Judges' Trial

The highest-ranking officials of the Nazi judicial system could not be tried: Franz Gürtner, Minister of Justice, died in 1941; Otto Georg Thierack, Minister of Justice since 1942, had committed suicide, as had Reichsgericht President Erwin Bumke; Roland Freisler, the President of the People's Court since 1942, was killed in a 1945 bombing raid on Berlin; Günther Vollmer, the Gauführer of Nazi jurists, had been killed in 1945.

One who was alive but not tried was Hans Globke, who played a significant role in drafting and interpreting the infamous Nuremberg Laws and worked at the Reich Ministry of the Interior for the duration of the war.

He was still under scrutiny for his involvement with the Nazi Party when in 1963 East Germany held a show trial where he was convicted in absentia of War Crimes and sentenced to life in prison.

From the evidence of his closest associates as well as his victims, we find that Oswald Rothaug represented in Germany the personification of the secret Nazi intrigue and cruelty.

The guide to German law entitled Das Recht der Gegenwart is still being published under the name Franz Schlegelberger (ISBN 3-8006-2260-2).

The Judges' Trial was the inspiration for the 1959 teleplay Judgment at Nuremberg, and the 1961 movie adaptation, Judgment at Nuremberg, starring Spencer Tracy, Burt Lancaster, Richard Widmark, Marlene Dietrich, Maximilian Schell, Judy Garland, Montgomery Clift, Werner Klemperer and William Shatner.