Editing Nazi Party (section)

=== Defeat and abolition ===
Officially, Nazi Germany lasted only 12 years. The [[German Instrument of Surrender|Instrument of Surrender]] was signed by representatives of the German High Command at [[Berlin]], on 8 May 1945, when the war ended in Europe.{{sfn|McNab|2009|p=25}} The party was formally abolished on 10 October 1945 by the [[Allied Control Council]], followed by the process of [[denazification]] along with [[Nuremberg trials|trials of major war criminals]] before the International Military Tribunal (IMT) in Nuremberg.{{sfn|McNab|2009|pp=25, 26}} Part of the [[Potsdam Agreement]] called for the destruction of the Nazi Party alongside the requirement for the reconstruction of the German political life.{{sfn|Lewkowicz|2008|p=74}} In addition, the Control Council Law no. 2 Providing for the Termination and Liquidation of the Nazi Organization specified the abolition of 52 other Nazi affiliated and supervised organisations and outlawed their activities.{{sfn|Cogen|2016|p=226}} The denazification was carried out in Germany and continued until the onset of the Cold War.{{sfn|Judt|2006|p=?}}{{Page needed|date=June 2020}}{{sfn|Junker|2004|p=65}}

Between 1939 and 1945, the Nazi Party led regime, assisted by [[Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy|collaborationist]] governments and recruits from occupied countries, was responsible for the deaths of at least eleven million people,{{sfn|Rummel|1994|p=112}}{{sfn|Snyder|2010|p=416}} including 5.5 to 6&nbsp;million Jews (representing two-thirds of the Jewish population of Europe),{{sfn|Evans|2008|p=318}}{{sfn|Fischel|1998|p=87}}{{sfn|Bauer|Rozett|1990|p=1799}} and between 200,000 and 1,500,000 [[Porajmos|Romani people]].{{sfn|Hancock|2004|pp=383–96}}{{sfn|Holocaust Memorial Museum}} The estimated total number includes the killing of nearly two million non-Jewish [[Nazi crimes against the Polish nation|Poles]],{{sfn|Holocaust Memorial Museum}} over three million [[Nazi crimes against Soviet POWs|Soviet prisoners of war]],{{sfn|Snyder|2010|p=184}} [[communist]]s, and other political opponents, homosexuals, the physically and mentally disabled.{{sfn|Niewyk|Nicosia|2000|p=45}}{{sfn|Goldhagen|1996|p=290}}