Selective Criminal Accountability After Dictatorship

Selective Criminal Accountability After Dictatorship

Nuremberg as a Historical Comparison for Post-Islamic-Republic Iran

Peyman Bakhshayesh, MD, PhD, MBA

20 May 2026

Central thesis

A criminal state can be condemned without criminalising an entire society. A lawful transition should distinguish ordinary survival under dictatorship from provable criminal responsibility for ordering, organising, enabling, or directly committing crimes.

Abstract

The Nuremberg proceedings illustrate an important principle of post-dictatorship justice: criminal responsibility should be individualised rather than assigned to an entire society. Nazi Germany mobilised vast military, political and administrative institutions, but the International Military Tribunal and subsequent US trials focused on particular defendants and their alleged conduct. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum records 199 defendants tried and 161 convicted in the Nuremberg proceedings 1. Those figures describe that specific set of trials, not the full extent of Nazi crimes or post-war accountability.

This article uses Nuremberg as a historical and legal comparison for possible future accountability in Iran. It does not use a ratio of German defendants to party members, soldiers or population to forecast Iranian prosecutions. The Islamic Republic’s documented record includes executions, torture, unfair trials and repression 7 8 9. Future justice should distinguish ordinary survival and employment from provable participation in crime. Ideological support, institutional position and individual criminal responsibility are different questions, requiring different evidence and lawful procedures.

Key findings

1. Nuremberg: the legally relevant numbers

The first Nuremberg trial, the International Military Tribunal (IMT), tried 22 major Nazi leaders. The tribunal convicted 19, acquitted 3, and imposed punishments ranging from imprisonment to death. Twelve death sentences were pronounced, although Hermann Göring died by suicide before execution and Martin Bormann had been tried in absentia. Ten defendants were executed following the IMT judgment 2.

The subsequent US Nuremberg proceedings consisted of 12 trials before US military tribunals. They focused on doctors, judges, industrialists, Einsatzgruppen commanders, SS officials, military commanders, diplomats, and civil servants. The United States indicted 185 defendants, of whom 177 stood trial. These proceedings produced 24 death sentences, 20 life sentences, 98 other prison terms, and 35 acquittals 3.

The totals for defendants and convictions can be combined: 22 plus 177 defendants gives 199, and 19 plus 142 convictions gives 161. Death-sentence figures require more care. The Museum’s overview reports 37 overall, whereas its detailed account of the subsequent proceedings reports 24 alongside 12 at the IMT 1 2 3. Rather than conceal that source discrepancy or equate sentences with executions, this article presents the trial-specific figures separately and does not use an aggregate death-sentence total for further calculations.

2. Scale comparison: participation versus punishment

Nazi Germany was a mass-mobilisation dictatorship. Its military, party, SS, police, judiciary and bureaucracy involved extensive and overlapping populations. The denominator changes depending on whether one counts cumulative membership, service at a particular date, wartime recruits, civilians or institutions. Even a reliable institutional headcount would not identify the number of people individually responsible for criminal acts. This article therefore avoids percentages based on broad party or military membership.

The comparison that matters is qualitative: a particular criminal case is narrower than a whole population or institution. That distinction does not establish that only a small fixed proportion of people committed crimes. It establishes that guilt must be connected to acts, legally relevant omissions and individual responsibility, rather than inferred from a category label.

Selective prosecution also has practical limits. Investigators must prioritise evidence and cases, but prioritisation is not a declaration that everyone outside the first group is innocent, nor is a low prosecution count proof that the underlying criminal conduct was rare. Prosecutorial capacity, deaths of suspects, missing archives, flight abroad and political choices can all affect which cases reach court. The historical number prosecuted should never be turned into a quota for justice in a different country.

3. Visualising the Nuremberg outcome

Table 1 records the IMT and subsequent US proceedings separately. It distinguishes indictments, defendants who stood trial, convictions, acquittals and death sentences. The figures are historical records of judgments; they do not prescribe acceptable punishment for a future Iranian process.

The legal question is not how many members an institution had, but which persons can be connected by reliable evidence to crimes and to the applicable grounds of responsibility.

4. Important caveat: Nuremberg was not the whole justice process

Nuremberg was the symbolic centre of post-war justice, not the entire accountability system. Other Allied, German, Polish, Soviet, French, British, American, and national courts tried many more Nazi perpetrators and collaborators. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum emphasises that other courts tried many more perpetrators and collaborators and that many people responsible for crimes were never brought to justice 4.

Therefore, the correct conclusion is not that only 199 Nazis were held accountable. The correct conclusion is that the highest-profile international trials targeted a narrow command and functional elite, while broader accountability was handled through national trials, occupation courts, denazification, dismissals, imprisonment, confiscation, and later prosecutions.

5. Legal principle: individual responsibility, not collective revenge

The Nuremberg legacy established that individuals, including heads of state and senior officials, can be personally responsible for crimes under international law. The Nuremberg Principles established individual criminal responsibility, removed head-of-state immunity for core international crimes, and emphasised fair-trial rights 5.

