Judgment of the International Military Tribunal (Germany v. Italy)

Members of Germany's National Socialist (Nazi) Party (defendants) planned and carried out invasions of Poland, Austria, and Czechoslovakia beginning in 1939, starting World War II. The defendants had deliberately planned these actions to expand German territory and understood that war would likely be necessary to achieve that goal. After the war, the Allied powers -- France, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and the United States -- signed the London Agreement, creating an International Military Tribunal to try Nazi war criminals. The Tribunal's charter defined a crime against peace as the planning, preparation, initiation, or waging of a war of aggression or a war that violated international treaties.