pin the blame for the war on the Poles, and one on the expansion of the war in 1940, blaming the "encirclement" strategy of Britain and France. In a literal sense Poland provided considerable evidence for Ribbentrop's case, as there was no shortage of hostility on both sides. One sign appeared in my geographical dictionary when I …

During October I worked through Ribbentrop's evidence document books three and four and began the fifth book, placing me roughly at the half-way point in Ribbentrop's defense case. Most of the documents offered were rejected as evidence by the tribunal as being irrelevant to the issues in the trial, but they still provide a sense of how Ribbentrop viewed his case. The exhibit errant: During Hess's defense presentation his attorney wanted to submit evidence from …

In September I completed analysis of the defense documents for Rudolf Hess and began those for Joachim von Ribbentrop, the foreign minister. We now have just over 4000 documents in the system for the IMT, ca 3800 for the prosecution and 200 for the defendants so far. A variety of strategies: Goering, the lead defendant, offered few documents and instead took the stand to argue his case-or at least to secure his reputation as a …

After a somewhat prolonged pause, document analysis for the International Military Tribunal (IMT, 1945-46) resumed in July. Once the computer system was set up and the trial transcript delivered from storage, I picked up from where I had left off in the transcript and found it had been the perfect place to pause-the completion of the Soviet prosecution case in late February 1946, for which I had analyzed the English language documents in the collection. …

During February I analyzed the documents of the second half of the prosecution case against Frick, the French presentation on forced labor, and the case against Hans Fritzsche, a senior official in the propaganda ministry. This amounted to 110 documents and 544 pages of material. The political bureaucrat: The first half of the prosecution case on Frick presented his work as an architect of the Nazi legal and institutional regime, as he was a master …

During January I analyzed the IMT prosecution documents concerning Artur Seyss-Inquart and the first half of the case against Wilhelm Frick. This amounted to 157 documents and 796 pages of material. (I also added a new task, connecting the code numbers for the scanned images of the documents to the corresponding database entries, so that the images will go up on the website connected to the corresponding analysis.) Seyss-Inquart was an Austrian Nazi who helped …

In December 2019, I analyzed the prosecution documents on two of the IMT defendants, Schirach and Bormann, amounting to 137 documents and 774 pages of material. This brought the total for the IMT to 3200 documents so far, in just under two years of analysis work. (Many more to follow.) Bormann was tried in absentia; he had in fact died at the end of the war but this had not been definitely established at the …

In November I analyzed the prosecution documents against Admiral Raeder, the commander of the navy in the 1930s and the first half of the war; this amounted to 129 documents and 645 pages of material. The initial case against Raeder was compact, as he was primarily charged with violations of the laws of naval warfare, but in his defense he made the tactical mistake of claiming he was only a naval officer and had no …

During October, I analyzed the IMT prosecution files concerning defendants Funk (the banker) and Admiral Doenitz; this amounted to 119 documents and 693 pages of material. The Funk case extended that of his predecessor, Schacht, with a few marginal additions, while the Doenitz material covered the preparation for the war, which the prosecution considered to be the central crime of the regime, and the details of crimes committed in the war at sea, particularly the …

During September I analyzed the remaining documents of the prosecution case against Streicher and all of the case against Hjalmar Schacht, the regime's banker; this amounted to 175 documents and 751 pages of material. Extermination declared: In December 1942, the "United Nations" (the Allied nations) issued a declaration on reports that Germans "are now carrying into effect Hitler's oft repeated intention to exterminate the Jewish people in Europe." Adults were being worked to death, others …

During August I completed the IMT prosecution documents on Hans Frank, the occupation governor of Poland, and began the documents on Julius Streicher, the Nazi propagandist. This amounted to 174 documents and 551 pages of material. For the IMT as a whole, we passed the 2500-document mark early in the month and now have more than 2600 documents analyzed. The case against Frank was covered in the last report, and the final file did not …

During July I completed work on the prosecution documents on Goering and began work on the documents on Hans Frank. This amounted to 155 documents and 722 pages of material. One of the document books, for the cross-examination of Frank, was prepared by the USSR; this is the first Soviet file (in the English language) that has appeared in the collection. In terms of the collection, the two sets occur in opposite forms: the Goering …

During June I analyzed the IMT prosecution documents concerning Alfred Rosenberg and four of the document books on Hermann Goering, the lead defendant. This amounted to 141 documents and 700 pages of material. As it turned out, Rosenberg and Goering form a study in contrast. Labels (problem of): When I began work on the prosecution case against the individual defendants (the third phase of the prosecution), the first file was a presentation on "the lead …

During May I finished the analysis of the IMT prosecution documents on generals Keitel and Jodl, and began work on the documents about Alfred Rosenberg; this amounted to 128 documents and 873 pages of material. Old concepts and new: In September 1941 Admiral Canaris circulated a commentary on the new policy to treat Soviet POWs as criminals, noting that it violated traditional international law. Keitel commented that "The objections arise from the military concept of …

