Liberalis in English

About the cases of Hans Fritzsche and Julius Streicher at the trial of Nazi criminals in Nuremberg.

The trial of the most important leaders of Hitler’s regime in Germany began on November 20th, 1945, in Nuremberg. On the bench of defendant’s at the Palace of Justice – one of the few buildings in the center of Nuremburg, which survived the English and American bombings during the war – served 21 individuals.

After the ten-month long proceedings, the International Military Tribunal rendered the verdict: twelve of the indicted (one of them by default) were sentenced to death by hanging, seven to jail – from ten years to life, three were acquitted. The death sentences were carried out on the night of October 16th, 1946 (Herman Göring escaped the hangman, as, shortly before the execution, he ingested potassium cyanide).

From among the tried and sentenced in Nuremberg high – ranking officers of the Nazi regime, most were accused of crimes such as involvement in the planning of war, the initiation and waging of a war of aggression, but, most of all, the dispensation of criminal orders, the murdering of prisoners of war and of the civilian population, mass deportations, the plunder of property, etc.

Two of the charged appeared before the tribunal not because of what they did, meaning, for example, the dispensation of criminal orders, but for what they said and wrote. They were Hans Fritzsche and Julius Streicher. This note is dedicated to their trials.
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