Nuremberg Trials: Why November 20, 1945 Still Shapes International Justice

Many of the rules that international courts use today, from the idea that a head of government can be held personally responsible to the rejection of "I was only following orders" as a full defence, trace back to one courtroom in Nuremberg. This explainer sets out what happened at the trial that opened on November 20, 1945, what the court decided and why its principles still come up in debates about global justice.

It is a history piece written a week before the anniversary. It describes past events only and does not predict any ceremony or decision.

The Trial at a Glance

How the Tribunal Was Created

After Germany's surrender in May 1945, the Allies had to decide what to do with the surviving leaders of the Nazi state. The answer was a court rather than summary punishment. On August 8, 1945, the four powers signed the London Agreement and the Charter of the International Military Tribunal, which defined the crimes and the procedure.

Each power appointed one judge and one alternate. The British judge Geoffrey Lawrence served as president. The other members were Francis Biddle for the United States, Iona Nikitchenko for the Soviet Union and Henri Donnedieu de Vabres for France. The chief prosecutors included Robert Jackson for the United States, Hartley Shawcross for the United Kingdom, Roman Rudenko for the Soviet Union and François de Menthon, later succeeded by Auguste Champetier de Ribes, for France.

The Four Charges

The indictment set out four counts:

1. Conspiracy: a common plan to commit the crimes below.
2. Crimes against peace: planning and waging wars of aggression.
3. War crimes: violations of the laws and customs of war.
4. Crimes against humanity: murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation and persecution of civilians.

Crimes against peace and crimes against humanity were new as charges in an international criminal court. Defence lawyers argued that this amounted to punishing acts that had not been clearly criminal when they were committed. That argument shaped later debates about the trial's legitimacy.

Who Was Tried

Twenty-four individuals and six organisations were indicted. Robert Ley took his own life in October 1945 before the trial began, and the industrialist Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach was found unfit to stand trial because of illness. Martin Bormann was tried in his absence. That left 22 individuals before the court.

Hermann Göring, Rudolf Hess, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Wilhelm Keitel and Albert Speer were among the best-known defendants. Adolf Hitler, Heinrich Himmler and Joseph Goebbels had died before the war ended and were never tried.

The tribunal heard 33 prosecution witnesses, 61 defence witnesses, 19 defendants who testified and 22 further witnesses about the organisations, and it received thousands of documents in evidence, according to the Harvard project.

The Verdicts

The court also declared three organisations criminal: the Leadership Corps of the Nazi Party, the Gestapo, and the SS including the SD. It did not make that finding for the Reich Cabinet, the SA or the General Staff and High Command.

The acquittals and the split decisions on organisations are worth noting. They show that the tribunal did not simply convict everyone the prosecution named, a point often raised in answer to the charge that it was only "victors' justice."

From One Trial to the Nuremberg Principles

On December 11, 1946, the UN General Assembly adopted resolution 95 (I), affirming the principles of international law recognised by the tribunal's charter and judgment. In 1950, the International Law Commission formulated seven "Nuremberg Principles." In plain terms, they hold that:

• Individuals can be punished for crimes under international law.
• Domestic law that permits an act is no defence.
• Holding office as head of state or minister gives no immunity.
• Superior orders do not remove responsibility where a moral choice was possible.
• Accused persons have a right to a fair trial.
• Crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity are crimes under international law.
• Complicity in those crimes is itself a crime.

According to the UN's legal library, these ideas appear in more developed form in the statutes of the tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda in the 1990s and in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. The Rome Statute differs on one point: it allows a limited superior-orders defence for war crimes.

The Indian Connection: Justice Pal at Tokyo

India had no judge at Nuremberg, but it did have one at the parallel International Military Tribunal for the Far East in Tokyo, which tried Japanese wartime leaders. Justice Radhabinod Pal, born in 1886 in Bengal, represented British India among the 11 judges.

Pal was the only judge who found every defendant not guilty on all charges. His long dissent argued that the court was applying new crimes retrospectively and that it ignored Western colonialism and the atomic bombings. His opinion remains widely studied and debated, and it has also been used by revisionists in Japan, which many historians criticise. For Indian readers, it is a reminder that the post-war tribunals faced searching questions from within the bench itself.

Courtroom 600 Today

The trial was held in Courtroom 600 of the Palace of Justice in Nuremberg. The city's museum service says the courtroom stopped being used for trials on March 1, 2020. It is now part of the Memorium Nuremberg Trials, a documentation centre on the building's top floor that covers the main trial, the subsequent Nuremberg trials of 1946 to 1949 and the development of international criminal law.

The museum warns that Courtroom 600 can sometimes close for events or technical reasons, and it publishes closures online. When we checked on November 13, 2026, no closures were listed for November. The museum is closed on Tuesdays; November 20, 2026 is a Friday.

How the Anniversary Has Been Marked

Round-number anniversaries draw the most attention. On November 20, 2020, the 75th anniversary, Germany's President Frank-Walter Steinmeier spoke at a ceremony in the Palace of Justice, which was held without a public audience because of the pandemic. He described the trials as foundational for international criminal justice. The 80th anniversary fell in November 2025.

We have not found an official event announced for the 81st anniversary on November 20, 2026. Readers planning a visit should check the Memorium's events page.

Frequently Asked Questions

When did the Nuremberg trials begin?

The main trial before the International Military Tribunal opened on November 20, 1945.

How many people were tried at Nuremberg?

Twenty-four were indicted and 22 were tried, one of them, Martin Bormann, in his absence.

What were the Nuremberg trial verdicts?

Nineteen defendants were convicted and three were acquitted. Twelve received death sentences, three life imprisonment and four fixed prison terms.

What are the Nuremberg Principles?

Seven principles formulated by the UN International Law Commission in 1950, including individual responsibility and no immunity for officials.

Did India take part?

Not at Nuremberg. India's Justice Radhabinod Pal sat on the separate Tokyo tribunal.

Conclusion

The trial that opened in Nuremberg on November 20, 1945 established that individuals, including the most senior officials, can answer in court for aggression, war crimes and crimes against humanity. Its legacy is still argued over, but its principles run through modern international law. For other events on the same date, see our November 20 date overview, and for the institution that grew out of the same post-war moment, read our United Nations Day explainer.