On Tuesday, October 1, 1946, those traveling the road to justice - defendants, prosecutors, and witnesses alike - reached their final destination. After 218 days, 22 men* would learn of the fate that awaited them. Following remarks by defendants on August 31, 1946, the International Military Tribunal (IMT) adjourned to consider its judgment in a trial that began on November 20, 1945.On Tuesday, October 1, 1946, those traveling the road to justice, defendants, prosecutors, and witnesses alike, reached their final destination. After 218 days, 22 men* would learn of the fate that awaited them. Following remarks by defendants on August 31, 1946, the International Military Tribunal (IMT) adjourned to consider its judgment.

In Courtroom 600 in the Nuremberg Palace of Justice, the most historic and perhaps significant trial of the twentieth century began. As Justice Jackson, Chief Prosecutor for the United States spoke, 21 men, leading figures and officers in the Nazi regime accused of atrocities that the world had never experienced, sat in the prisoners’ dock, stone-faced, listening through headphones that relayed the words into their own tongue. For the next 11 months, prosecutors would methodically reveal to the court (and the world) the heinous crimes that these men perpetrated and permitted in the years leading up to and during World War II.

With an indictment issued on October 18, 1945, against 24 war criminals and seven organizations, what was the most significant trial in world history began. Nuremberg, a Bavarian city that was once “one of Europe’s most important trading hubs,” became the hub of a diabolical menace that threatened the very existence of humanity. In the years prior to World War II, Nuremberg was the marshaling place for Nazi propaganda, the site of annual rallies and the means by which Nazi ideals could be spread. Thus, in a symbolic gesture, the Allies chose the location that had once been the rallying place for Nazi propaganda to be the place that marked the “death of Nazi Germany.”