During April I began work on the IMT prosecution's case against the individual defendants (the third major phase of the prosecution), including the opening statement, then briefs and documents on Goering, Ribbentrop, Keitel, and Jodl. This amounted to 160 documents and 655 pages of material. We also passed the 2000 mark in the number of IMT documents analyzed. Making it personal: When the prosecutor (Ralph Albrecht) opened the argument on the lead defendants, he concentrated …

During March I analyzed the remaining prosecution document books about Kaltenbrunner, which supplemented the case against the Gestapo, and then the case against the military high command (OKW) and general staff; this amounted to 157 documents and 800 pages of material. This completed my work on the prosecution documents on the six accused "criminal organizations." Transactional loyalty: General Blomberg reviewed the military commanders' allegiance to Hitler as largely a quid-pro-quo. Rearmament and the reunification of …

During February, I completed the prosecution evidence on the Gestapo and SD and began the documents on Ernst Kaltenbrunner, whose case overlapped because he was chief of the security police; this amounted to 170 documents and 597 pages of material. The final two files on the Gestapo and SD were used to rebut defense arguments at the end of the trial, and the rush to finish is reflected in the documents. While US document files …

During January I completed the prosecution documents on the SS as a criminal organization and began the documents on the Gestapo and the Security Service (SD), amounting to 136 documents and 903 pages of material. The prosecution's separate treatment of these overlapping organizations was part historical and part functional. The SS (including the SD) was first charged as a multifaceted institution that originated in the party, and then later took over the police system. The …

During November and December I worked on the prosecution documents concerning four institutions charged as being criminal organization (the party leadership, the cabinet, the SA, and the SS), with the documents on the plundering of artworks added as an illustration. This amounted to 232 documents and 996 pages of material. The totals for the year on the IMT (not including the final work on NMT 9) are 1420 documents and 8439 pages. IMT and NMT …

During October I covered the IMT prosecution documents on the persecution of the Jews (a phrase that the prosecutors noted was far short of the reality), Germanization, and the first material on the Leadership Corps of the NSDAP, amounting to 157 documents and 663 pages of material. The prosecution detoured from counts 3 and 4 (war crimes and crimes against humanity) to the criminal organizations without any explanation, and will detour back to the plundering …

During September I worked through the final IMT prosecution documents covering count 2 (aggression), including the war against the US, and began the documents for counts 3 and 4 (war crimes and crimes against humanity, which were presented together), skipping forced labor (those documents are missing from our set), covering the concentration camp system, and the beginning of the persecution and extermination of the Jews (about which, more next month). The document analysis covered 88 …

During August I continued with the IMT prosecution documents for Crimes against Peace (Count 2), following the expansion of the war after the attack on Poland and the beginning of the war with Britain and France. This covered, in succession, the Nazi attacks on Norway and Denmark; Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg; Yugoslavia and Greece; and the Soviet Union. (The files on the war with the United States will complete the set.) This covered 116 …

During June and July I worked on the prosecution case under count 2 of the indictment, crimes against peace (or, wars of aggression), amounting to 196 documents and 1584 pages of material. The case includes the British prosecutor's opening address on aggression, a review of the treaties Germany had signed and then violated, the planning (conspiracy) and execution (aggression) of the conquests of Czechoslovakia and Austria, and a detailed record of Germany's conflict with Poland, …

During May I analyzed the contents of seven IMT prosecution document books, covering 205 documents and 758 pages of material. The documents completed the evidence for count 1 of the indictment, the Nazi leaders' "common plan" or conspiracy to seize power, consolidate control, militarize the society, and prepare for a war of aggression, with the latter subject overlapping with count 2 (crimes against peace). This material was presented in the first ten days of the …

During April I analyzed the documents in seven IMT prosecution document books, covering 245 documents and 770 pages of material. The subjects covered diverse elements of the "Common plan or conspiracy" charge (count 1), including totalitarian control, education and youth, propaganda, purges and terrorization, labor, and suppression of Christian churches. The material reflects the prosecution's central argument, that the war crimes and crimes against humanity (counts 3 and 4) were derivative of the primary crime-the …

During March I completed the work on the IMT prosecution notes and memos, then covered the initial trial proceedings, the eleven prosecution briefs on count 1 (the "common plan" or conspiracy of the Nazi leaders), and finally began the document books of evidence for count 1. This covered 104 documents and 1124 pages of material. In order to begin adding the evidence documents, the analysis paused for a week to allow the revision of the …

After I finished the analysis of the trial documents in the Einsatzgruppen case, NMT 9, in early January, I split my time between two tasks. The first was to scan the last 1500 pages of the trial transcript for any document-related information I had not previously found. My earlier work proved to be sufficient, as no new documents turned up. The transcript did offer some interesting dialogue, however, including an exchange between a judge and …

