The Nuremberg trials were international criminal trials held by France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States against leaders of The Nuremberg trials were international criminal trials held by France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States against leaders of defeated Nazi Germany for plotting and carrying out invasions of several countries across Europe and committing atrocities against their citizens in the Second World War. Between 1939 and 1945, Nazi Germany invaded many countries across Europe, inf T… From March to July 1946, the defense presented its counterarguments. Before the prosecution finished, it was clear that their general case was proven, but it remained to determine the individual guilt of each defendant. None of the defendants tried to assert that the Nazis' crimes had not occurred. Some defendants denied involvement in certain crimes or implausibly claimed ignorance of them, especially the Holocaust. A few defense lawyers inverted the arguments of the prosecution to assert that the Germans' authoritarian mindset and obedience to the state exonerated them from any personal guilt. Most rejected that Germany had deviated from Western civilization, arguing that few Germans could have supported Hitler because Germany was a civilized country. The defendants tried to blame their crimes on Hitler, who was mentioned 12,000 times during the trial—more than the top… In mid-1945, France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States agreed to convene a joint tribunal in Nuremberg, occupied Germany, with the Nuremberg Charter as its legal instrument. Between 20 November 1945 and 1 October 1946, the International Military Tribunal (IMT) tried 22 of the most important surviving leaders of Nazi Germany in the political, military, and economic spheres, as well as six German organizations. The purpose of the trial was not only to try the defendants but also to assemble irrefutable evidence of Nazi war crimes, offer a history lesson to the defeated Germans, and delegitimize the traditional German elite. The IMT verdict followed the prosecution in declaring the crime of plotting and waging aggressive war "the supreme international crime" because "it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole". Most defendants were also charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity, the Holocaust being a major focus in the trials. Twelve further trials were conducted by the United States against lower-level perpetrators and focused more on the Holocaust. Controversial at the time for their retroactive criminalization of aggression, the trials' innovation of holding individuals responsible for violations of international law is considered "the true beginning of international criminal law". The other three Allies' proposal to limit the definition of the crimes to acts committed by the defeated Axis was rejected by Jackson. Instead, the charter limited the jurisdiction of the court to Germany's actions. Article 7 prevented the defendants from claiming sovereign immunity, and Article 8 meant that the plea of acting under superior orders was not a valid defence, although it might be treated in mitigation. The trial was held under modified common law. The negotiators decided that the tribunal's permanent seat would be in Berlin, while the trial would be held at the Palace of Justice in Nuremberg. Located in the American occupation zone, Nuremberg was a symbolic location as the site of Nazi rallies. The Palace of Justice was relatively intact but needed to be renovated for the trial due to bomb damage; it had an attached prison where the defendants could be held. On 8 August, the Nuremberg Charter was signed in London. === Judges and prosecutors === In early 1946, there were a thousand employees from the four countries' delegations in Nuremberg, of which about two thirds were from the United States. Of the 24 men indicted, Martin Bormann was tried in absentia, as the Allies were unaware of his death; Krupp was too ill to stand trial; and Robert Ley had died by suicide before the start of the trial. Former Nazis were allowed to serve as counsel and by mid-November all defendants had lawyers. The defendants' lawyers jointly appealed to the court, claiming it did not have jurisdiction against the accused, but this motion was rejected. Defense lawyers saw themselves as acting on behalf of their clients and the German nation. Other generals were tried in the High Command Trial for plotting wars of aggression, issuing criminal orders, deporting civilians, using slave labor, and looting in the Soviet Union. These trials emphasized the crimes committed during the Holocaust. The trials heard 1,300 witnesses, entered more than 30,000 documents into evidence, and generated 132,855 pages of transcripts, with the judgments totaling 3,828 pages. Of 177 defendants, 142 were convicted and 25 sentenced to death; the severity of sentencing was related to the defendant's proximity to mass murder. The Americans satisfied these wishes to bind West Germany to the Western Bloc, beginning early releases of Nuremberg Military Tribunal convicts in 1949. In 1951, High Commissioner John J. McCloy overturned most of the sentences and the last three prisoners, all convicted at the Einsatzgruppen trial, were released in 1958. The German public took the early releases as confirmation of what they saw as the illegitimacy of the trials. The IMT defendants required Soviet permission for release; Speer was not successful in obtaining early release, and Hess remained in prison until his death in 1987. The trials were the first use of simultaneous interpretation, which stimulated technical advances in translation methods. The Palace of Justice houses a museum on the trial and the courtroom became a tourist attraction, drawing 13,138 visitors in 2005. The IMT is one of the most well-studied trials in history, and it has also been the subject of an abundance of