In the winter of 1943 a joint announcement was made by the Allied leaders Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin, that they would bring the Nazi perpetrators to justice as soon as the war was over. In fact, the first war crimes trial took place that same year, conducted by Soviet authorities. After the Red Army liberated the camp of Majdanek in July 1944, trials were also held there.

After the German surrender in May 1945 an agreement was signed by the Allies to set up an international military tribunal at Nuremberg. Justice Robert Jackson of the United States Supreme Court led the prosecution, introducing for the first time in history: Crimes Against Peace (planning, preparing, initiating and/or waging war), War Crimes (violations of the usual rules of warfare) and Crimes Against Humanity (all crimes related to the murder of civilians and genocide).

A liberated prisoner accuses a Nazi guard

The Nuremberg Trials were held between November 20 1945 and October 1 1946, under an International Military Tribunal made up of British, American, French and Russian judges. During the first series of trials 22 Nazi figures were indicted, among them Goering, Rosenberg, Streicher, Kaltenbrunner, Speer, Ribbentrop and Hess. During his trial, Hess said:

"You can be sure it was not always a pleasure to see those mountains of corpses or smell the continual burning. But Himmler had ordered it and had explained the necessity and I never really gave much thought to whether it was wrong. It just seemed a necessity."

Many perpetrators escaped prosecution: some fled Europe or went underground in Germany and Austria, while others committed suicide, including Goebbels, Himmler and Hitler. Of the 21 Nazis who did stand trial (one had killed himself after being captured), 14 were sentenced to death by hanging and the remaining seven to long prison terms. Goering killed himself with poison before he could be hanged.

A second set of trials, known as the "Subsequent Nuremberg Proceedings", was then held by the U.S. Military Court. This time there were 185 accused, divided into 12 groups. These included the Nazi 'doctors', members of the Einsatzgruppen, camp administrators, German judges, generals and top executives of German companies which had used slave labour, constructed factories to do so and/or produced and sold Zyklon-B gas. As in the first trials, a common 'defense' was "I was only following orders." Nevertheless, there were some death sentences and some prison terms, but also 35 acquittals.

Afterwards, the Allied occupation authorities continued to try Nazis. In total, 5025 Nazi criminals were convicted between 1945-1949 in the American, British and French zones, as well as a number who were tried in the Soviet zone. The United Nations War Crimes Commission also prepared lists of war criminals who were later tried in Allied countries and countries which had been under Nazi occupation. Polish tribunals, for example, tried approximately 40 000 Nazi war criminals.

German courts began to function as early as 1945. In 1958 West Germany established a special agency in Ludwigsburg to aid in the investigation of war crimes and prepare cases for trial. By 1989, approximately 105 000 Germans had been investigated and over 6000 had been convicted. Special mention should be made of Simon Wiesenthal, whose activities have led to the capture of numerous Nazi criminals.

Female guards from Bergen-Belsen camp on trial at Luneberg, September 18 1945

After the Berlin Blockade of 1948 made a stronger Germany important for U.S. geo-political interests, clemency boards were established for many of the convicted Nazis. Within only a few years, sentences were commuted, pardons granted and prisoners allowed time off for good behaviour. By 1951 a general amnesty was granted and in the end, 77 Nazi convicts were set free. Industrialist Alfred Krupp was one of them; his personal fortune was returned to him and he resumed leadership of his company, which had profited so greatly from slave labour. Only five men remained under sentence of death, all of whom had participated directly in the mass murders.

Some freed or escaped Nazi leaders assumed new identities in Germany, Austria, South America or Arab countries, helped by various organisations and institutions. These included: ODESSA (an organisation of former SS men), the Catholic Church and even intelligence agencies, who wanted to use their military and scientific 'expertise' in their war against communism.

Adolf Eichmann, the SS officer who was in charge of the deportations of the Jews, escaped and lived in hiding in Argentina until 1960, when he was kidnapped by Israeli agents. He was brought to Israel to be tried. The Chief Prosecuter, Gideon Hausner, said during the trial:

"When I stand before you here, judges of Israel, to lead the prosecution of Adolf Eichmann, I am not standing alone. With me are six million accusers. But they cannot rise to their feet and point an accusing finger towards him who sits in the dock and cry: 'I accuse.' For their ashes are piled up on the hills of Auschwitz and the fields of Treblinka, and are strewn in the forests of Poland. Their graves are scattered throughout the length and breadth of Europe. Their blood cries out, but their voice is not heard. Therefore I will be their spokesman and in their name I will unfold the awesome indictment."

During the trial, Eichmann himself said:

"I did not take on the job as a senseless exercise. It gave me uncommon joy. I found it fascinating to have to deal with these matters…My job was to catch these enemies and transport them to their destination…I lived in this stuff, otherwise I would have remained only an assistant, a cog, something soulless."

Eichmann was found guilty and hanged: the only official execution in the history of Israel.

Countless Nazi war criminals lived and still live in freedom all over the world, despite belated efforts to bring them to justice by the U.S., Canada, the U.K. and Australia.