Nuremberg trials

Nuremberg trials. A series of trials of 24 former Nazi leaders, conducted in Nuremberg, Germany, from 18 October 1945 to 1 October 1946. Among the defendants tried by the International Military Tribunal were two who bore considerable responsibility for crimes against humanity perpetrated on Ukrainian territory: Hans Frank, the former governor-general of German-occupied Poland and Galicia (see Generalgouvernement), and Alfred Rosenberg, the former Nazi minister for the occupied Eastern territories (see Reichskommissariat Ukraine). Both were sentenced to death by hanging. The trial brought to light a great deal of information about Nazi war crimes in Ukraine. The documents in evidence at the trial were subsequently published; many refer to Ukraine and depict plunder of the economy, forced labor, resettlement, collective punishment, and mass executions as commonplace under Nazi rule. A long memorandum (dated 23 February 1943) of Volodymyr Kubijovyč, head of the Ukrainian Central Committee in Cracow, to Governor-General Frank, for example, provided a documented and detailed description of German outrages against the Ukrainian population in Galicia.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 3 (1993).]