Konstantin Von Neurath - Trial and Imprisonment

Trial and Imprisonment

The Allies put Neurath on trial at Nuremberg in 1946; Otto von Lüdinghausen appeared for his defence. The prosecution accused him of "conspiracy to commit crimes against peace; planning, initiating and waging wars of aggression; war crimes and crimes against humanity". Konstantin von Neurath's chief defence strategy was predicated on the fact that his successor and fellow defendant Joachim von Ribbentrop was more culpable for the atrocities committed in the Nazi state. The International Military Tribunal acknowledged the fact that von Neurath's crimes against humanity were mostly conducted during his short tenure as actual Protector of Bohemia and Moravia, especially in quelling Czech resistance and the summary execution of several university students. The tribunal came to the consensus that Neurath, though a willing and active participant in war crimes, held no such prominent position during the height of the Third Reich's tyranny and was therefore only a minor adherent to the atrocities committed. He was found guilty by the Allied powers on all four counts and was sentenced to fifteen years imprisonment.

Neurath was held as a war criminal in Spandau Prison until November 1954, when he was released in the wake of the Paris Conference, officially due to his ill health - he had suffered a heart attack. He retired to his family's estates in Enzweihingen, where he died two years later, aged 83.