Victorious Nazis hold war crime trials

A Kangaroo court is not a trial, the verdicts already decided. Yes their would be nice public trials but they would be about as fair and balanced as a USA vs Andorra full scale war.

Well, that's what would happen. There wouldn't be private executions of people of propaganda value.

FOr what it is worth, the Nuremberg trials were almost a kangaroo court (key word "almost)...I mean, the verdicts of many of the men were beyond question. A kangeroo court isn't bad when the people in them are as guilty as sin.
 
It seems show trials were out of fashion in the USSR by the middle of the war.

Just to note, as a bit of trivia, the first war crimes trial conducted by the Allies actually took place in the USSR in 1943, in Kharkov. It was a show trial, held in public, and the defendants were publicly hanged afterwards. It was an anomaly for the most part as the Soviets had largely abandoned show trials by this period.
 
Well, that's what would happen. There wouldn't be private executions of people of propaganda value.

FOr what it is worth, the Nuremberg trials were almost a kangaroo court (key word "almost)...I mean, the verdicts of many of the men were beyond question. A kangeroo court isn't bad when the people in them are as guilty as sin.

The Nuremberg trials were not precisely a kangaroo court per se-some defendants were acquitted, others got off with mere imprisonment as opposed to death. And the court as a whole repudiated a demonstrably false charge-that portion of the indictment charging the Germans with responsibility for killing the Polish prisoners found at Katyn-thereby doing a measure of justice. But the fact that the architects of that court allowed the defendants to be wrongly charged with a crime that Western Allied leaders knew very well had been clearly committed by an Allied nation which they then allowed to sit in judgment of that case-well, some might call it justice, but I ain't one of those people. It stains the court to have allowed such a thing.
 
Thousands of US Navy submariners would face kangaroo courts because of ruthless way they sank thousands of tons of shipping headed for the Japanese home-islands.
 
The Nuremberg trials were not precisely a kangaroo court per se-some defendants were acquitted, others got off with mere imprisonment as opposed to death.
True, hence "almost." Goering wasn't going to get a "fair" trial, and neither were a Hitler or Himmler. WHich is fine in mine book. The idea was to make it look like justice was served, it was a propaganda coup for the victors.
 

Realpolitik

Banned
Besides the impossibility of the Nazis "winning" anyway...

From the man who used the Night of the Long Knives to get rid of his oldest comrade? Forget it. ASB. Actual trials weren't Hitler's sort of thing, as anyone who has read about Roland Friesler can attest to.

A show trial, MAYBE, but honestly, I think Hitler would be far more likely to humiliate and kill them* or work them to death in a labor camp and be done with it.

*By them, I mean guys like Bomber Harris and all the leaders of the Western allies. The Soviets would just be executed, point blank. Though I did read somewhere that Hitler planned to work Churchill to death in a coal mine if he was ever captured, but spare Joseph Stalin and send him off to "retirement" at a spa. Or even let him rule the Russians expelled to Siberia. I don't know how accurate that is, but there you go.
 
Lets assume, however unlikely it may seem, that Nazi Germany forces Britain and the Soviet Union to the point of unconditional surrender. Which Allied/Soviet leaders would they put on trial for war crimes, and on what charges?

I was once told (by a knowledgeable WW II buff) that after conquering Poland, the Germans put some Poles on trial for "war crimes". (Probably alleged battlefield murders of prisoners or wounded; there were a few successful combat actions by Polish forces which provided opportunities for such acts. Also "perfidy" - fraudulent use of white flags or pretended surrenders.)

The Nazis would almost certainly want to publicize such allegations against the Allies and "punish the guilty"; it would paint the Allies as sanctimonious hypocrites.

At the highest level, Allied leaders would be condemned for area bombing, maltreatment of PoWs... Idunno what else.
 
I think the Nazis would raise indictments for crimes committed historically. Thus Churchill might be charged with causing the deaths of German civilians during the First World War by enforcing the naval blockade while head of the Admiralty. The Treaty of Versailles would no doubt be represented as an act of brigandage, and those who perpetrated it charged accordingly.

The Germans might claim to represent the interests of the colonial subjects of the British Empire. They certainly paid at least lip-service to the cause of Arab nationalism historically, and formed foreign Waffen SS divisions such as the Indian Legion. Presenting themselves as the champions of subject peoples, would be of great propaganda value both domestically and abroad.

Thus the Germans might accuse the British of waging imperial wars of aggression, e.g Afghanistan, Iraq, the Transavaal. Even the Zulu War was within living memory at this time. They might read damning testimonies to the courts of the conditions Boer civilians had to endure in the British concentration camps in South Africa in the Second Anglo-Boer war, i.e. starvation and typhus epidemics. The Belgians might be similarly arraigned for their brutality against the Congolese in their Empire. While the Germans were being damned for the sacking of Louvain, the Belgians were mutilating, flogging and murdering African forced-labourers in their rubber plantations.

