In Nuremberg, Germany, twenty-four high-ranking Nazis face trial for the atrocities committed during World War II.
An international tribunal consisting of representatives from the United States, the Soviet Union, France, and Great Britain conducted the Nuremberg Trials. This marked the first trial of its kind in history, where the defendants encountered charges that ranged from crimes against peace to war crimes, and crimes against humanity.
The proceedings, presided over by Lord Justice Geoffrey Lawrence, the British member, lasted for 10 months and included 216 court sessions.
On October 1, 1946, twelve key figures in Nazi policy received death sentences. Seven others were given prison terms that varied from 
10 years to life, while three defendants were acquitted.
Of the initial 24 defendants, one, Robert Ley, took his own life while incarcerated, and another, Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach, was found mentally and physically incapable of standing trial. Among those sentenced to death by hanging were Joachim von Ribbentrop, the Nazi minister of foreign affairs; Hermann Goering, the head of the Gestapo and the Luftwaffe; Alfred Jodl, chief of the German armed forces staff; and Wilhelm Frick, the minister of the interior.
On October 16, ten architects of Nazi policy were executed by hanging. Hermann Goering, labeled at sentencing as the “leading war aggressor and creator of the oppressive program against the Jews,” ended his life with poison the night before his execution was to take place.
Nazi Party leader Martin Bormann was sentenced to death in absentia (although it is now believed he died in May 1945). Trials for lesser German and Axis war criminals continued in Germany through the 1950s, leading to the conviction of 5,025 additional defendants and the execution of 806 individuals.
