Paul H. Gantt Nuremberg trials papers
Scope and Contents
This collection contains 44 volumes of bound material and 71 photographic prints that pertain to the Nuremberg Trials conducted by the International Military Tribunal from November 20, 1945 – October 1, 1946, and the subsequent trials conducted by the Office of Military Government, United States (OMGUS) Military Tribunal from December 9, 1946 – April 13, 1949.
Dates
- Creation: 1919-1949
Creator
- Gantt, Paul H., 1907-1979 (Person)
Conditions Governing Access
There are no restrictions on access. This collection is open to the public.
Conditions Governing Use
Towson University Special Collections and University Archives (SCUA) is the owner of the original materials and digitized images in our collections; however, the collection may contain materials for which copyright is not held. Patrons are responsible for determining the appropriate use or reuse of materials. Consult with SCUA to determine if we can provide permission for use.
Biographical Note
Donated to Towson University in 1979, the Paul H. Gantt Nuremberg Trial Papers contain bound volumes of Gantt's working papers and a series of photographs related to the Nuremberg trials which took place in occupied Germany from 1945-1946 and from 1946-1949. The documents include legal briefs with annotations, correspondence files, military reports, and other documentation that reflect Gantt's roles and responsibilities as a member of American military prosecution teams.
Born in Austria in 1907, Paul Hawkins Gantt came to the United States in 1939 with a doctorate in law from the University of Vienna. After obtaining a JD from the College of William and Mary in 1942 he served as a member of the U.S. Army in World War II from 1942-1943. He entered government service work in 1944 at the Office of the General Counsel, National Housing Agency, Washington, D.C.
Following multiple postings as an attorney for U.S. government agencies, he went on to serve in Nuremberg, Germany, from 1946-1949 with the Office of Chief of Counsel for War Crimes, Department of the Army (OCCWC). During this time he was deputy chief of two out of twelve trial teams responsible for preparing war crimes cases heard before the Nuremberg Military Tribunals. He also served as director of the Special Projects Division and worked to prepare the German edition of publications of the trial proceedings which were printed by the United States Government Printing Office. At the conclusion of these trials in 1949 Gantt returned to the United States to continue his career as a lawyer and a government executive, working with the Department of the Interior and the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, among other government agencies.
Gantt became a naturalized citizen of the U.S. in 1943. He was married to Hilda Elizabeth Delaney in 1948 while in Nuremberg. He was a member of many professional and fraternal organizations, including the American Bar Association, Federal Bar Association, and the American Legion. Gantt is the author of a book, “The Case of Alfred Packer, the Man Eater” (1952) and many other articles and reviews. In 1976 he retired to Towson, Maryland. He died in 1979 and was buried at the New Cathedral Cemetery in Baltimore, Maryland.
Historical Note
Even before World War II ended efforts were made to bring to justice the individuals responsible for the war and its effects. The Moscow Declaration was signed in 1943 by the leaders of the Soviet Union, Britain, and the U.S, which committed to punishing Axis powers for atrocities carried out during World War II. Following the war, in August 1945, at the London Charter Conference, the United States, Soviet Union, Great Britain, and France, established the London Agreement: a trial process and charges for crimes against the peace, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and conspiracy. These charges marked a new development in the realm of international human rights and accomplished a long sought goal to establish a framework for preventing human rights abuses justified by war time.
One result of the London Agreement was the International Military Tribunal (IMT), created to accomplish the goal of providing due process and holding war criminals responsible for their actions. The IMT involved the participation of all four Allied powers (the United States, Soviet Union, Great Britain, and France) with two judges from each country; one from each presiding at trial, the second from each available as a backup. Under the agreement, the Allied powers would try the most important officials responsible for war atrocities in Nuremberg, with trials following for lower level individuals in each of the four occupied zones. The IMT prosecuted a total of twenty-four top ranking Nazi Party officials that could still be located after the war, with eighteen convicted.
