If Hitler had been captured

I think he would have fared rather like Goering, who put up his best defense but couldn't deny the massive documents the prosecutors found with his signature on it. The defendants that were acquitted were at worst peripheral Nazis, and IIRC one of them had spent time in a concentration camp during WWII. Hitler was about as guilty as it is possible to get, and would have been sentenced to hang.

No, you defend all monsters the same...

First you 'plan B' someone else (blame another), and you blame your accuser, i.e. 'We only did what the US did to its native-American population...' This is the same defense used for Klaus Barbie...

Then, if that doesn't work, you run with deniability... 'What??? Atrocities were committed????'

The reality is that all war-crimes tribunals collapse into the same thing... The accused know they are going to be found guilty, so they use the forum to make their accusers look like idiots.

I doubt he would have made it to the Nuremburg trials. He would have committed suicide like Himmler did.

The question may be bootless since Hitler (like Himmler, Goebbels and many others) demonstrated his unwillingness to stand trial (as threatened by the United Nations in 1943.)

British-style or American-style insanity defences were not offered at Nuremberg in 1945 and might have been judged unavailable. Hess was prima facie incompetent to defend himself but was still convicted (although not sentenced to death.)

Although many people, including myself, would agree that Hitler indeed was insane, I very much doubt that he would have fit the legal definition. A huge number of people whom I regard as totally bonkers do not fit the legal definition for insanity. That definition requires that the person be incapable of telling the difference between right and wrong. Hitler himself drew sharp distinctions between right and wrong and in that sense I suppose might even be considered a moralizer. The problem is that he based his ideas of right and wrong on principles that the rest of the world found utterly intolerable.

He would have been hanged alongside the other Nazi criminals and it's pretty certain he knew it.

He would have most likely been captured by the Russians, who didn't bother with the Nuremburg trials.

:> lawyer like those at Nuremburg. (some were acquitted) :> But what possible defense would have been presented? :> Insanity defense, perhaps? :> EL

: I doubt he would have made it to the Nuremburg trials. He would have : committed suicide like Himmler did.

I agree that Hitler would have been a good candidate for suicide, after all that's what he ended up doing. But, if somehow caught, I would expect him to try a good offense as opposed to any defense. Recall that his trial and incarceration after the Beer Hall putsch were some of the best things that ever happened to him. He learned valuable lessons, changed his strategy, and wrote his book. I think he might have been narcissistic enough (or in denial enough) to think that a repeat performance might see him once again a great man. Thus, to the extent that the court would tolerate it, I'd expect Hitler wouldn't so much defend his actions (or even deny them) as he would brag about them and be the demagoguge. I can't recall recall the exact words, but recall the speech at his trial 'The godess of eternal history shall tear to tatters the brief of the prosecution and court. Condemn me, a thousand times over, and history will absolve me'. etc. etc. But, keep in mind that any allied tribunal was not likely to be as lenient and passive as the court that tried Hitler after the putsch, which was actually quite sympathetic to Hitlers rightist aims at the time.

The onl.y credible defence he could have presented was probably that the Nuremberg court did not have jurisdiction, and denounced it as a disguise for the revenge of the victors. At that time such an international tribunal was a novelty, and it's basis in international law was precarious. The Nuremberg trials did very much to alter that.

He could possibly have embarked on a defence of tu quoque (you did so yourselves), probably mainly pointing to Russian atrocities.

All this would have been in vain, of course.

Regards

Hans

Probably that he was unfit to stand trial through dementia and Alzheimers, then Head of State immunity, then (like Goering) a defiant defence that he had done nothing wrong.

Yes. The western Allies would have seen to that. And he would have had a trial to himself, too.

Yes. But not anyone very senior.

Hardly. Firstly it would probably not been available to him under international law (the basis of the Tribunal) and secondly, while it was certainly insane to pick a fight with the rest of the world, it doesn't show clinical madness...

Since it would have been the Soviets who captured him, the point is moot. He would not have been given a trial. But if he had, he would have been hanged. As Göring discovered, there is no defence against documentary evidence of

IMHO, there is just no way Hitler would have allowed himself to be captured by the Russians. I personally believe he would have fled west into Allied hands or even tried to escape alltogether.

if hitler was captured just think of it as if it were today what if the president was captured what do we do rescue mission

Had Hitler been captured he would certainly would have been tried at the war crimes trials held after the war (the Allies actually wanted even more senior Nazis, but most of the inner circle killed themselves in the final days of the war). He would likely have led an even more dynamic defense than Goering did at the war crimes trials. I doubt any defense would have changed the verdict and he might have succeeded in killing himself rather than face execution.

I'm rather glad that Hitler decided to kill himself. This is going to sound so strange but it really makes for a better ending to the greatest "story" (simply for lack of a better word. No, I'm not calling WWII a story) ever told. Hitler being captured would be totally out of his character. A man half-crazed holed in a bunker in the last city which was only a few years back an empire made of almost all of Europe is NOT going to let himself be captured.

Hitler himself saw what happened to other officials captured. He was afraid of his body being paraded through the streets as a war prize.

