Many senior Nazi war criminals were never sentenced for their roles during the Holocaust. Some, like Adolf Hitler and Heinrich Himmler committed suicide as the war came to an end. Many escaped Germany and were never found. However, international efforts to bring those responsible for the Holocaust to justice began after the war and have continued into recent years.
The Nuremberg Trials
After the war, judges from the Allied powers convened to bring the most senior Nazis to trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity. These took place in Nuremberg, Germany between 1945 and 1946. 22 top Nazis were bought before the court, with 12 being sentenced to death. The main focus of the trials was on the role played by senior Nazis in starting World War Two, and not specifically their involvement in the Holocaust.
The Nuremberg Trials were one of the most important innovations in the history of international law, and set a precedent which led to future international tribunals. Over 50 years later, in 2002, the International Criminal Court (ICC) was established as a permanent tribunal to prosecute individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression. 123 States are members of the ICC.
Some further trials of lesser war criminals were held, but the cooperation between the Allied powers seen at the main Nuremberg Trials had quickly broken down. After Germany’s surrender, the Allies divided Germany into four military zones of occupation – for France, Britain, the US and the Soviet Union. A process of ‘denazification’ began, removing Nazi Party members from positions of power, disbanding organisations associated with Nazism, and removing swastikas and other outward symbols of the regime. However this process was often rushed as the Americans, British and French sought to build a democratic state in West Germany, and the USSR sought to build a communist state in East Germany. Therefore, many thousands of people who were involved in or benefitted from the Holocaust never had to atone for their actions.
The search for justice
In the years following the Holocaust, some people like survivor Simon Wiesenthal made it their mission to track down Nazis across the world, and present evidence to governments to prosecute them.
In 1959 the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad received intelligence about the whereabouts of Adolf Eichmann, who had a major role in the ‘Final Solution’, organising the transportation of Jews to the extermination camps.
Eichmann was captured by Israeli agents in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in May 1960. He was taken to Israel where he was tried for 15 criminal counts, including ‘crimes against the Jewish people’. The trial began in Jerusalem in April 1961 and included testimonies from survivors, many of which had not been heard publicly before. Eichmann testified from within a bulletproof glass booth. He was found guilty on all counts. After an unsuccessful appeal, he was hanged on 31 May 1962.
The Eichmann trial attracted huge publicity around the world, and helped raise awareness of the enormity of the crimes committed during the Holocaust.
In 1988 an investigation revealed that Nazi war criminals were living in the UK. A law was passed in 1991 which allowed people to be tried for Nazi war crimes under UK law, but only one successful prosecution was carried out.
In recent years, courts have continued to prosecute those who played a role in perpetrating the Holocaust. For example in July 2015, a German court convicted Oskar Groening, a 94-year-old former guard at the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz, of being an accessory to the murder of at least 300,000 Jews. You can read more about this here.