Under authority of Allied Control Council Law No. 10 (December 20, 1945), which granted each of the occupying powers of Germany to conduct trials in their respective zones, Brigadier General Telford Taylor began implementing plans for US led trials to be held in Nuremberg. Although Law No. 10 gave authority to carry out trials in the occupied zones, the law did not specify many details in how this should be carried out. Consequently, OMGUS instituted Military Governance Order No. 7, which laid out in detail the parameters by which the trials should be held. For instance, Order No. 10 specified that the subsequent trials be presided over by the United States Nuernberg [sic] Military Tribunals (NMT), made up of experienced lawyers from U.S. high courts. The subsequent trials, using the same categories of crimes established for the first trial, were held in the U.S. occupied zone in Nuremberg in 1946-1949 by the U.S. Office of the Military Government for Germany (OMGUS). These are the trials for which Gantt served, working with a prosecution team under chief prosecutor, Telford Taylor.
Between December 1946 and April 1949 the NMT, under Taylor’s direction, prosecuted a total of 185 accused war criminals in twelve separate cases. These twelve cases were as follows:
Case No. 1: United States vs. Karl Brandt, et al. (Doctors’ Case)
Case No. 2: United States vs. Erhard Milch (Milch Case)
Case No. 3: United States vs. Josef Altstötter, et al. (Judges’ Case)
Case No. 4: United States vs. Oswald Pohl, et al. (Pohl Case)
Case No. 5: United States vs. Friedrich Flick, et al. (Flick Case)
Case No. 6: United States vs. Carl Krauch, et al. (IG Farben Case)
Case No. 7: United States vs. Wilhelm List, et al. (Hostages Case)
Case No. 8: United States vs. Ulrich Greifelt, et al. (RuSHA Case)
Case No. 9: United States vs. Otto Ohlendorf, et al. (Einsatzgruppen Case)
Case No. 10: United States vs. Alfried Krupp, et al. (Krupp Case)
Case No. 11: United States vs. Ernst von Weizsäcker, et al. (Ministries Case)
Case No. 12: United States vs. Wilhelm von Leeb, et al. (High Command Case)
Paul Gantt worked as part of the prosecution team on at least two of the cases, the Milch Case and the Ministries Case. As OCCWC prepared to conclude all trial proceedings in Nuremberg, Gantt was appointed director of the Special Projects Division on 10 January 1948. The Special Projects Division was established in 1947 to collect evidence gathered by American prosecution staff in Nuremberg for transfer to German Denazification tribunals. A full history of the Division may be found in the first document of Volume E, which has been digitized and is available online at: http://library.towson.edu/cdm/ref/collection/gantt/id/849.
While executing his duties as SPD director, Gantt also worked to prepare the English and German editions of Trials of War Criminals before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals Under Control Council Law No. 10, also known as the Green Series, and printed by the United States Government Printing Office. The Green Series is often referred to as the official trial record, and offers the most comprehensive collected coverage of prosecution and defense statements and evidence for all twelve trials. The prosecution and defense statements included in the Green Series are excerpted from the official Transcript of the Military Tribunals, which is now stored with the National Archives Collection of World War II War Crimes Records. This may be one of the few primary sources depicting the view of the defense, since the main official record, the Green Series, was written and edited by the American prosecution. Other sources depicting alternate views include the body of work on “victors’ justice” and analysis of the legality of the trials.
Extent
14 Linear Feet
Language of Materials
English
German
Arrangement
The arrangement of the collection as reflected in this document is the result of a combination of original order and order imposed by the arrangers in the course of preparing this collection guide. Although some documentation exists which might suggest an original order, the arrangers felt that a combination of original and imposed order would best facilitate access to and use of the collection by researchers.
