Question

1. What evidence was used at the Nuremberg trial and why?3. How did the Eichmann trial differ from the Nuremberg trials and what was the impact of the Eichmann trial?
4. Discuss the reasons for the public proceedings at Nuremberg. Why was it so important to have a public, legal trial with proper process?
5. During the trial, prosecutors had to present sensitive and horrifying materials, including photographs of victims and evidence of crimes against humanity. What are the advantages and disadvantages of presenting this type of material in a trial? Do you think you would have taken the same approach as the Nuremberg prosecutors? Why or why not?

Answer 1

I'll offer some basic thoughts on the Nuremberg Trials.  These were a series of 13 trials held in Nuremberg, Germany from 1945 to 1949.  The Trial of Major War Criminals was held before an international tribunal of the Allies (Britain, France, the USA and the USSR), between November, 1945, and October, 1946.  The subsequent Nuremberg proceedings (12 additional trials) were held before US military tribunals.

The Nazis' own trail of records concerning the Holocaust was used as evidence at the trials.  The Allies had captured millions of documents and records that the Germans had kept, as well as film and photographic evidence that the Nazis had made in documenting their "achievements."  It was gruesome to present this sort of evidence at the trial, but it was deemed necessary to do so to show the grotesque inhumanity of the war crimes committed.  It was also deemed necessary for this to be done publicly as a testimony to human rights and a defense of international law.

Answer 2

1. What evidence was used at the Nuremberg trial and why?

The evidence were things from the concentration camps such as cloths and there were liberation videos.

3. How did the Eichmann trial differ from the Nuremberg trials and what was the impact of the Eichmann trial?

The Eichmann trial was different than the Nuremberg Trial because it was broadcasted on television, so people had the full impact of the true scope of the Holocaust, a thing that did not happen in the Nuremberg Trial, that was closed to the public view. Also, the Eichmann Trial focused mostly on the testimony of the Holocaust survivors. About 100 survivors testified during the trial.

4. Discuss the reasons for the public proceedings at Nuremberg. Why was it so important to have a public, legal trial with proper process?

It was very important to have public proceedings and to have a legal trial with the proper process so the decision of the trial could not be questioned and those people that were persecuted could not be transformed into martyrs.

5. During the trial, prosecutors had to present sensitive and horrifying materials, including photographs of victims and evidence of crimes against humanity. What are the advantages and disadvantages of presenting this type of material in a trial? Do you think you would have taken the same approach as the Nuremberg prosecutors? Why or why not?

The advantage of presenting this kind of material in a trial is that the pieces of evidence may shock people and make them realize that those things happened to those people and that could not have happened. The disadvantage is that people can consider it sensationalism. I would have taken the same approach as those prosecutors, first because those pieces of evidence were the truth and the truth needs to seen by people so they do not commit the same mistakes again and those people who committed those crimes are taken accountable.