In December and early January, I worked through the papers of six Case 9 defendants, covering 169 documents and 895 pages of material. The sixth, Strauch, was the last defendant to present his case, so, subject to some double-checking, all the Case 9 trial documents have now been identified and analyzed-1129 documents and ca. 6700 pages. The remaining task is to finish the review of the transcript, 1800 pages to go, to find additional information …

During November, I worked through the papers of five defendants, amounting to 157 documents and 724 pages. For those tracking the numbers, the document and page numbers are lower than in previous months, for two reasons: several work days "lost" to holidays, and diseconomies of scale. Some of the defendants offered few documents but spent several days testifying on the stand, so that I had to spend a lot of time skimming through the transcript …

During October I analyzed 197 documents (1045 pages) spanning five of the NMT Case 9 defendants (it helped that one defendant offered only one document before his case was severed due to illness). Documentary infallibility? When the prosecutor cross-examined Sandberger about a promotion recorded in his SS personnel file, Sandberger claimed that the record was inaccurate in several respects. The prosecutor responded: "The memory of man might fail. Records, if they are not destroyed, stand." …

During September I analyzed 171 defense documents in the Einsatzgruppen Case (NMT 9), amounting to 1299 pages of material, finishing the papers of one defendant I had started in August, completing three other defendants, and starting the documents of another. The numbers are adding up: with more than 600 documents done, I am now half-way through the NMT 9 trial documents. On a larger scale, given our estimated total of 40,000 trial documents in the …

During August I completed the analysis of the tribunal judgment and began work on the defendants' documents, amounting to 165 documents and 1063 pages of material. I have now completed the documents of three of the defendants, in the order they presented their cases in the trial. One challenge in the process is that, so far, none of the defendants had their evidence ready to offer as exhibits when they testified (as was usual in …

During July I completed the analysis of the prosecution documents in the Einsatzgruppen trial (NMT 9), amounting to 155 documents and 1070 pages of material, including document books, briefs against individual defendants, and the closing argument. Some time was spent enriching the analysis of the previous documents (analyzed in June) with information about two trial issues that were not identified in the indictment but that emerged from the evidence: the execution of the mentally ill, …

In June the trial document analysis work resumed, with NMT 9, the Einsatzgruppen Case, on the agenda. I chose this trial because it presents a subject the other cases have not so far covered: genocide. The Einstazgruppen (groups A, B, C, and D) were created by the SS in the summer of 1941 to proceed into eastern Europe along with the army on the Russian front in order to assist the military, secure territory behind …

During May I worked through the nine document books of Field Marshal List and the entire defense set of General Rendulic, for a total of 226 documents and 1260 pages of material. General Rendulic takes the case out of the Balkans for charges related to the scorched-earth withdrawal from northern Norway, but the issues and events are like those already presented by other defendants. Since List was the highest-ranking defendant, the stakes were higher, the …

During April I finished the paper of one defendant (Lanz), covered all the documents of another (von Leyser), and started those of Field Marshal List, the commander in chief in southeastern Europe in 1941. This amounted to 229 documents and 1037 pages of material. Given the number of defendants already covered, not many new subjects appeared, but some vivid examples of familiar points were found. Objection to the court: This was the seventh trial heard …

During March I completed the final papers for one defendant (Geitner), all of the papers for a second (Kuntze), and roughly half for a third (Lanz). This amounted to 249 documents and 899 pages of material. The Lanz case gets us to the fifth box in the Case 7 set, passing the two-thirds mark. The defense evidence shed some light on the German strategy in Yugoslavia, the complexities of the Nazi system, and the hazards …

During February I completed the documents for one defendant in the Hostages Case, Foertsch, and most of the documents for another, von Geitner. These amounted to 193 documents and 895 pages of material. Both defendants were staff officers rather than commanding officers, which was a major point for them and a key distinction for the tribunal, but staff officers still had an overview of events and also a major responsibility that was relevant in the …

The plan for December was to complete the Hostage Case prosecution documents, but I finished those in November, so we had a project's dream come true: free time. I split the time, spending 10 days working through the defense portion of the trial transcript and the final proceedings, and then started the defendants' papers. By the end of January I had finished the documents of two defendants (Dehner and Felmy) and half of the next …

The task for November was to finish the second box of trial documents, amounting to 150 documents and 973 pages. This completed work on the Hostage Case prosecution documents, a month sooner than planned. The question of what's not there: The collection of prosecution documents includes virtually all of the primary case that was prepared at the beginning of the trial, except, unfortunately, the movies that were shown, and some evidence provided by outside authorities …