In one of the volumes the arrangers found a piece of Gantt’s U.S. Atomic Energy Commission stationery used as a bookmark. This piece of paper suggests that the final organization of the papers and binding of the volumes was done some time after 1964. It is presumed that Gantt arranged the collection himself and had them bound. Although they vary in size all of the volumes are uniformly bound with the exception of the photographs and the four volumes of Weiner Zetung. Because the materials were bound so long after the trials it is unclear if the arrangement reflects their use during the trials or simply the organization that made sense to Gantt at the time that he was preparing them for binding.
Numbering of the volumes by Gantt is inconsistent and the only evidence of how he may have ordered the volumes after binding can be found in an appraisal of the collection which was completed by P. William Filby in March 1979. The appraisal itemizes the volumes, but it is unclear if their order reflects how the volumes were arranged on a shelf or if perhaps Filby had been examining them in some other way, for example, as they were unpacked from boxes.
Sometime around 2005 the Towson University History Department began a project to digitize and display online these volumes. Project participants prepared a catalog of holdings by assigning a unique identifying volume letter to each of the volumes and recording each volume letter and title in a list which was published to a project website. The order of the collection reflected in this list is quite different from that of Filby’s list in the appraisal. Since the filename of digital scans created by the History Department includes the unique volume letter these have been indicated in square brackets at the end of each volume title.
Taking all of these things into consideration the volumes in this collection have been organized into 14 series which seem to reflect a natural progression of their use towards the end of the principal IMT trial and the beginning, duration, and end of the subsequent NMT trials. The first series begins with materials and closing briefs from the IMT trial which were published July 31, 1946. Series 2 and 3 deal with broader topics of planning and preparations for the NMT trials and the collection of testimonial evidence from witnesses. Series 4 and 5 focus in particular on the Milch Case (Case 2) and the Flick Case (Case 5). In Series 6 Gantt has gathered a miscellany of material that relates to various aspects of the OCCWC, the U.S. Occupied Zone agency responsible for the executive and administrative functions necessary for conducting the subsequent NMT trials.
As these trials wound down Gantt worked on preparing special editions of multi-volume works for printing by the United States Government Printing Office as official records of the trials; information about the preparation of manuscripts, particularly for the Milch Case and the Flick Case, can be found in series 7. Series 8 contains a special report on the trial of Hermann Roechling and associates in the French Zone of occupation and includes comparisons between the French and U.S. uses of evidence and their conducting of trials as provided for by Control Council No. 10. Series 9 focuses on the Special Projects Division, which was established toward the end of the subsequent NMT trials and signaled beginning efforts to conclude the work of the NMT and to hand over remaining evidence to German Denazification tribunals. Series 10 is a publication of the indictments filed in each of the 12 subsequent NMT trials and may have been printed under Gantt’s direction as director of the Special Projects Division or as part of his work on the Green Series.
Series 11 also deals with the OCCWC, but is distinguished slightly from Series 6 by Gantt’s own numbering of the volumes, and by the more summative nature of the documents. Series 12 focuses on another of the 12 trials, the Ministries Case (Case 11). Gantt’s supplemental material, contained in series 13, include bound volumes on various topics that would have been useful reference material but don’t seem to pertain to any one particular subsequent NMT trial.
