Hitler is put on trial for war crimes

Let's say that somehow, between the 23rd and 30th of April, the Red Army steamrolls what is left of the Wehrmacht and storms the Fuhrerbunker, arresting Hitler, Goebbels and other high-ranking Nazis who were present at the Fuhrerbunker.

What happens next? Is Hitler tried at Nuremberg or is he lynched from the nearest tree or lamppost by the Red Army? If he is tried at Nuremberg, what would the trial look like?
 
Hitler would only be taken alive if he wanted to be taken alive and that was the last thing he wanted.

The ability to take alive someone who has his his own mini Army of highly armed Praetorian Guard willing to die for him and a gun and a pill by his side is almost non-existent.

If it somehow did happen which effectively require him being wounded and nearly dying and being saved the public would have an entirely different view on Hitler mainly because the Downfall film if anything significantly underdoes how demented he was by that point.
 
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If a single person fought back in the Bunker or, not understanding Russian, made a single wrong move the soviets would have gunned them down. I imagine they would have immediately upon seeing German military uniforms. And really, why would they think Hitler was in that area in specific? Infantry wouldn't know the fine details of espionage, and the top brass might think Hitler was at another bunker or just not care. The Soviets would also probably push for the Crimes Against Humanity thing over mere war crimes. Might be awkward if they get hosting rights for the trial, and someone goes on about the Soviet claim (well, to an extent in propoganda. Not sure on the details) that concentration camps were used for eliminating surplus workers. Having it pointing out that the people in the camps were their either because they were Jewish or because they were priests, landowners, civic group leaders, bankers, politicians, soldiers, policemen, teachers, etc wouldn't go well with propaganda but it is hardly as if things like that would be broadcast live in every home and workplace. And if Hitler is tried he is given a trial with the others, shows no remorse and uses it as a chance to talk about what he did, then ends up being hanged. Like with Napoleon ending up on St. Helena becoming a symbol of hubris for someone stretching too far (and those giving added glory to Napoleon's legend) I think that there would be a different view on Hitler if he goes to his death without fear or pleasing, instead of being in his bunker raving mad, getting married, then committing suicide.
 
Hitler ratherly would has commited suicide as allowed anyone catch him. So catching Hitler alive is almost impossible.

But if Soviets succeeds there is three options:

1. Soviets kill him on this point.
2. Soviets bring Hitler to Moscow where he would has beeen tortured and then got four minutes trial and bullet to his head.
3. He would has bring to Nuremberg where he would has trial and put to death by hanging.

But options 2 and 3 insist that Hitler doesn't kill himself on prisonment.
 
Hitler ratherly would has commited suicide as allowed anyone catch him. So catching Hitler alive is almost impossible.

But if Soviets succeeds there is three options:

1. Soviets kill him on this point.
2. Soviets bring Hitler to Moscow where he would has beeen tortured and then got four minutes trial and bullet to his head.
3. He would has bring to Nuremberg where he would has trial and put to death by hanging.

But options 2 and 3 insist that Hitler doesn't kill himself on prisonment.
The Soviets might put them in cages and show them off as they bring them to Moscow. Good for morale. So long as no one kills them on the way.
 

samcster94

Banned
Hitler would only be taken alive if he wanted to be taken alive and that was the last thing he wanted.

The ability to take alive someone who has his his own mini Army of highly armed Praetorian Guard willing to die for him and a gun and a pill by his side is almost non-existent.

If it somehow did happen which effectively require him being wounded and nearly dying and being saved the public would have an entirely different view on Hitler mainly because the Downfall film if anything significantly underdoes how demented he was by that point.
Given these are soldiers loyal to Stalin, they might just kill him anyway for political reasons(putting top Nazis on show trials though is possible).
 

Ramontxo

Donor
Worst (nightmare level) option, somehow he falls in american hands*and is given Goering treatment by the US ARMY. Out of drugs and for the first time in years under competent medical care he recover and in the Nuremberg trials gives an stellar performance for future German generations.

*Quite improbable I know. Maybe he accepts Hanna Reitsch offer, or suffer an temporal incapacity as a bomb or shell falls near him the last time he is out of the bunker in his birthday and is taken out of Berlin in a plane...
 
Hitler will be a wreck no matter what. Not sure what having people see that will do politically for the Soviets. Good? Bad? Don't know.

Dead Hitler can be anything the Soviets want him to be.
 
I once wrote a TL about this in the mists of time. The POD is Hitler suffers a severe stroke on the 21st April which incapacitates him.

Keitel, Jodl and Bormann decide Hitler should go to the Berghof and away from the imminent destruction of Berlin. Hitler is spirited from the city - probably by road more than by air - leaving Goebbels to defend the Reich capital.

At the Berghof, Hitler is initially guarded by the SS but word reaches Goering Hitler has arrived and Goering arranges for a detachment of his personal Luftwaffe men to attack the SS, In the brief gun battle that follows, Hitler is uninjured but his body guard is among the dead and the Luftwaffe take over.

It's not long before the Americans are closing on the Obersalzberg complex and Goering orders Hitler taken to Mautendorf for his safety on April 28th. It's only a temporary reprieve as Goebbels commits suicide and Berlin falls on May 1st. Two days later, American troops are closing in and Goering makes contact with Brigadier Stack in nearby Bruck and takes him to Mautendorf where he finds the comatose Hitler with Eva Braun.

Stack immediately wires Eisenhower for instructions - Churchill suggests Hitler be brought to London under close guard and utmost secrecy. Goering proceeds to Rheims where he surrenders the Reich on May 7th and the next day in Moscow.

