| Original caption: “Nuremberg Trials. Defendants in their dock: Goering, Heß, von Ribbentrop, and Keitel in the front row.” This photo was probably taken on August 31, 1946, the 2 100th and 16th day of the International Military Tribunal (IMT) in Nuremberg, the day the personal oral statements of the accused were entered into the record. The closing arguments of both the Defense and the Prosecution were regarded as essential ingredients of the Trial. The IMT Charter stipulated that after the Tribunal had heard the evidence from both the Prosecution and the Defense, each would address the Tribunal. These provisions were interpreted to mean that counsel for each of the individual defendants and each of the accused organizations was entitled to address the Tribunal. The Defense regarded the closing statements as especially significant since there was no provision for opening remarks by the defense. The Tribunal anticipated that the final arguments could be excessively long and violate the requirement of the Charter that there be “an expeditious hearing on the issues raised by the charges.” In mid-July 1946, the Tribunal announced that the Defense closings for the individual defendants should take no more than 14 days of court hearings and that Defense Counsel, by agreement among themselves, should apportion this time. As things turned out, the average length of a Defense closing took over 4 hours. Altogether, the summations for the 22 individual defendants required almost 16 days of court time spread out over more than 3 calendar weeks. Several years after the trial, Ministerialdirektor des Reichsministerium für Volksaufklärung und Propaganda (“Ministerial Director of the Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda”), Hans Fritsche (April 21, 1900 – September 27, 1953) wrote that “It was soon apparent that the limitation was a blessing in disguise. Among other things, it entailed a certain division of labor among the lawyers who shared out among themselves the responsibility for dealing with various points of general principle and thereby avoided much repetition, as well as the cutting out of many long-winded references to documentary evidence which was submitted directly to the court with a covering note.” In the front row, from left to right: Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering (January 12, 1893 – October 15, 1946), Oberbefehlshaber der Luftwaffe (“Commander-in-Chief of the Air Force”), protested vigorously against the time limitation at the next intermission. “That’s all right, that’s good! Then people will see that this trial is a political farce and has no meaning.” Goering had been on the witness stand on 9 different court days in mid-March 1946. Defense attorney Doctor Otto Stahmer (October 5, 1879 – August 13, 1968) noted that Goering had “expressed his opinion in detail about political and military developments and exhaustively described the motives for his actions, and the origin and course of events. I am thankful to the High Tribunal for permitting the accused to portray matters to the total extent to which he saw, felt, and experienced them, for only such direct personal portrayal can afford good insight into the attitude of the accused, thus making it possible to obtain a reliable opinion of his personality.” This kind of appreciation by the Defense Counsel for the Tribunal’s practice is, of course, not mentioned by the historical revisionists who malign the Trial. In Stahmer’s argument, as in nearly every defense summation, the conspiracy concept came under severe attack. He said the notion was just not applicable in a totalitarian state like Hitler’s Germany. He repeated defense claims concerning secrecy and added that Hitler’s most intimate assistants were time and again taken by surprise. Further, he said that among the defendants, “all homogeneity as to the outlook, background, education, social position and function is lacking, and some of the defendants only met in the dock.” In his closing statement, Goering said, “I did not want a war, nor did I bring it about. I did everything to prevent it through negotiations. After it had broken out, I did everything to assure victory. Since the three greatest powers on earth, together with many other nations, were fighting against us, we finally succumbed to their tremendous superiority. I stand up for the things that I have done, but I deny most emphatically that my actions were dictated by the desire to subjugate foreign peoples by wars, to murder them, to rob them, to enslave them, to commit atrocities, or crimes. The only motive that guided me was my ardent love for my people, their happiness, their freedom, and their lives. And for this I call on the Almighty and my German people to witness.” The attorney for Reichsminister Rudolf Heß (April 26, 1894 – August 17, 1987), Stellvertreter des Führers (“Deputy Leader”) was Doctor Alfred Seidl. He did not submit his closing argument for translation, earning a rebuke from the Tribunal, but they allowed him to continue. He began