Finally, 71 photographic prints make up Series 14, with photos from each of the 12 trials documenting views of the courtroom, the tribunals, prosecutors, defendants, and witnesses. The following is an outline of the 14 series in the collection with a list of the volumes contained within each. The outline is following by a detailed description of each series, with a series overview and a brief summary of the contents of each volume within its respective series:
Series 1. International Military Tribunal Material
• Document book Schacht I [Volume M]
• Document Book – Slave Labor [Volume S]
• Closing Briefs – Göring, Hess, Bormann, Frick, Frank [Volume JJ]
• Closing Briefs – SeyssiInquart, Kaltenbrunner, Schirach, Rosenberg [Volume KK]
• Closing Briefs – Keitel, Dönitz, Raeder [Volume LL]
• Closing Briefs – Funk, Göring, Sauckel, Schacht, Speer [Volume MM]
• Closing Briefs – Ribbentrop, Neurath, Papen [Volume NN]
Series 2. Nuremberg Military Tribunal Material
• Gantt: Wehrwirtschaftsführer (War/Military Economy Leader); Gantt: Coal; RVK; Gantt: Oil; Gantt: RVE; Petschek; Aryanization; Nazi Economic Agencies; Digest Economic Case IMT; Glossary Economic Terms; Glossary SS Terms [Volume U]
• Briefs – Leadership, New Approach, Aryanization, Support of NSDAP, Slave Labor, Defendants [Volume OO]
• Historical Data; “Intent” Brief; Wehrwirtschaftsfuehrer; Glossaries [Volume R]
• Research in Washington – Dresdner Bank Case (dis-bound) [Volume A]
Series 3. Nuremberg Military Tribunal Interrogation Summaries
• Interrogation Summaries 1-199 [Volume W]
• Interrogation Summaries 400-599 [Volume Y]
• Interrogation Summaries 600-799 [Volume Z]
• Interrogation Summaries 800-999 [Volume AA]
• Interrogation Summaries 1200-1399 [Volume X]
Series 4. Nuremberg Military Tribunal Case No. 2: United States vs. Erhard Milch [Volume Ga]
Series 5. Nuremberg Military Tribunal Case No. 5: United States vs. Friedrich Flick, et al.
• Flick Case – 1. Konzern data 2. Defense Brief [Volume D]
• Slave Labor – 1. Nazi Slave Labor Program 2. Evidence before IMT 3. Deportation 4. Various questions (“Reprisal”) . Decision IMT 6. Flick Slave Labor 7. IMT Brief [Volume V]
• I. Flick Case No. 1 II. Wilhelm Tengelmann III. Vienna Mission [Volume EE]
• Flick Case No. 2 (dis-bound) [Volume FF]
• Flick Case No. 3 – Burkart Indictment, Arraignment, Development Flick Konzern, Glossary, Economic Group Iron Prod. Industry, Spoliation: Rombach, Vairogs, Dnjepr Stahl, Siemag, BHO, Keppler Circle, Flick Income [Volume GG]
• Flick Case No. 4 (dis-bound) [Volume HH]
• US vs. Flick – Spoliation Brief, Aryanization Brief, Keppler Circle Brief [Volume C]
• US vs. Flick – Closing Statement of Prosecution, Rebuttal Statement, Slave Labor Brief, Coercion Brief (1947) [Volume B]
Series 6. Gantt’s Miscellaneous Volumes
• Vol. VII, Miscellaneous (dis-bound) [Volume E]
• Vol. VIII, Miscellaneous (dis-bound) [Volume F]
Series 7. Trials of War Criminals Before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals Under Control Council Law No. 10 (Green Series) [Volume G]
Series 8. The Government Commissioner of the General Tribunal of the Military Government for the French Zone of Occupation in Germany vs. Hermann Roechling, et al. [Volume H]
Series 9. Special Projects Division
• Vol.s XII.I Special Projects Division (dis-bound) [Volume I]
• Vol. XII.II Special Projects Division (dis-bound) [Volume J]
Series 10. Nuremberg Military Tribunal Indictments Publication [Volume P]
Series 11. Office of Chief Counsel for War Crimes Miscellaneous [Volume K]
Series 12. Nuremberg Military Tribunal Case No. 11: United States vs. Ernst von Weizsäcker, et al.