Churchill announces the capture of Hitler to the world on May 8th and invites the Soviet ambassador in London to see Hitler which he does. Under competent medical care, Hitler recovers slowly but the damage caused by the stroke and other ailments is severe and he is effectively in a vegetative state. He can never stand trial or defend himself.

Hitler dies on February 20th 1946 though his death is announced three days later. Officially he dies of natural causes but he is in fact killed by British soldiers on the direct orders of Attlee, backed by Truman and Stalin. The Fuehrer's body is burned and his Ashes scattered in a small wood in Surrey.

Eva Braun is allowed to go to Argentina and in 1955 marries Juan Peron. to become the second Eva Peron. She will outlive Peron and die in Bolivia in 2007. Her autobiography will be an international best seller and the 2013 film "Eva - a Life" will win Glenn Close an Oscar for Best Actress.
 

Geon

Donor
If the Soviets are able to storm the Reichchancellery earlier it is possible they might be able to find and storm the bunker capturing Hitler and those in the bunker alive.

If that happens it is very likely the West never sees Hitler again. He mysteriously disappears not to be heard from again. The same is true for anyone remaining in the bunker.

After the fall of communism in Russia it is probably learned from Soviet documents that Hitler was secretly transported back to Moscow where he was tortured to death under Stalin's personal supervision. The other occupants of the Bunker are either executed immediately or shipped off to die later in the gulags to maintain the secret.
 
There is one example that hasn't been mentioned: betrayal into enemy hands. If the betrayer knocked Hitler out in some way and delivered him to Allied lines, the army straightjacketed him to a wall, and have standing orders to the military guards that they are to inform their superiors of any bribe offers, which the Army will match 4-fold, so that he can't take a suicide pill, then it could work.
 

Deleted member 96212

I'm guessing a show trial in Moscow followed by death by firing squad. Not that he doesn't deserve it, mind you.

Wasn't Stalin the one pushing for international trials like the one in Nuremberg?

Like with Napoleon ending up on St. Helena becoming a symbol of hubris for someone stretching too far (and those giving added glory to Napoleon's legend) I think that there would be a different view on Hitler if he goes to his death without fear or pleasing, instead of being in his bunker raving mad, getting married, then committing suicide.

I doubt anyone would substantially change their opinion on Hitler no matter how he died. Whether he kills himself or stands defiant at trial he'd be considered the same way; as a genocidal lunatic.
 
I wonder, though, how long Hitler would have lived even if he was captured alive at the end of April 1945.

While Stalin would have LOVED to personally execute Hitler, I think Stalin would have turned Hitler over to the International Military Tribunal probably by late June to early July 1945. But by April 1945, Hitler's health was in rapid decline from the Parkinson's caused by the advanced stages of syphilis, and it's not likely that even advanced American medical science could have make him live more than a few months--Hitler would likely be dead or too sick to become a defendant by early November 1945.
 
I wonder, though, how long Hitler would have lived even if he was captured alive at the end of April 1945.

While Stalin would have LOVED to personally execute Hitler, I think Stalin would have turned Hitler over to the International Military Tribunal probably by late June to early July 1945. But by April 1945, Hitler's health was in rapid decline from the Parkinson's caused by the advanced stages of syphilis, and it's not likely that even advanced American medical science could have make him live more than a few months--Hitler would likely be dead or too sick to become a defendant by early November 1945.

If you managed to get him captured alive by say his bunker coming down from a bomb and him being found in the rubble alive then yes that is the most likely outcome.
 
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One point. The Nuremberg trials happened pretty much at Soviet insistence. It was the western countries that wanted summary executions of the top Nazis. Stalin was big on trials for whatever reason.

Agree that taking Hitler alive is pretty much impossible, and he was close to death anyway (which I think had a big effect on his decisions). Remember not just Hitler, but Goering, Himmler, and Goebbels all committed suicide, as probably did Bormann, and of the top Nazis only Goering could be put on trial.
 
Stalin wanted to pin his own crimes against humanity (like the Katyn massacre) on the Nazis.

It served his purposes, but that wasn't the primary issue or at least what he did in the past wasn't. In the end he was busy consolidating his hold on much of Europe and looking towards Czechoslovakia and Greece among other places.

It served his interests to have Nazis faces all over the papers in the West not his own or reports about what was going on in his Empire while he was consolidating and playing his next move. His interest wasn't in truth and reconciliation and punishment.

Both he and Churchill recognized what would happen after the war as they both knew Imperial politics all too well. Keeping the Americans distracted was Stalin's game not truth and justice.

The bigger the public focus on people who were already going to die and the longer it went on the more time he has to prepare. It's why America was so caught off guard by Czechoslovakia going red and Stalin trying to squeeze us out of Berlin. In a world where for whatever reason there are no trials or quiet behind the scenes trials and hangings there is much more public and media attention on what is going on in Stalin's Empire.

Stalin knew the USSR vs WAllies would be at its most unbalanced a few years post war so he needed them to disarm and focus on the Germans while the Soviet Empire consolidated and got stronger.

A lot of people argue today about how in the early 50s we over corrected in focusing too much on Stalin's evil and not enough on what Hitler did. Well by the early 50s the Western elite by in large realized that the near total post war media focus on Nazis including a whole is Hitler alive or dead saga only helped Stalin rather greatly. They also knew they needed a rearmed Germany and the post war hard line messaging towards the German military produced a West Germany that didn't want one.
 
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