November 20 marks the anniversary of the Nuremberg Trials, when the Allies officially brought high-ranking Nazi officials to justice. By the time the Nuremberg Trials began on November 20, 1945, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Goebbels, and Heinrich Himmler were already long dead. In their places sat some of the most prominent Nazis to have survived the war: politicians, generals, and corporate executives.

In twelve short years the regime they represented had initiated the Second World War, a six-year conflict of unbelievably destructive proportions. It had facilitated the torture and murder of thousands of political opponents, homosexuals, and disabled persons and the industrial-scale genocide of over six million European Jews. Only a few months after the war’s end, some of the regime’s most heinous figures such as Hermann Göring, Rudolf Hess, Alfred Rosenberg, and Albert Speer were to be put on trial in the wood-paneled halls of Nuremberg’s Palace of Justice.

The first of what became thirteen different Nuremberg Trials lasted 218 days. A total of 240 witnesses were called to the stand and 300,000 sworn affidavits collected. The minutes of the trial encompassed over 16,000 pages. At its conclusion twelve defendants were sentenced to death, while many others received lengthy prison sentences. The trial represented the first step in resolving hostilities between Germany and the Allies and paved the way for reintegration of Germany into the postwar order.