As
World War II wound to a close, the Allied forces were left with the challenge of capturing, detaining, and punishing the Nazi war criminal they knew of. Hitler and most of his top officials had committed suicide, but those who had been in charge of running the death camps, of massacring millions, other high-ranking officers were still guilty of some of the greatest atrocities ever committed.
Many of these
Nazi war criminal were swiftly caught and tried at the Nuremberg Trials. These occurred from 1945 to 1946. The first was the most well-known, and was the trial of the major war criminals. Often called 'the greatest trial in history', it focused on 23 of the top Nazi officials captured as the war ended. Martin Bormann, one of Hitler's closest confidants, was tried in absentia and convicted. It was later proven that he too had committed suicide during the Battle of Berlin. Robert Ley killed himself during the course of the trial.
Those who were tried included such officials as Rudolf Hess, Hermann Goring, Hans Fritzsche, Hans Frank, Wilhelm Frick, and more. Out of these 23 men, eleven were sentenced to hang, three were acquitted, and the rest received prison sentences. Some, such as Goring, committed suicide prior to their execution.
There were numerous subsequent trials and numerous executions. Many of the officers and minor soldiers who worked at death camps were tried and executed as well. Now, sixty years following the end of the war, there are still several Nazi war criminal that remain unaccounted for.
Occasionally one of these men is located, and despite their failing health and advanced age they're still tried as the criminals they are. It's believed that Argentina saw the greatest influx of Nazi war criminal, but thanks to the Cold War some of the criminals were actually able to receive protection from the CIA and the KGB, acting as agents and spies in West Germany in the years following the war. Declassified CIA documents prove that the agency helped conceal the location of several of these men.
While most of the criminals from the Nazi party were convicted for their crimes, many more slipped through the cracks. It's unknown just how many war criminals remain alive and at large around the world, and there are even still some 'Nazi Hunters' who are working to track them down. The actions of these criminals will never be forgotten, even after the final Nazi war criminal dies.