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
