## Facts

- After World War II, the United Kingdom, United States, France, and the Soviet Union entered the London Agreement (Aug. 8, 1945) and issued the IMT Charter establishing the International Military Tribunal (IMT) at Nuremberg.
- The Charter authorized prosecution of individuals for crimes against peace, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and participation in a common plan or conspiracy connected to those crimes.
- In October 1945, the Chief Prosecutors filed a consolidated indictment against senior Nazi leaders, including Hermann Göring and Joachim von Ribbentrop, charging them with crimes against peace and related offenses.
- The indictment alleged that Göring was commander-in-chief of the Luftwaffe and second in prominence in the Nazi regime after Adolf Hitler.
- The indictment further alleged that Göring helped bring the Nazis to power, developed the Gestapo, created the first concentration camps, and participated in planning and executing German attacks during the war.
- The indictment alleged that von Ribbentrop served as Hitler’s foreign-policy adviser and later as foreign minister, and that he took part in efforts to limit British and French intervention while Germany pursued expansion by force.
- The indictment alleged that von Ribbentrop participated in efforts to incorporate Austria into the German Reich through threats and occupation and in plans to attack Czechoslovakia and other European states.
- The indictment alleged that von Ribbentrop knew in advance of planned attacks and used diplomatic activity to justify Germany’s aggressive actions; it also alleged his involvement in measures connected to killing Jewish people in occupied territories.
- The published pages cited (171–72, 216–24, 279–80, 285–88) appear in Volume 1 (“Official Documents”) of the 1947 IMT series and reproduce portions of the Charter-based charging document, including allegations of aggressive war, atrocities against civilians, and requests for “criminal organization” declarations.
- Both Göring and von Ribbentrop testified at trial; von Ribbentrop maintained that Hitler made the decisions and that he did not challenge Hitler’s reasons for aggression.

## Issues

1. Whether, under the IMT Charter as invoked in the indictment, individuals could be charged for crimes against peace, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and participation in a common plan or conspiracy.
2. Whether the indictment’s allegations described a coordinated program of planning, preparing, initiating, and waging wars of aggression in violation of treaties, agreements, and assurances.
3. Whether the indictment adequately tied alleged crimes against humanity (including persecutions and other inhumane acts against civilians) to “any crime within the jurisdiction of the Tribunal,” as the Charter required.
4. Whether the indictment’s “common plan or conspiracy” theory could attribute responsibility to senior leaders whose conduct included planning, ordering, enabling, or facilitating the charged offenses.
5. Whether the Charter mechanism, as invoked by the indictment, permitted declarations that specified Nazi organizations were “criminal organizations,” and what that would mean for later proceedings against members.
6. Whether defenses based on official position or obedience to orders were excluded or limited by the Charter framework applied in the indictment.

## Decision

- The Prosecuting Powers filed and published (in the official IMT record) an indictment charging leading Nazi officials, including Göring and von Ribbentrop, with crimes against peace and related offenses as defined by the IMT Charter.
- The indictment set out a “common plan or conspiracy” theory alleging coordinated action by defendants, acting in concert, to plan, prepare, initiate, and wage wars of aggression and to commit other offenses within the Tribunal’s jurisdiction.
- The indictment presented a detailed chronology of German expansion and attacks and characterized the resulting conflicts as wars of aggression and wars in violation of international obligations.
- The indictment charged that atrocities against civilian populations—including murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, and persecutions on political, racial, or religious grounds—were committed in execution of, or in connection with, crimes within the Tribunal’s jurisdiction.
- The indictment asked the Tribunal to declare certain organizations criminal—identified in the charging materials as key instruments of the Nazi program—so that later proceedings could address individual member responsibility under the Charter’s organizational-criminality procedure.

## Legal Principles

- The IMT Charter (as used in the indictment) treated certain conduct as subject to individual criminal responsibility under international law, rather than as acts attributable only to a state.
- Crimes against peace (as charged) included planning, preparation, initiation, or waging of a war of aggression, or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements, or assurances, and participation in a common plan connected to those acts.
- War crimes (as charged under the Charter framework) consisted of serious violations of the laws or customs of war, including unlawful treatment of civilians and prisoners and related offenses during armed conflict.
- Crimes against humanity (as charged) included specified inhumane acts and persecutions against civilian populations and, under the Charter language used, were framed as punishable when committed in execution of, or in connection with, other crimes within the Tribunal’s jurisdiction.
- Liability for a “common plan or conspiracy” (as pleaded) provided a theory for attributing responsibility to senior leaders for coordinated conduct and collective execution of the charged program.
- The Charter-based procedure for “criminal organization” findings (as invoked) allowed the Tribunal to declare named groups criminal, with downstream effects for later prosecutions of individuals based on knowing, voluntary membership, subject to applicable rules in subsequent proceedings.
- The Charter framework contemplated limits on defenses based solely on official position or orders from superiors, treating such claims as insufficient to bar responsibility (with any effect, if at all, addressed in later adjudication).

## Conclusion

These officially published IMT excerpts are portions of the Charter-based indictment and related foundational materials, not the Tribunal’s final judgment, and they record the Prosecuting Powers’ theory that senior Nazi leaders (including Göring and von Ribbentrop) and specified organizations bore individual criminal responsibility for aggressive war, connected atrocities against civilians, and participation in a coordinated common plan.


Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg November 14, 1945-October 1, 1946, at 171-72, 216-24, 279-80, 285-88 (1947)