The Germans might win advantage in the Arab World by making a public spectacle of such Anglo-French breaches of faith as their betrayal of the Sykes-Picot Agreement. Obviously they would make much of the Balfour Declaration also, given the anti-Semitism common to themselves and the Arab world.
 
Just to note, as a bit of trivia, the first war crimes trial conducted by the Allies actually took place in the USSR in 1943, in Kharkov. It was a show trial, held in public, and the defendants were publicly hanged afterwards. It was an anomaly for the most part as the Soviets had largely abandoned show trials by this period.

I looked that up. . . and this was the result.

GERMAN'S EVIDENCE AT KHARKOV TRIAL
Details Of Massacre Of 300 Civilians LONDON, Dec. 17.—AAP.
Moscow radio broadcast today that Heinz Ritz, of the Gestapo, one of the accused in the Kharkov war guilt trial, gave further details
of German atrocities against civi lians. He admitted that he put to death 300 Russian men. women and children. Ritz also said that he knew about the German command's "exhaust gas" killing vans. He denied hav ing used the killing vans, but said that he had seen them in the War saw area where the Germans were using them to dispose of "unreli able elements." He bad also seen one van loading up people from Kharkov Ritz admitted mat he took part in the mass execution of Russians near Kharkov on June 2. "Maj. Hannebecker." he said, 'gave me an automatic rifle and told me to see what I could do. I fired into a group of prisoners, including women and children Three hun dred were executed that day for showing excessive ioy after the Rus sian troops had temporarily re occupied their town."
 

Riain

Banned
Although the practicalities are almost impossible I do think the Nazis would have their own quazi-Nuremberg, complete with acquittals for certain people, for domestic purposes.

Keep in mind that Hitler was careful about his own domestic support base, he didn't squeeze the population hard in the early years, like the British did. I think trials of 'war criminals' would occur, I don't doubt the Germans would get a conviction for those who burned Lubeck and Rostock in 1942, to show the Germans that their cause was just. The acquittal of 'famous, hardarse war personalities X and Y', despite their well know success on the battlefield or war leadership group would further show that these trials weren't just for show, they those convicted were given 'due process'. This would give the Germans legitimacy and closure for the outrages committed during the war.
 
i concur here, i think we can base things on how the germans acted in the latter half of the war, since they knew they were losing, and someone in that position will become continuously more ruthless.

When they win they will try to fake the moral high ground by holding war trials, before the war they showed a love for show trials.
bomber harris is very much toast just like churchill (especially if plans of operatian vegetarian are found).
 
Yep Bomber Harris. Plus anybody else senior in bomber command.

Then we have anybody senior in the Commandos - remember Hitler's Commando order.

Then Churchill for ordering both the above, and for ordering poison gas on the beaches in an attempt to stop the successful (!) operation Sealion.

Plus anybody prominent else the Nazis feel like, especially if Jewish.

The less prominent ones just get randomly executed, shot, worked to death. or thrown in concentration camps.
 
They would probably trial the Soviets more than the British. They would likely trial Stalin, Zhukov, Timoshenko, etc. And on what charges: Being Bolsheviks.

Then again, Stalin probably would have had to have been overthrown (and possibly killed) for the USSR to have surrendered.
 
Well, that's what would happen. There wouldn't be private executions of people of propaganda value.

FOr what it is worth, the Nuremberg trials were almost a kangaroo court (key word "almost)...I mean, the verdicts of many of the men were beyond question. A kangeroo court isn't bad when the people in them are as guilty as sin.

and here the issue most people are missing is that the victor get to write the histories so they would be the ones deciding what a crime is.
the perfect example of this is bomber command in the latter part of the war.
most of what they did in the last part of the war could be reasonably considered war crimes.
but because they were on the winning side what they did under the order of their respective political leaderships was convienenately forgotten.

I dare say that any Nazi win scenario where any strategic bombing of German cities was used would see those on trial kangaroo court or not.
 
There is some historical precedent for this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riom_Trial

'Once started in February 1942, the trial did not go according to plan. The defendants were largely successful in rebutting the charges, and won sympathetic coverage in the international press. The trial was eventually suspended in March 1942, and formally abandoned in May 1943.'

...how do you manage to successfully rebut the charges in a show trial?!
 
Lets assume, however unlikely it may seem, that Nazi Germany forces Britain and the Soviet Union to the point of unconditional surrender. Which Allied/Soviet leaders would they put on trial for war crimes, and on what charges?

Assuming they can get their hands on them Stalin and Churchill are sure things. Probably Molotov too.
 
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