AH Challenge: Adolf Hitler Captured, Tried at Nuremberg, and Acquitted!

wormyguy

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Your very hard challenge, should you choose to accept it (and seriously, this challenge is Tom Cruise-worthy in more ways than one), is to make Adolf Hitler be captured by Allied forces at the end of World War II (either American, British or Soviet), tried in court (preferably at the Nuremberg trials), but found Not Guilty on all charges. POD must be after the July 20 Plot. This message will self-destruct in five seconds.
 
Stalin plays a sick game with Hitler with NKVD enforcers filming the proceedings. Hitler's "Acquittal" at this 'trial' is a giant lie used to deliberately destabilize Hitler's ACTUAL proceedings at Nuremburg, where he is badly confused by Stalin's confusing instructions...
 
No matter what the POD after July 20, no chance whatsoever for an acquittal. If captured by the Russians, he probably wouldn't even have a real trial, just be shot. And he could turn into Mother Teresa x 100 in late 1944, the Allies would still convict him at Nuremburg for all the things he did prior to July 20. It wouldn't matter if the prosecution screwed up far worse than in the OJ trial, there would be no getting off for Hitler, he would have to be hung no matter what, because of public opinion in Europe and the US, even if his execution meant ignoring some basic principles of trial law.
 
You could have a PoD where Nazi-Germany is losing, but not as much as in OTL. As a result of that, Stalin and Hitler make an agreement that says that Hitler won't be charged on anything and is able to live the rest of his live as a rich man in Uruguay or so if he surrenders and orders his forces to stop fighting.

Other than that I can't see any way how he could be acquited.
 
No matter what the POD after July 20, no chance whatsoever for an acquittal. If captured by the Russians, he probably wouldn't even have a real trial, just be shot. And he could turn into Mother Teresa x 100 in late 1944, the Allies would still convict him at Nuremburg for all the things he did prior to July 20. It wouldn't matter if the prosecution screwed up far worse than in the OJ trial, there would be no getting off for Hitler, he would have to be hung no matter what, because of public opinion in Europe and the US, even if his execution meant ignoring some basic principles of trial law.

he could be shot

or if you're into poetic justice, personally introduced to the auschwitz gas chambers
 
He survives the bombing at Rastenburg, but is seriously incapacitated.

Himmler ends up in charge. An alternate Potsdam agreement sees Nuremberg divided into separate Allied zones like Berlin--after the fall, the W.Allies capture the braindamaged and slobbering Fuehrer Adolf in a hospice near Luneberg Heath.

Before being tried and sentenced to death by the full Allied tribunal at Nuremberg, Hitler is first tried and aquitted by the Soviet-only tribunal in the Red sector of that city.

Why?

Because Stalin is a sick and twisted individual, he's decided to amend his 1936 constitution to 'outlaw'* the death penalty, and he sees great propaganda value in showing mercy to a near vegetative Hitler while still allowing the West to hang the defeated Nazi dictator.


*I think that splendid document might already have prohibited capital punishment. But hey.
 
1944 D-Day fails due to storms devasting the fleet. (Edit: Ooops, I just noticed PoD is too early)

The allies concentrate on a slow advance through Italy, and invasion of Norway, and an limited attack on the South of France. In April 1945, D-Day II successfully establishes itself in Pas-de-Calais.

The Soviets over-run all of Germany, Austria, Denmark, Netherlands, and cross the Rhine into France and Belgium.

The war ends in late May 1945, when the Soviets meet the western allies in Strasbourg.

All the major Nazi leaders are captured by the Soviets. They are "re-educated" to say what they are required to say, by the NKVD.

Tension between the Allies and the USSR is high, because the USSR refuses to withdraw to the previously agreed spheres of influence.

The Soviets hold a show trial of Nazi leaders in Nuremberg. Hitler is acquitted when he testifies that World War II was entirely the fault of British and the US plutocratic capitalist interests.
 
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The only way I can think of to get Hitler off the hook is if you could prove that the Final Solution was carried out behind Hitler's back and without his knowledge. If you could do that then you MIGHT get an acquittal, but that's a big maybe.
 

CalBear

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You could have a PoD where Nazi-Germany is losing, but not as much as in OTL. As a result of that, Stalin and Hitler make an agreement that says that Hitler won't be charged on anything and is able to live the rest of his live as a rich man in Uruguay or so if he surrenders and orders his forces to stop fighting.

Other than that I can't see any way how he could be acquited.

There is a better chance that Stalin would have asked Trotsky back to the USSR instead of having the NKVD wack him.

If the Soviets HAD captured Hitler, we would have been told a story very similar to the one IOTL, except the number of surviving witnesses would have been very low (dropping to none in fairly short order). Stalin would then have spent the next five years eating supper watching Hitler get tortured.
 
The London Charter of the International Military Tribunal was pretty much a court of the victors trying the defeated. Which shows that if one wins one can decide what justice is.
 

CalBear

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The London Charter of the International Military Tribunal was pretty much a court of the victors trying the defeated. Which shows that if one wins one can decide what justice is.


Obviously.

What reasonable group would have found the organized murder of 6,000,000 plus residents of occuppied states to be a crime.

Victor's justice without a doubt.:rolleyes:
 
Your very hard challenge, should you choose to accept it (and seriously, this challenge is Tom Cruise-worthy in more ways than one), is to make Adolf Hitler be captured by Allied forces at the end of World War II (either American, British or Soviet), tried in court (preferably at the Nuremberg trials), but found Not Guilty on all charges. POD must be after the July 20 Plot. This message will self-destruct in five seconds.
The entire world goes utterlty, nutjobinlgy, beyond belief, IIIIINSSAAANEEE!!!!









Even then it's a stretch!
 
Even if there were evidence that Hitler somehow did not know about the genocide it is very hard to imagine that he did not know about the plans for a series of unprovoked attacks on neutral lands.

I suspect that the cleverest verdict might well have been 'not guilty on grounds of insanity' or 'guilty but insane'.

I think it would be politically impossible for such a verdict to have been delivered. Of course it depends on one's definition of sanity.
 
Stalin would then have spent the next five years eating supper watching Hitler get tortured

I know that scenario or something like it has been depicted in at least one short story, but in reality Uncle Joe would have Hitler dispatched pretty quickly (not that it couldn't be nasty--strangled with piano wire?)

Stalin's too paranoid to ever let any underlings believe he's keeping the Fuehrer alive. In fact, I think Stalin might find that executing Hitler and allowing the MVD executioners to keep their own lives suits him nicely.

It's possible that in his mind you only kill your henchmen after you've used them to murder those who find themselves on trumped-up charges.
 
Well, you could find him insane and therefore not of sound mind to be tried

Or he could still be tried but acquitted on the grounds of diminished responsibility :eek:

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
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