Editing Robert H. Jackson (section)

==International Military Tribunal, 1945–1946==
{{main|Nuremberg trials}}
{{Wikisource|Opening address for the United States}}
[[File:Jackson Nuremberg color.jpg|thumb|Robert H. Jackson, Chief U.S. Prosecutor at the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg, Germany, 1945–46]]
In 1945, President [[Harry S. Truman]] appointed Jackson (who took a leave of absence from the Supreme Court), as U.S. Chief of Counsel for the prosecution of Nazi war criminals. He helped draft the [[London Charter of the International Military Tribunal]], which created the legal basis for the Nuremberg Trials. He then served in [[Nuremberg|Nuremberg, Germany]], as United States Chief Prosecutor at the [[Nuremberg trials|International Military Tribunal]].<ref>The Nuremberg Roles of Justice Robert H. Jackson: https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1147&context=law_globalstudies {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200806191737/https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1147&context=law_globalstudies |date=August 6, 2020 }}</ref> Jackson pursued his prosecutorial role with a great deal of vigor. His opening and closing arguments before the Nuremberg court were widely celebrated.<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Menand |first=Louis |date=18 September 2017 |title=Drop Your Weapons |magazine=[[The New Yorker]] |location=[[New York City|New York]] |publisher=[[Condé Nast]] |quote=The chief U.S. prosecutor, Robert Jackson, characterized German aggression in his celebrated opening statement ...}}</ref> In the words of defendant [[Albert Speer]], the Nazi [[Reich Ministry of Armaments and War Production|Minister of Armaments and War Production]],
{{blockquote
|The trial began with the grand, devastating opening address by the Chief American Prosecutor, Justice Robert H. Jackson. But I took comfort from one sentence in it which accused the defendants of guilt for the regime's crimes, but not the German people.<ref>Speer, Albert, ''Inside the Third Reich'', page 513, Macmillan, New York 1970 (1982 reprint by Bonanza) {{ISBN|0-517-38579-1}}</ref>}}
However, some believe that his cross-examination skills were generally weak, and it was British prosecutor [[David Maxwell Fyfe]] who got the better of [[Hermann Göring]] in cross-examination, rather than Jackson, who was rebuked by the Tribunal for losing his temper and being repeatedly baited by Göring during the proceedings.<ref>Ann Tusa and John Tusa, ''The Nuremberg Trial'' (London, Macmillan, 1983), pp 269–293.</ref>