his closing argument by referring to the German Army laying down its arms in 1918, “in confidence of the assurance repeatedly given by President Wilson” concerning the 14 points. President Lawrence promptly intervened and stated that the Tribunal had already ruled “that the question of the fourteen points and the question of the justice of the Treaty of Versailles is irrelevant. They do not propose to listen to it. You have been told that before…We do not propose to listen to your contention that the Versailles Treaty is not a legal document.” Seidl was ordered to review and resubmit his closing. Thus, he was the last closing argument for the defense on July 25, 1946. Seidl said that Heß assumed responsibility for all the laws and decrees which he signed as Deputy to the Führer. In his closing statement, Heß railed against not speaking during the trial. He spoke for 20 minutes, referencing the promised good treatment by the United Kingdom government when he landed in Scotland in May 1941. He said, “In the years 1936 to 1938, political trials were taking place in 1 of these countries. These were characterized by the fact that the defendants astonishingly accused themselves. For example, they cited numerous crimes that they had allegedly committed. At the end, when death sentences were passed upon them, they clapped in frenzied approval to the astonishment of the world. But some foreign press correspondents reported that 1 had the impression that these defendants, through some means hitherto unknown, had been put into an abnormal state of mind, as a result of which they acted the way they did. These incidents came to mind due to a particular occurrence in England. I couldn’t obtain the reports of the trials at that time, any more than I can here. However, the corresponding years of the Völkische Beobachter were available to me there. While reviewing these numbers, I came across the following passage from March 8, 1938. A report from Paris, dated 7 March 1938, reads as follows: ‘The big Paris newspaper Le Jour made revelations about the means which were apparently used in these trials. These are rather mysterious means,’ I quote literally what the Völkische Beobachter reprinted from Le Jour: ‘These means make it possible for the selected victims to be made to act and speak according to the orders given them.’ I emphasize and point out that this report in Le Jour not only says: “to make them speak according to orders given them” but also to “make them act according to orders given them “. The latter point is of tremendous importance in connection with the actions, the hitherto inexplicable actions of the personnel in the German concentration camps, including the scientists and physicians who made these frightful and atrocious experiments on the prisoners, actions which normal human beings, especially physicians and scientists, could not possibly carry out. But this is also of equally great significance in connection with the actions of the persons who undoubtedly gave the orders and directions for the atrocities in the concentration camps and who gave the orders for shooting prisoners of war, lynchings, and other such things, up to the Führer himself.” Reichsminister des Auswärtigen (“Foreign Minister”) Joachim von Ribbentrop (April 30, 1893 – October 16, 1946) was represented by Doctor Martin Horn (July 5, 1911 – 1960). He was interrupted by the Tribunal because they felt he was repeating arguments that the defense had already made. Horn strenuously objected, but his statement was truncated. In his own closing statement, von Ribbentrop said, “1 can regard the theory of the conspiracy as 1 will, but from the point of view of the critical observer, it is only a make-shift solution. Anybody who has held a decisive position in the 3rd Reich knows that it simply represents a historical falsehood, and the author of the Charter of this Tribunal has only proved with his invention from what background he derived his thinking. The signatory powers of this Charter had formed a conspiracy to suppress the primary needs of a highly developed, capable, and courageous nation. When I look back upon my actions and my desires, then I can conclude only this: The only thing of which I consider myself guilty before my people – not before this Tribunal – is that my aspirations in foreign policy remained without success. Generalfeldmarchall Wilhelm Keitel (September 22, 1882 – October 16, 1946), Chef des Oberkommandos der Wehrmacht (“Chief of the High Command of the Armed Forces”), was represented by Doctor Otto Nelte (February 16, 1887 – January 6, 1957). In his closing statement, Nelte said, “The defendant has declared that he admits the objective, that is, the factual contents of the general Indictment to have been proved (that is to say, not every individual point), taking into consideration the law of procedure governing this Trial. It would therefore be senseless, despite the possibility of refuting various documents or individual facts, to attempt to shake the Indictment as a whole. Therefore, I