In October I worked through the second half of the records of the German war in Yugoslavia, covering the years 1943-44. This amounted to 214 documents analyzed, with 1256 pages of material. The basic story remained the same as for the early war-the capture and killing of hostages as a deterrent and punishment for guerrilla attacks, hence the name The Hostage Case-but some interesting strategic and tactical shifts occurred. In mid-1943 the focus of the …

The task for September was to begin the analysis of documents for Case 7, the Hostage Case, which concerns (primarily) the extraordinarily dirty war between the Germans and the partisans in Yugoslavia, with the execution of captured fighters, the arrest and killing of hostages in reprisal measures, and the use of concentration camps and forced labor. Since I began the work in late August after finishing the Justice Case, and the early prosecution files are …

The task in August was to complete the documents for Franz Schlegelberger, the most important defendant in the trial and the last one in the set. The Justice Case was thus completed, with some clean-up work to follow later, with 2379 documents and 12,190 pages of material analyzed. While the movie version of the trial, Judgment of Nuremberg, has its dramatic climax when the leading defendant (Schlegelberger by another name, played by Burt Lancaster) rises …

My agenda for July was to complete the analysis of the defense documents for Rothaug and Rothenberger, and begin the documents for Schlegelberger, the final defendant in Case 3. This material covered 20 files, 234 documents, and 1105 pages of text. Blue Grapes, again: Given the suspicion that Judge Rothaug plotted judicial crimes at the Blaue Traube restaurant, one of his colleagues admitted in an affidavit that the place was owned by a Nazi leader …

The June agenda was the defense case of Petersen and the majority of the case for Rothaug (one of the bulky sets); this covered 13 files, 309 documents, and 997 pages analyzed. These defendants were opposites in their roles, as Petersen was a minor figure as a lay-judge while Oswald Rothaug was notorious as a "blood judge" presiding at the Special Court at Nuremberg, with a reputation as a politically-connected Nazi. Even other defendants claimed …

The agenda for May was analyzing the defense material for Mettgenberg, Nebelung, and Oeschey; this covered 23 files, 259 documents, and approximately 1200 pages. Compared to recent months, the document count went down but the page count went up, as a number of long documents from Oeschey's court cases gave us economies of scale. Mettgenberg and Nebelung made the now-familiar bureaucratic argument that they simply did office work; Oeschey was a Special Court judge, with …

The task for April was to analyze the defense documents of Ernst Lautz, who had a lot to answer for as the chief prosecutor of the notorious People's Court. He answered at great length. In April I worked through 17 files, 287 documents, and approximately 900 pages. The document count set a monthly record but the page count was below average as Lautz's attorney submitted many 1 or 2 page exhibits and the economies of …

During March I finished the Cuhorst files and covered 2 more defendants, Joel and Klemm, so 6 of the 14 have been completed. The work covered 33 files, 286 documents and ca. 1160 pages. For those calculating the numbers, in the defense files the number of documents has gone up while the number of pages has not, as many of them are very short, often 1 or 2 pages. The bureaucratic defense: After Cuhorst's colorful …

The task for the month was to begin the analysis of the defendants' trial documents, beginning with Altstoetter. I worked through 3.5 defense cases, including 3 small ones and half of one of the biggest (Cuhorst), covering 20 files, 242 documents, and 1076 pages. Transcript work: Finding where each defendant presented his case is difficult, as they did not go in any apparent order. Flipping through the volumes is time-consuming, but most of the defendants …

Like the mail, project news is subject to storm delays. My task for January was to finish analysis of the Case 3 prosecution material, and I did that, working through 11 files, 144 documents, and 1112 pages. The material covered a wide range of subjects. The Night and Fog program had the most material. In this operation, western European Resistance members were "disappeared" into Germany, prosecuted there, and imprisoned, with no word given to the …

The December operation was to work through 12 prosecution document books, containing 140 documents and approximately 990 pages of material. The transcript required more attention (and much more time) as the prosecution case began to wind down, with documents being entered almost randomly. I needed to work far ahead in the transcript to find where the evidence came in-and whether it was accepted as exhibits. Beyond that key fact, the transcript-document correlation provides other important …

The task for November was 12 files of prosecution evidence (document books 2 - 3L), holding 164 items and approximately 1410 pages. The theme of the material is the increasing ferocity of the courts as the war progressed, with expanding jurisdiction of the People's Courts and Special Courts and growing demands for detah sentences to terrorize opponents of the regime. At the end of the war even this was considered inadequate, as political cases were …

NMT 3, The Justice Case When I began the trial analysis work at the beginning of October, all of the key materials were already in place-the Case 3 trial documents boxes, the trial transcript, and the "Green Set" of NMT trial reports-so I was able to start quickly, re-ordering some of the material, assembling basic information about Case 3 (the defendants, prosecutors, judges, main issues, etc.). I was able to begin document analysis after only …