Who knows what secrets he may have had to divulge, it makes you wonder.

the russians would have tortured him and killed him before he even could have gotten out of berlin

"Hitler himself saw what happened to other officials captured. He was afraid of his body being paraded through the streets as a war prize."

This nails it directly into the head. Hitler knew perfectly about what happened to Mussolini after he was executed. He was haunted about something similar happening to him, even worse, if his body was subjected to the "attentions" of the soviet soldiers who were to find him.

As for other german high commanders, someone has named göring among those who wanted to avoid a trial. Actually Göring was one of the, if not the brightest, smartest, of the accused nazis present (that honor would have to be probably shared with Albert Speer, but still). After Göring went through a forced desintoxication proccess that freed him of his morphine addiction he turned from the fat, gross, rediculous monster he was during WWII and turned into the smart, nearing brilliant, man he was in WW1 and interwar period. And he never tried to avoid his trial, in fact he was the most active accused in the whole proccess defending himself skillfully (According to those who presenced it), and enjoying his chances to overmaneouver the accusation.

What he didn't want was to face excecution. Once he was held guilty and sentenced to death, he got the chance to commit suicide and did it promptly (Someone gave him a poison capsule the day prior to his execution). IF someone is smart enough to procure himself a poison capsule through all the security present the day prior to the executions, he also easily can do it during the trials or prior to them when security is not as tight...in short, Göring didn't want to avoid the trials at all, he just wanted to avoid being executed as the hellish criminal he was.

I wouldn't have said that Goering was a great intellect.

He failed to destroy the B.E.F. at Dunkirk with airpower as he said he would.lost the Battle of Britain,claimed that the British would never drop a bomb on Germany,told Hitler that that he could supply the encirled sixth army at Stalingrad (with the result that Hitler forbade any withdrwals and thus doomed the huge amount of troops there.
)

Also on D Day the allies had complete air superiority and later won the airwar over Germany.

Goebells was probably the most intelligent of the German leaders though that is only my opinion.

There were two different Görings.

one of them is the most known: the bombastic morphine addict from the warfare years, which was a decadent piece of flesh that couldn't really take an intelligent decision because he always was high on morphine.

Other of them was an ex-WW1 fighter ace with good leader skills, or the highly feared (with a reason), highly intelligent, well skilled chief of the Prussian Police, president of the reichstag, and among the most powerful and influent members of the Nazi movement.

Göring was forced to quit on morphine after his capture. And after he had got over the withdrawal effects, he showed a brilliant intelect on IQ tests done on him by his captors.
In the trial he surprised almost everyone (even his own kin, who were surprised he was the "old" Herrman instead of the well known drug addict human disgrace he had turned himself to), and all accounts speak of an individual who was very skillful defending himself.

Of course that didn't prevent him being sentenced to death...even the brightest man couldn't escape such a sentence with his past actions. But Göring was really, really intelligent.

Just not when he was high on morphine (which was most of WW2)

/edit

dunno about the most intelligent nazi leader. Goebbels was a snake and a really good propagandist, but intelligent?...some hints point him as an opportunist guy more than intelligent.

I'd say the most intelligent guy in the Nazi hyerarchy depends on ho you think and include as part of said hyerarchy. From the nominal list, it's a proven fact that both Dönitz and Göring had an IQ around 140 (IQ tests done after their capture by allied forces, and out of drugs in the case of Göring. As a reference I recall reading Einstein's IQ was around 158).

If you expand that list a bit to include those who had a high post of responsability, but no real decision power on their own, Hjamar Schatch was 141 in his IQ tests, I think Raeder also was around the 140, Ribbentropp 128 or so, and Speer I don't recall , was lower than that but still genius(IIRc around 120).

There's a list somewhere with all the IQ tests done on captured high-ranking nazi personalities. von Papen was also high, around 130 IIRC, but a notable ammount of them was well over 120.

Remember that 100 is the average and over 120 the individual is qualified as a highly intelligent being, and at 140 was genius.

In other words, both Dönitz and Göring were qualifiable as genius, as Schacht was. Most of the others were qualifiable at least as "highly intelligent"

Question remains about the IQ of Hitler, probably we'd be surprised here (he was no fool at all. He was completely out of his mind,but that doesn't mean an underaverage intelligence). Göbbels I honestly don't think he'd be as high as those as I listed avobe. But we'll never know.

BTW and on a different note. The 6th army and (part of) 4th Pz army stand on Stalingrad probably saved the whole lot of the German Army Group B and Don later. They bought a priceless time delaying the subsequent soviet offensives along all the southern front, and quite probably they saved the whole lot of the Army Group A from being cut off at the Caucasus (as it was it was a VERY close run affair and only viable because Manstein was at his best) just because they resisted so much as they did

Of the many, many, many, many, many (but MANY, ) stupid strategic orders Hitler gave during the war, his decision on resisting at Stalingrad at any costs wasn't really one of them. Göring influenced this decision at an extreme cost for the Luftwaffe transport and bomber crews, but the decision was solid and probably avoided a much larger disaster later.

Of course we should discuss it somewhere else because this is an OT thing and out of the scope of this thread .