The proceedings started on Nov. 20, 1945. The scene was the southern German city of Nuremberg, the site of some of the Nazi Party's largest rallies and -- after the war -- little more than a pile of rubble. One building though, survived the Allied bombing raids largely intact: the Nuremberg Palace of Justice. It was here, in Room 600  , that the Allies staged one of the most ambitious war crimes trials ever. Here, the leaders of Adolf Hitler's Nazi government -- one of the most murderous humanity has ever seen -- were to be brought to justice.

Many of the top Nazis, of course, were already dead. Adolf Hitler himself had committed suicide on April 30, 1945 and his propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, followed his lead the next day, taking wife Magda and their six children with him. Holocaust architect Reinhard Heydrich had been assassinated by Czechoslovak agents in 1942. But the roll call of defendants was impressive. Head of the German air force and close Hitler confidant Hermann Göring. Rabid anti-Jew baiter Julius Streicher. Head of German navy --and German chancellor in the days following Hitler's suicide -- Karl Dönitz.

US prosecutor Robert H. Jackson presided over the trial, laying out the charges in gruesome detail in his opening speech on Nov. 21. Some 11 months later, the Nuremberg War Crimes Trial came to an end with the handing down of 12 death sentences -- of which only 10 were carried out. Göring committed suicide shortly before his planned execution and Hitler's secretary, Martin Bormann, was sentenced in absentia. It was later discovered that he died during the final days of the war in Berlin. In addition, three were imprisoned for life, four for terms ranging from 10 to 20 years and three acquitted. Three others committed suicide.