A precedent for trying those accused of war crimes had been set at the end of Wo

rld War I in the Leipzig War Crimes Trials held in May to July 1921 before the R
eichsgericht (German Supreme Court) in Leipzig, although these had been on a ver
y limited scale and largely regarded as ineffectual. At the beginning of 1940, t
he Polish government-in-exile asked the British and French governments to condem
n the German invasion of their country. The British initially declined to do so;
however, in April 1940, a joint British-French-Polish declaration was issued. R
elatively bland because of Anglo-French reservations, it proclaimed the trio's "
desire to make a formal and public protest to the conscience of the world agains
t the action of the German government whom they must hold responsible for these
crimes which cannot remain unpunished."[5]
Three-and-a-half years later, the stated intention to punish the Germans was muc
h more trenchant. On 1 November 1943, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and t
he United States published their "Declaration on German Atrocities in Occupied E
urope", which gave a "full warning" that, when the Nazis were defeated, the Alli
es would "pursue them to the uttermost ends of the earth ... in order that justi
ce may be done. ... The above declaration is without prejudice to the case of th
e major war criminals whose offences have no particular geographical location an
d who will be punished by a joint decision of the Government of the Allies."[6]
This Allied intention to dispense justice was reiterated at the Yalta Conference
and at Berlin in 1945.[7]
British War Cabinet documents, released on 2 January 2006, showed that as early
as December 1944, the Cabinet had discussed their policy for the punishment of t
he leading Nazis if captured. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill had then
advocated a policy of summary execution in some circumstances, with the use of a
n Act of Attainder to circumvent legal obstacles, being dissuaded from this only
by talks with US and Soviet leaders later in the war.[8]
Nuremberg Trials. Defendants in the dock. The main target of the prosecution was
Hermann Gring (at the left edge on the first row of benches), considered to be t
he most important surviving official in the Third Reich after Hitler's death.
In late 1943, during the Tripartite Dinner Meeting at the Tehran Conference, the
Soviet leader, Joseph Stalin, proposed executing 50,000 100,000 German staff offi
cers. US President Franklin D. Roosevelt joked that perhaps 49,000 would do. Chu
rchill, believing them to be serious, denounced the idea of "the cold blooded ex
ecution of soldiers who fought for their country" and that he'd rather be "taken
out in the courtyard and shot" himself than partake in any such action.[9] Howe
ver, he also stated that war criminals must pay for their crimes and that in acc
ordance with the Moscow Document which he himself had written, they should be tr
ied at the places where the crimes were committed. Churchill was vigorously oppo
sed to executions "for political purposes."[10][11] According to the minutes of
a Roosevelt-Stalin meeting at Yalta, on 4 February 1945, at the Livadia Palace,
President Roosevelt "said that he had been very much struck by the extent of Ger
man destruction in the Crimea and therefore he was more bloodthirsty in regard t
o the Germans than he had been a year ago, and he hoped that Marshal Stalin woul
d again propose a toast to the execution of 50,000 officers of the German Army."
[12]
US Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau, Jr. suggested a plan for the tota
l denazification of Germany;[13] this was known as the Morgenthau Plan. The plan
advocated the forced de-industrialisation of Germany and the summary execution
of so-called "arch-criminals", i.e. the major war criminals.[14] Roosevelt initi
ally supported this plan, and managed to convince Churchill to support it in a l
ess drastic form. Later, details were leaked to the public, generating widesprea
d protest. [clarification needed] Roosevelt, aware of strong public disapproval,
abandoned the plan, but did not adopt an alternative position on the matter. Th
e demise of the Morgenthau Plan created the need for an alternative method of de
aling with the Nazi leadership. The plan for the "Trial of European War Criminal
s" was drafted by Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson and the War Department. Foll
owing Roosevelt's death in April 1945, the new president, Harry S. Truman, gave
strong approval for a judicial process. After a series of negotiations between B

ritain, the US, Soviet Union and France, details of the trial were worked out. T
he trials were to commence on 20 November 1945, in the Bavarian city of Nurember