Modern international criminal law also provides detailed grounds of individual responsibility. Article 25 of the Rome Statute concerns natural persons and liability for committing, ordering, inducing, aiding or otherwise contributing to crimes; Article 28 addresses responsibility of commanders and other superiors under specified conditions 6. These provisions are a comparative legal framework here. They do not mean the International Criminal Court automatically has jurisdiction over every offence in Iran: jurisdiction, dates, applicable law and admissibility must be established in any actual case.

This is crucial for Iran. Justice should not mean punishment of social categories such as all civil servants, all soldiers, all religious people, all former officials, all families of officials, or all people who once cooperated with the state. A lawful transition must focus on provable acts, command responsibility, documentary evidence, chain of command, victim testimony, forensic evidence, and fair trial.

6. Relevance to the Islamic Republic of Iran

The Islamic Republic’s record includes revolutionary courts, political imprisonment, executions, religious persecution, ideological policing and repression affecting dissidents, women, labour activists, students, journalists and ethnic or religious minorities. Contemporary documentation and the historical record of the 1988 prison killings provide concrete evidence without treating every community as having experienced identical forms of persecution 7 8 9.

Amnesty International has reported that between late July and September 1988 Iranian authorities forcibly disappeared and extrajudicially executed thousands of political prisoners, with minimum estimates around 5,000 7. Human Rights Watch has described the 1988 mass executions as evident crimes against humanity and reports estimates between 2,800 and 5,000 across at least 32 cities 8. In 2026, Iran Human Rights and ECPM reported at least 1,639 executions in Iran in 2025, the highest recorded number since 1989 according to their annual report 9.

7. Accountability in Iran: a qualitative scenario, not a numerical prediction

It is impossible to calculate in advance how many Islamic Republic officials would be sentenced after a transition. That number would depend on evidence, archives, witnesses, judicial independence, prosecutorial capacity, the political settlement, and whether trials are domestic, hybrid, or international.

Nuremberg offers a defensible principle of individual responsibility, not a numerical estimate for Iran. No evidence in this article establishes whether future Iranian proceedings would involve hundreds, thousands or any particular proportion of the population. A possible prosecutorial priority, proposed by the author, would be senior decision-makers and direct perpetrators where evidence connects them to executions, torture, enforced disappearances, sexual violence, systematic persecution or other serious crimes. Additional cases could follow as evidence and capacity develop; the priority is not an immunity arrangement for others.

8. Proposed Iranian transitional justice architecture

The following is an institutional proposal by the author, not a forecast of convictions. Criminal prosecution, truth-seeking, reparations and institutional reform perform different functions and should reinforce each other. Decisions must be reviewable and fair; no list of institutions substitutes for proof against a person. 10

9. Political conclusion for Iran

In the author’s interpretation, the Nuremberg lesson is powerful for Iranian national reconciliation: a criminal regime can be condemned without criminalising an entire society. Germany after 1945 did not execute millions of soldiers, civil servants, party members, or ordinary citizens. The justice system focused on senior architects, commanders, planners, organisers, and direct perpetrators. That distinction is relevant to reconstruction and institutional reform. Germany’s democratisation also depended on occupation policy, denazification, economic and political changes and later historical developments; the prosecution statistics alone cannot prove a causal account of reconciliation.

For Iran, the same principle is essential. The Islamic Republic’s crimes must be documented and prosecuted. Victims need truth, recognition, reparations, and justice. But Iran also needs a functioning state after transition: courts, hospitals, ministries, universities, police reform, municipal administration, and economic continuity.

The message to Iranian society should be clear: those who ordered, organised, tortured, executed, raped, disappeared, or knowingly enabled crimes against humanity must face justice. But ordinary people who lived, worked, survived, or were coerced under the Islamic Republic should not be treated as criminals merely because they existed inside the system. That is the difference between justice and vengeance.

References

1. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Nuremberg Trials. Aggregate defendants and convictions; the overview’s death-sentence total differs from the detailed series account.
2. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg. Indictments, defendants and IMT outcomes.
3. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Subsequent Nuremberg Proceedings. 185 indictments, 177 who stood trial, 24 death sentences, 20 life sentences, 98 other terms and 35 acquittals.
4. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Nuremberg Trials. Wider national prosecutions and perpetrators who escaped accountability.
5. United Nations International Law Commission. Principles of International Law Recognized in the Charter of the Nürnberg Tribunal and in the Judgment of the Tribunal. 1950. Principles I, III, IV and V.
6. United Nations. Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Articles 25 and 28; Articles 66–67 on presumption of innocence and accused persons’ rights.
7. Amnesty International. Blood-Soaked Secrets. 31 October 2018.
8. Human Rights Watch. Iran’s 1988 Mass Executions: Evidence and Legal Analysis. 8 June 2022.
9. Iran Human Rights and ECPM. 2025 Annual Report on the Death Penalty in Iran. 13 April 2026.
10. International Center for Transitional Justice. What Is Transitional Justice? Criminal justice, truth, reparations and institutional reform.