• Vol. XIV – Ministries Case: (A) Pleiger (B) Koerner (C) Keppler [Volume L]
• Case No. 11 – Indictment, Opening Statement, Basic Information [Volume CC]
• Case No. 11 – Document Books No. 134, 135, 139, and 140 [Volume DD]
Series 13. Supplemental Material
• Dr. Rolf Wagenfuehr, Rise and Fall of German War Economy, 1939-1945; Oberstleutnant Dr. Hedler, Befehlsgewalt und Wirtschaftsfuehrung (Lt. Col. Dr. Hedler, command and economic management); Organization of Reichsvereinigungen; Strike in French coal regions 1941 [Volume N]
• Germany – Basic Handbook (binding posts removed) [Volume Q]
• Staatsgeset blatt und Bundesgeset blatt f r die Republik sterreich (State Gazette and Federal Law Gazette for the Republic of Austria) [Volume O]
• “Old Lace” Documents [Volume T]
• Wiener Zeitung [Volume II]
Series 14. Photographic Series
Scanned numbering codes
• Document book Schacht I [Volume M] - DBSC
• Document Book – Slave Labor [Volume S] - DBSV
• Closing Briefs – Göring, Hess, Bormann, Frick, Frank [Volume JJ] - CBG
• Closing Briefs – SeyssiInquart, Kaltenbrunner, Schirach, Rosenberg [Volume KK] - CBS
• Closing Briefs – Keitel, Dönitz, Raeder [Volume LL] - CBK
• Closing Briefs – Funk, Göring, Sauckel, Schacht, Speer [Volume MM] - CBF
• Closing Briefs – Ribbentrop, Neurath, Papen [Volume NN] - CBR
• Gantt: Wehrwirtschaftsführer (War/Military Economy Leader); Gantt: Coal; RVK; Gantt: Oil; Gantt: RVE; Petschek; Aryanization; Nazi Economic Agencies; Digest Economic Case IMT; Glossary Economic Terms; Glossary SS Terms [Volume U] - WW, WWL (loose leaf)
• Briefs – Leadership, New Approach, Aryanization, Support of NSDAP, Slave Labor, Defendants [Volume OO] - BR
• Historical Data; “Intent” Brief; Wehrwirtschaftsfuehrer; Glossaries [Volume R] - HD
• Research in Washington – Dresdner Bank Case (dis-bound) [Volume A] - RW
• Interrogation Summaries 1-199 [Volume W] - IS1-
• Interrogation Summaries 400-599 [Volume Y] - IS4-
• Interrogation Summaries 600-799 [Volume Z] - IS6-
• Interrogation Summaries 800-999 [Volume AA] - IS8-
• Interrogation Summaries 1200-1399 [Volume X] - IS12-
• Nuremberg Military Tribunal Case No. 2: United States vs. Erhard Milch [Volume Ga] - NMT2
• Flick Case – 1. Konzern data 2. Defense Brief [Volume D] - FCK
• Slave Labor – 1. Nazi Slave Labor Program 2. Evidence before IMT 3. Deportation 4. Various questions (“Reprisal”) . Decision IMT 6. Flick Slave Labor 7. IMT Brief [Volume V] - SV, SVL (loose leaf)
• I. Flick Case No. 1 II. Wilhelm Tengelmann III. Vienna Mission [Volume EE] - FC1-
• Flick Case No. 2 (dis-bound) [Volume FF] - FC2-
• Flick Case No. 3 – Burkart Indictment, Arraignment, Development Flick Konzern, Glossary, Economic Group Iron Prod. Industry, Spoliation: Rombach, Vairogs, Dnjepr Stahl, Siemag, BHO, Keppler Circle, Flick Income [Volume GG] - FC3-
• Flick Case No. 4 (dis-bound) [Volume HH] - FC4-
• US vs. Flick – Spoliation Brief, Aryanization Brief, Keppler Circle Brief [Volume C] - FCS
• US vs. Flick – Closing Statement of Prosecution, Rebuttal Statement, Slave Labor Brief, Coercion Brief (1947) [Volume B] - FCC
• Vol. VII, Miscellaneous (dis-bound) [Volume E] - 7M
• Vol. VIII, Miscellaneous (dis-bound) [Volume F] - 8M
• Trials of War Criminals Before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals Under Control Council Law No. 10 (Green Series) [Volume G] - NMT
• The Government Commissioner of the General Tribunal of the Military Government for the French Zone of Occupation in Germany vs. Hermann Roechling, et al. [Volume H] - GC, GCL (loose leaf)
