Nuremberg - The RuSHA
Trial
On September 30, 1947, the U.S. Military Government
for Germany reconstituted the Military Tribunal to try
officials of RuSHA
(
Rasse-
und
Siedlungshauptamt),
the "Main Race and Resettlement Office," a central
organization in the implementation of racial programs of
the Third Reich, and other organizations with parallel
missions, such as the Lebensborn Society and the Main
Office for Repatriation of Racial Germans.
From left to right, the judges
were Daniel T. O'Connell from Massachusetts, Lee B.
Wyatt (presiding judge) from Georgia and Johnson T.
Crawford from Oklahoma. The Chief Counsel for the
Prosecution was Telford Taylor. The trial ran from
October 20, 1947 to February 17, 1948.
The fourteen defendants were charged with crimes against
humanity, war crimes and membership in criminal
organizations, based on their responsibility for many
aspects of the Nazi racial program, including the
kidnapping of "racially valuable" children for
Aryanization, the forcible evacuation of foreign nationals
from their homes in favor of Germans or Ethnic Germans, and
the persecution and extermination of Jews throughout
Germany and German-occupied Europe.
The tribunal rendered its
judgment on March 10. It found eight defendants guilty
on all counts, five guilty only of membership in a
criminal organization, and one not guilty. The
sentences were announced the same day. One defendant
was sentenced to life in prison, seven to terms of
between 10 and 25 years, five to time already served,
and one was acquitted.
Photographs courtesy of
the US Holocaust Memorial Museum