shall confine myself mainly to the questions concerning the subjective facts and the conspiracy, and I will treat only these individual points which require treatment because of their special importance concerning the personal participation of Defendant Keitel. The disproportion between the import of past events and the defendant’s fate as an individual is so great that the Defendant Keitel, even if not impelled by conscience, must have known after reflection that such a course on my part would lay him open to the suspicion that he was fighting here for his life. But the defendant has already made it quite clear in his argument that he is not fighting to save his head, but fighting to save face.” Keitel said in his closing remarks, “I believed, but I erred, and I was not in a position to prevent what ought to have been prevented. That is my guilt. It is tragic to realize that the best I had to offer as a soldier — obedience and loyalty — was exploited for purposes that could not be recognized at the time. I did not see that there was a limit set even for a soldier’s performance of his duty. That is my fate. From the explicit recognition of the causes, the pernicious methods, and the terrible consequences of this war, may there arise the hope for a new future for the German people in the community of nations. In the 2nd row, from left to right: Flottenrichter Otto Kranzbühler (July 8, 1907 – August 9, 2004), counsel for Großadmiral Karl Dönitz (September 16, 1891 – December 24, 1980), Oberbefehlshaber der Kriegsmarine (“Commander-in-Chief of the Navy”) 1943-1945, Leitenden Reichsminister (“Chief Reich Minister”) May 1945, appeared at the IMT in his full Kriegsmarine uniform, indicating that if the head of the Navy were on trial, then it would be the Navy that would defend him. In his closing statement, he said, “to hundreds of thousands of German seamen who believed they were serving a good cause, and who do not deserve to be branded by history as pirates and murderers. It is for these men, the living as well as the dead, that I feel bound by a moral obligation to reject the accusations raised against German naval warfare.” Dönitz said in his remarks, “On the strength of this experience, I considered it also right about political leadership, particularly in the case of a nation in a hopeless position in which the German people found itself in 1932. The great successes of the new government, along with a feeling of happiness that the entire nation had never known before, seemed to prove it right. But if, despite all the idealism, all the decency, and all the devotion of the great majority of the German people, no other result has been achieved through the Führer principle, in the last analysis, then the misfortune of this people, then this principle as such must be wrong, wrong because apparently human nature is not in a position to use the power of this principle for good, without falling victim to the temptations of this power. Thirdly, my life was devoted to my profession and, therefore, to serving the German people. As the last Commander-in-Chief of the German Navy and as the last Head of State, I bear the responsibility towards the German people for everything which I have done and left undone.” Doctor Walter Siemers (July 22, 1902 – March 2, 1990) was the counsel for Großadmiral Erich Raeder (April 24, 1876 – November 6, 1960), Oberbefehlshaber der Kriegsmarine 1933-1943. A leading feature of Siemers’ argument was that Raeder was not a National Socialist, but a technician used by Hitler. “Hitler, therefore, despite his desire to have only National Socialists around him, took on as key people in particular fields specialists who were not National Socialists, such as, for instance, Neurath for politics, and Schacht for economics; and for military tasks, Fritsch for the Army and Raeder for the Navy…Hitler used these non-National Socialists only as technicians in a well-defined field, and only as long as it seemed necessary to him; therefore, he agreed to the departure of these men, who were essentially not in sympathy with him, as soon as the differences between them seemed unbridgeable, which was bound to happen sooner or later with each of them…” Raeder said in his remarks, “I have done my duty as a soldier because it was my conviction that this was the best way for me to serve the German people and fatherland, for which I have lived and for which I am prepared to die at any moment. If I have incurred guilt in any way, then this was chiefly in the sense that, despite my purely military position, I should perhaps have been not only a soldier, but also up to a certain point a politician, which, however, was in contradiction to my entire career and the tradition of the German Armed Forces. But then this would have been a guilt, a moral guilt, towards the German people, and could never at any time brand me as a war criminal. It would not have been guilt before a human criminal court, but rather guilt before God.” Early in his statement, Doctor Fritz Sauter (June 