Editing Nuremberg trials (section)

===Defense===
[[File:Goering on trial (color).jpg|thumb|[[Hermann Göring]] under cross-examination]]
[[File:Soviet-called witness addresses the International Military Tribunal.jpg|thumb|A member of the Soviet delegation addresses the tribunal.]]

From March to July 1946, the defense presented its counterarguments.{{sfn|Mouralis|2019|p=23}} Before the prosecution finished, it was clear that their general case was proven, but it remained to determine the individual guilt of each defendant.{{sfn|Priemel|2016|p=121}} None of the defendants tried to assert that the Nazis' crimes had not occurred.{{sfn|Priemel|2016|p=125}} Some defendants denied involvement in certain crimes or implausibly claimed ignorance of them, especially the Final Solution.{{sfn|Priemel|2016|p=126}}{{sfn|Douglas|2001|p=20}}  A few defense lawyers inverted the arguments of the prosecution to assert that the Germans' authoritarian mindset and obedience to the state exonerated them from any personal guilt.{{sfn|Priemel|2016|p=132}} Most rejected that Germany had deviated from Western civilization, arguing that few Germans could have supported Hitler because Germany was a civilized country.{{sfn|Priemel|2016|p=132}}

The defendants tried to blame their crimes on Hitler, who was mentioned 1,200 times during the trial—more than the top five defendants combined. Other absent and dead men, including Himmler, [[Reinhard Heydrich]], [[Adolf Eichmann]], and Bormann, were also blamed.{{sfn|Priemel|2016|pp=127–128}} To counter claims that conservative defendants had enabled the [[Nazi rise to power]], defense lawyers blamed the [[Social Democratic Party of Germany]], trade unions, and other countries that maintained diplomatic relations with Germany.{{sfn|Priemel|2016|pp=130–131}} In contrast, most defendants avoided incriminating each other.{{sfn|Priemel|2016|p=135}} Most defendants argued their own insignificance within the Nazi system,{{sfn|Priemel|2016|pp=133–134}}{{sfn|Hirsch|2020|p=287}} but Göring took the opposite approach, expecting to be executed but vindicated in the eyes of the German people.{{sfn|Priemel|2016|pp=133–134}}

The charter did not recognize a [[tu quoque defense|''tu quoque'' defense]]—asking for exoneration on the grounds that the Allies had committed the same crimes with which the defendants were charged.{{sfn|Priemel|2016|p=131}} Although defense lawyers repeatedly equated the [[Nuremberg Laws]] to legislation found in other countries, Nazi concentration camps to Allied detention facilities, and the deportation of Jews to the [[expulsion of Germans]], the judges rejected their arguments.{{sfn|Priemel|2016|p=131}} {{ill|Alfred Seidl|de}} repeatedly tried to disclose the secret protocols of the German–Soviet pact; although he was eventually successful, it was legally irrelevant and the judges rejected his attempt to bring up the [[Treaty of Versailles]].{{sfn|Priemel|2016|p=131}}{{sfn|Sellars|2013|p=148}} Six defendants were charged with the [[German invasion of Norway]], and their lawyers argued that this invasion was undertaken to prevent a [[Plan R 4|British invasion of that country]]; a cover-up prevented the defense from capitalizing on this argument.{{sfn|Priemel|2016|p=148}}{{sfn|Sellars|2013|pp=149–150}} Fleet Admiral [[Chester Nimitz]] testified that the [[United States Navy]] had also used [[unrestricted submarine warfare]] against [[Empire of Japan|Japan]] [[Allied submarines in the Pacific War|in the Pacific]]; Dönitz's counsel successfully argued that this meant that it could not be a crime.{{sfn|Priemel|2016|pp=131–132}}{{sfn|Sellars|2013|p=178}} The judges barred most evidence on Allied misdeeds from being heard in court.{{sfn|Sellars|2013|p=144}}

Many defense lawyers complained about various aspects of the trial procedure and attempted to discredit the entire proceedings.{{sfn|Priemel|2016|p=126}} In order to appease them, the defendants were allowed a free hand with their witnesses and a great deal of irrelevant testimony was heard.{{sfn|Douglas|2001|p=15}} The defendants' witnesses sometimes managed to exculpate them, but other witnesses—including [[Rudolf Höss]], the former commandant of Auschwitz, and [[Hans Bernd Gisevius]], a member of the [[German resistance to Nazism|German resistance]]—bolstered the prosecution's case.{{sfn|Priemel|2016|pp=129–130}} Over the course of the trial, Western judges allowed the defendants additional leeway to denounce the Soviet Union, which was ultimately revealed to be a co-conspirator in the outbreak of World War II.{{sfn|Hirsch|2020|p=10}} In the context of the brewing [[Cold War]]—for example, in 1946 [[Winston Churchill]] delivered the [[Iron Curtain speech]]{{sfn|Priemel|2016|p=148}}—the trial became a means of condemning not only Germany but also the Soviet Union.{{sfn|Hirsch|2020|p=14}}