Trials of Nazi leaders conducted after World War II. A court set up by the victorious Allies tried twenty-two former officials, including Hermann Goering, in Nuremberg, Germany, for war crimes. Goering and eleven others were sentenced to death. Many of the highest officials of Nazi Germany, including Adolf Hitler, Joseph Goebbels, and Heinrich Himmler, had committed suicide before they could be brought to trial, and Goering killed himself before he could be executed.
Note: Several of those accused at the Nuremberg trials offered the defense that they were merely carrying out the orders of their superiors. This defense was not accepted.