9, 1908 – May 24, 1983) referred to Reichsjugendführer (“Reich Youth Leader”) Baldur von Schirach’s (May 9, 1907 – August 8, 1974) testimony in which he had condemned Hitler and termed Auschwitz to be “the most devilish mass murder known to history.” Sauter stated that Schirach, in his testimony, had “described without reservation the crimes committed by Hitler as a shameful episode in German history, as a crime which fills every German with shame; that statement in which he openly states that Auschwitz must signify the end of any and every racial and antiSemitic policy. That statement here in this courtroom came from the bottom of the heart of the Defendant Schirach; it was the result of the terrible disclosures which this Trial brought to him also, and Schirach made this statement here openly before the public to bring back German youth from a wrong path to the road of justice and tolerance.” In his own statement, von Schirach said, “My personal fate is of secondary importance, but youth is the hope of our nation. And if I may express a wish in this last moment, then it is this: “Will you, as judges, help to remove the distorted picture of German youth which the world still has today in many places and which cannot stand up under historical investigation? Tell the world in your judgment that the libelous writings of Gregor Ziemer used by the Prosecution contain nothing but the evil slanders of a man who has extended his hatred against everything German to German youth also. Will you, as judges, also help so that the youth organizations of your nations will once more resume their co-operation with the German youth at the point where, through no fault of the younger generation, it was interrupted in 1939?” At the Nuremberg Trials, an affidavit by Gregor A. Ziemer (May 24, 1899 – August 1982), an excerpt of 1 of his books, dealing with Nazi society in general and the education of youth in particular, was presented by the prosecutors. According to von Schirach, this writing contained untruth and had “more importance as propaganda than it tends to be objective” and was “clearly inflammatory.” Ziemer had fled Germany in 1939. Doctor Robert Servatius (October 31, 1894 – August 7, 1983) declared that the broad authority of Reichsstatthalter Thuringia (“Reich Governor of Thuringia”) Fritz Sauckel (October 27, 1894 – October 16, 1946), Generalbevollmächtigter für den Arbeitseinsatz (“General Representative for Labor Deployment”), as Plenipotentiary General for the Utilization of Labor was in fact greatly limited in practice both by superior authorities in the Reich and in the occupied countries. Sauckel engaged in a tough fight against Himmler to reduce the confinement placed upon forced laborers and prisoners of war. Sauckel’s letter of November 1942 to the provincial labor offices concerning the evacuation of Jewish workers to Poland shows that “Jewish workers were withdrawn from his department under the very pretext of evacuation.” The enlistment of labor by civil and military departments was, to a certain extent, a ‘pirate’ mobilization and kept secret from Sauckel. Sauckel defended his labor policies in his closing statement. “My own children worked among foreign workers, under the same working conditions. Could I, or German workers and the German people, consider that as slavery? The necessity for this was our emergency. The German people and the German workers would never have tolerated conditions comparable to slavery around them. My defense counsel has presented the complete truth about my case with extreme objectivity. I thank him for this from the bottom of my heart. For his own part, he was strict and correct in investigating my case. My intentions and conscience are clean. The shortcomings and the necessities of the war, the frightful conditions it produced, have touched my heart deeply. I myself am prepared to meet any fate which Providence has in store for me, just like my son, who was killed in the war. The Gauleiter whom I employed as plenipotentiary for the allocation of labor had the sole task of ensuring the proper treatment and care of both German and foreign workers.” Goering, Sauckel, Keitel, and Ribbentrop were sentenced to death; Dönitz received a 10-year imprisonment; Von Schirach received 20 years’ imprisonment; Heß and Raeder received life imprisonment. | |
| Image Filename | wwii0964.jpg |
| Image Size | 733.32 KB |
| Image Dimensions | 2912 x 2220 |
| Photographer | |
| Photographer Title | Office of the United States Chief of Counsel for the Prosecution of Axis Criminality |
| Caption Author | Written or Adapted by Jason McDonald |
| Date Photographed | August 31, 1946 |
| Location | Justizpalast |
| City | Nuremberg |
| State or Province | Bavaria |
| Country | Germany |
| Archive | National Archives and Records Administration |
| Record Number | NWDNS-238-NT-612 |
| Status | Caption ©2026 MFA Productions LLC Please Do Not Duplicate or Distribute Without Permission; Image in the Public Domain |
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