At the end of the
Second World War, the Allied Powers had invaded Germany and removed Hitler from power. As they carried out the invasion and capture of various Nazi Party members, including the search for Hitler himself, the Fuhrer of the Third Reich committed suicide in his home with his wife. Many Nazi Party members followed suit. Others fled the country, seeking asylum or changing their identities to avoid capture. Still, a good majority of the leading Nazi officials were captured and tried for their crimes. There were literally hundreds of trials for the people held responsible for the Holocaust.
Most of the war criminals that were tried during the Nuremberg Trials were found guilty and sentenced to death. The majority of the leading Nazi officials were a part of these trials. They were sent to be executed, often within just days. The method of execution at this time was hanging. Some of the prisoners managed to commit suicide before their execution date, but dozens were hanged i to show that the world was not going to let them get away with the horrors that occurred in the Holocaust.
Some Nazi war criminals were tried and acquitted for one reason or another. Although it seems like there is no way to deny that people actually did the things they were being held accountable for, the evidence was hard to find back then. In many cases, there was no paper trail and a lot of people were acting on word of mouth or other methods that could not actually be proven. Therefore, some people managed to actually get away with murder, but most of these were smaller members of the Nazi party whose roles weren’t as significant. Since they were less important and less involved, it was easier to find ways to deny their involvement completely.
The hanging of
Nazi war criminals was not publicized for the most part. For example, at the Nuremberg Trials, only a few select reporters were allowed in to view the event. This was done to avoid giving sympathy to these evil men or creating martyrs of them by allowing the event to become a media spectacle. For those who didn’t manage to find another way out of being punished and held accountable for their crimes, the sentence was often death. Some criminals were sentenced to life or a term in prison, but this was rare in most of the post-war trials.