• Vol.s XII.I Special Projects Division (dis-bound) [Volume I] - SP1-
• Vol. XII.II Special Projects Division (dis-bound) [Volume J] - SP2-
• Nuremberg Military Tribunal Indictments Publication [Volume P] - NMTI
• Office of Chief Counsel for War Crimes Miscellaneous [Volume K] - OCCWC
• Vol. XIV – Ministries Case: (A) Pleiger (B) Koerner (C) Keppler [Volume L] - MC, MCL (Loose leaf)
• Case No. 11 – Indictment, Opening Statement, Basic Information [Volume CC] - MCI
• Case No. 11 – Document Books No. 134, 135, 139, and 140 [Volume DD] - MCD
• Dr. Rolf Wagenfuehr, Rise and Fall of German War Economy, 1939-1945; Oberstleutnant Dr. Hedler, Befehlsgewalt und Wirtschaftsfuehrung (Lt. Col. Dr. Hedler, command and economic management); Organization of Reichsvereinigungen; Strike in French coal regions 1941 [Volume N] - DRW, DRWL (loose leaf)
• Germany – Basic Handbook (binding posts removed) [Volume Q] - GBH
• Staatsgeset blatt und Bundesgeset blatt f r die Republik sterreich (State Gazette and Federal Law Gazette for the Republic of Austria) [Volume O] - SBBB
• “Old Lace” Documents [Volume T] - OLD
• Wiener Zeitung [Volume II] - WZ
Bibliography
- College of William and Mary (n.d.) Alumni file. Williamsburg, VA.
- Conot, R. E. (1983). Justice at Nuremberg. New York: Harper and Row.
- Gantt, Paul Hawkins. (1967). In The National cyclopædia of American biography: Being the history of the United States, as illustrated in the lives of the founders, builders, and defenders of the Republic, and of the men and women who are doing the work and moulding the thought of the present time (Vol. K, pp. 570-572). New York, NY: J.T. White.
- Nuremberg Trials. (1998). In West’s encyclopedia of American law (2nd Ed., pp.285-291). Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN: West Pub. Co.
- Nuremberg Trial(s). (1997). In E.J. Epstein (Ed.), Dictionary of the holocaust. Westport, CT: Greenwood.
- Subsequent Nuremberg Trials. (1997). In E.J. Epstein (Ed.), Dictionary of the holocaust. Westport, CT: Greenwood.
- Taylor, T. (1949) Final report to the Secretary of the Army on the Nuernberg War Crimes Trials under Control Council Law No. 10. Washington, D.C.: U.S. G.P.O.
- Trial of the major war criminals before the International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg, 14 November 1945-1 October 1946. (1947). Nuremberg, Germany.
- Trials of war criminals before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals under Control Council law no. 10, Nuremberg, October 1946-April, 1949. (1949). Washington, D.C: U.S. G.P.O.
- War Crimes. (2001). In W. Laqueur (Ed.) The Holocaust Encyclopedia. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Cultural context
Genre / Form
Temporal
Topical
- Altstötter, Josef, 1892-
- Brandt, Karl, 1904-1948
- Einsatzgruppen Trial, Nuremberg, Germany, 1947-1948.
- IG-Farben, Auschwitz, mass murder
- Milch, Erhard, 1892-1972
- National socialism
- Nuremberg Trial of Major German War Criminals, 1945-1946
- Office of Military Government for Germany (U.S.)
- Pohl, Oswald, 1892-1951
- War crime trials -- Germany.
- War crimes.
Uniform Title
- Title
- Guide to the Paul H. Gantt Nuremberg trials papers
- Status
- In Progress
- Author
- Sara Arnold-Garza, imported into ArchivesSpace by John Esh
- Date
- 2012, 2021
- Description rules
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin
Repository Details
Part of the Towson University Special Collections and University Archives Repository