Editing Nuremberg trials (section)

===Indictment===
[[File:At a solemn session in Berlin, the representatives of the various nations handed over to the Tribunal their indictments for the Nuremberg Trials.jpg|thumb|Handing over the indictment to the tribunal, 18 October 1945]]

The work of drafting the indictment was divided up by the national delegations. The British worked on aggressive war; the other delegations were assigned the task of covering crimes against humanity and war crimes committed on the [[Western Front (World War II)|Western Front]] (France) and the [[Eastern Front (World War II)|Eastern Front]] (the Soviet Union). The United States delegation outlined the overall Nazi conspiracy and criminality of Nazi organizations.{{sfn|Hirsch|2020|p=80}}{{sfn|Priemel|2016|p=101}} The British and American delegations decided to work jointly in drafting the charges of conspiracy to wage aggressive war. On 17 September, the various delegations met to discuss the indictment.{{sfn|Hirsch|2020|pp=80–81}}

The charge of [[conspiracy (criminal)|conspiracy]], absent from the charter, held together the wide array of charges and defendants{{sfn|Priemel|2016|p=102}} and was used to charge the top Nazi leaders, as well as bureaucrats who had never killed anyone or perhaps even directly ordered killing. It was also an end run on the charter's limits on charging crimes committed before the beginning of World War II.{{sfn|Priemel|2016|p=111}} Conspiracy charges were central to the cases against propagandists and industrialists: the former were charged with providing the ideological justification for war and other crimes, while the latter were accused of enabling Germany's war effort.{{sfn|Priemel|2016|pp=112–113}} The charge, a brainchild of [[War Department]] lawyer [[Murray C. Bernays]], and perhaps inspired by his previous work prosecuting [[securities fraud]],{{sfn|Priemel|2016|pp=18, 69, 111}}{{sfn|Sellars|2013|p=69}} was spearheaded by the United States and less popular with the other delegations, particularly France.{{sfn|Priemel|2016|p=99}}

The problem of translating the indictment and evidence into the three official languages of the tribunal—English, French, and Russian—as well as German was severe due to the scale of the task and difficulty of recruiting interpreters, especially in the Soviet Union.{{sfn|Hirsch|2020|pp=82–83}} Vyshinsky demanded extensive corrections to the charges of crimes against peace, especially regarding the role of the [[German–Soviet pact]] in starting World War II.{{sfn|Hirsch|2020|pp=84–86}} Jackson also separated out an overall conspiracy charge from the other three charges, aiming that the American prosecution would cover the overall Nazi conspiracy while the other delegations would flesh out the details of Nazi crimes.{{sfn|Hirsch|2020|p=87}} The division of labor, and the haste with which the indictment was prepared, resulted in duplication, imprecise language, and lack of attribution of specific charges to individual defendants.{{sfn|Priemel|2016|pp=100–101}}