Index/Organizations/International Military Tribunal

International Military Tribunal

Military court for war criminals after the Second World War

Fact-Checks

15 results
Nov 21, 2025
Most Viewed

What precedent did the Nuremberg Trials set for U.S. military obedience and illegal orders?

The Nuremberg Trials established that "just following orders" — the superior‑orders defense — cannot serve as an absolute shield against prosecution for war crimes: the London Charter and the IMT judg...

Nov 15, 2025
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What did the 1945 Nuremberg and subsequent trials present as physical evidence for gas chambers at Auschwitz-Birkenau?

The postwar trials in 1945–46 relied on a combination of eyewitness testimony (survivors, perpetrators), documentary evidence, film and photographs, and physical site inspection reports to establish t...

Jan 13, 2026
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What is the ‘Hostage Edict’ and which primary documents record Keitel’s orders on reprisals in occupied Europe?

The “Hostage Edict” refers broadly to the system of orders and regulations issued by Nazi military leadership in 1941–42 that institutionalized the taking and summary execution of civilian hostages an...

Dec 15, 2025

What archival records contribute to the 6 million Holocaust death estimate?

Archival records supporting the commonly cited figure of about six million Jewish deaths in the Holocaust come from multiple, independent documentary streams: captured Nazi paperwork (including Wannse...

Jan 14, 2026

did the holocaust really happen

Yes—the Holocaust occurred: a state-sponsored, systematic campaign by Nazi Germany that resulted in the murder of about six million Jews and millions of other victims, and it is documented by an extra...

Jan 14, 2026

How was the Lidice massacre used in Allied propaganda and at the Nuremberg Trials?

The annihilation of Lidice on 10 June 1942 was seized by the Allies as a vivid, almost indisputable exemplar of Nazi brutality and used repeatedly in wartime publicity and in postwar prosecutions; Naz...

Dec 20, 2025

What are the most significant documents presented at the Nuremberg Trials proving the Holocaust?

The most significant documents at the Nuremberg Trials proving the Holocaust were the voluminous contemporaneous German records—orders, memos, transport lists, camp reports and statistical summaries—p...

Dec 16, 2025

Impact of Nuremberg trials on Holocaust historical record

The Nuremberg trials transformed the Holocaust from fragmented wartime reports into a large body of public evidence—1,300 witnesses, more than 30,000 documents and 132,855 pages of transcripts—making ...

Nov 13, 2025

What were the main sources used to calculate the 6 million Jewish victims of the Holocaust?

The estimate of roughly of the Holocaust rests on a convergence of complementary evidence: prewar and postwar demographic studies, surviving Nazi documentation (deportation lists, camp registers, Eins...

Dec 31, 2025

Was the Holocaust real?

The Holocaust—the systematic, state-sponsored murder of approximately six million Jews by Nazi Germany and its collaborators between 1941 and 1945—is a historical fact established by an overwhelming b...

Nov 25, 2025

How do Nuremberg precedents compare to modern international law on command responsibility?

The Nuremberg proceedings established individual criminal responsibility and rejected blanket superior‑orders defenses—most famously through the Nuremberg Principles and Article 8 of the IMT Charter—c...

Nov 25, 2025

How do international laws and the Nuremberg Principles influence unlawful-order defenses in military cases?

The Nuremberg Charter and the later Nuremberg Principles established individual criminal responsibility for international crimes and rejected a categorical “just following orders” shield — Nuremberg P...

Nov 21, 2025

How do revised estimates reconcile differences between Nazi documentation, local records, and survivor testimony?

Revised historical estimates reconcile differences between Nazi paperwork, local records, and survivor testimony by triangulating the Germans’ own documents with thousands of survivor interviews and n...

Nov 21, 2025

Which landmark cases involved refusal of unlawful orders and their verdicts (e.g., My Lai, Nuremberg, Hamdan)?

Three well-known episodes illustrate the legal and moral debate over “refusal of unlawful orders”: the Nuremberg Trials rejected the superior‑orders defense and produced verdicts punishing many top Na...

Nov 17, 2025

What role did the Nuremberg Trials play in documenting the Holocaust?

The Nuremberg Trials converted vast amounts of captured Nazi material and survivor testimony into an official, public record that helped define the Holocaust for wider (especially non‑Jewish) audience...