High Command Trial - Indictment

Indictment

The accused faced four charges of having committed war crimes and crimes against humanity:

1. Crimes against peace by waging aggressive war against other nations and violating international treaties.
2. War crimes by being responsible for murder, ill-treatment and other crimes against prisoners of war and enemy belligerents.
3. Crimes against humanity by participating or ordering the murder, torture, deportation, hostage-taking, etc. of civilians in occupied countries.
4. Participating and organizing the formulations and execution of a common plan and conspiracy to commit aforementioned crimes.

All defendants were indicted on all counts; they all pleaded "not guilty".

Count 4 of the indictment—the conspiracy charge—was soon dropped by the tribunal because it was already covered by the other charges.

On count 1, the tribunal considered all accused not guilty, stating that they were not the policy-makers and that preparing for war and fighting a war on orders was not a criminal offense under the applicable international law of the time.