As World War II officially came to a close with the signing of surrender documents on September 2, 1945, the world celebrated. Adolf Hitler was dead, Japan summarily defeated. The long years of death, destruction, and loss were finally coming to an end. There was a collective sigh of relief, a jubilation that spread to every corner of the victorious nations. But there was also a sense of outrage. A sense of reckoning.

Between 70-85 million people had lost their lives during the 6 year conflict, an estimated 3% of the entire global population of the time. Civilian deaths totaled 50–55 million and military deaths 21–25 million, including deaths in captivity of about 5 million prisoners of war. For those who had survived, lives were shattered, homes and businesses were destroyed, families were forever changed. And, perhaps most enraging, was the slow emergence of details regarding the Third Reich’s meticulously carried-out genocide against Jews, gypsies, and other “undesirable” peoples. Estimates for those wiped out by the Nazi’s “death machine” include 6 million Jews as well as 5 million others of varying ethnicities and backgrounds.

As the months slowly began to slip away from VJ Day, the sense of urgency and indignation rose. Someone needed to be held responsible for all this death and destruction. Someone needed to pay.

The Allied powers—United States, Great Britain, France, and the Soviet Union—soon came together to form the International Military Tribunal (IMT). From 1945 to 1946, Nazi Germany leaders–those who had not committed suicide or evaded capture–stood trial for crimes against peace, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and conspiracy to commit any of the foregoing crimes.

Nuremberg, Germany was chosen as the location of the trials for being a focal point of Nazi propaganda rallies leading up to the war. The Allies wanted Nuremberg to symbolize the death of Nazi Germany. The court convened in the Palace of Justice in Nuremberg that was previously expanded by German prisoners to fit up to 1,200 detainees. The indictment against 24 major war criminals and seven organizations was filed on October 18, 1945 by the four chief prosecutors of the International Military Tribunal and, on November 20, the trial began with 21 defendants appearing before the court.

The defendants, who were largely unrepentant, included several former cabinet ministers, such as Franz von Papen (who had brought Hitler to power); many leaders of the German economy, such as former Reichsbank president Hjalmar Schacht; military leaders, most notably Hermann Göring—the most infamous surviving Nazi and the main target of the trial—Wilhelm Keitel, Alfred Jodl, Erich Raeder, and Karl Dönitz. Also on trial were propagandists Julius Streicher and Hans Fritzsche; Hitler’s deputy Rudolf Hess, who had flown to Britain in 1941; Hans Frank, governor-general of the General Governorate of Poland; Hitler Youth leader Baldur von Schirach; Arthur Seyss-Inquart, Reich Commissioner for the Netherlands; and Ernst Kaltenbrunner, the leader of Himmler’s Reich Security Main Office.

Between November 20, 1945 to October 1, 1946, the Tribunal heard evidence against the defendants. During the trial, the Tribunal—and the world—learned about the the Nazi Party and its “planning, initiating and waging of aggressive war” from the beginning. Footage of Nazi concentration camps taken by Allied military photographers during liberation was shown to the court. Also included were the screenings of the Nazi Concentration and Prison Camps and The Nazi Plan films, the detailed description of the Final Solution, the murders of prisoners of war, atrocities in extermination camps, and countless cruel acts to prosecute Jews.

Finally, after almost a year of gut-wrenching testimony, the Tribunal convicted 19 of the 21 defendants, acquitting only three (Papen, Schacht, and Fritzsche) due to deadlock between the judges. Of those convicted, 12 were sentenced to death, three defendants to life imprisonment, and four to prison terms ranging from 10 to 20 years.

On October 16, 1946, eighty years ago today, executions were carried out by hanging in the gymnasium of the courthouse. Hermann Göring, however, who at sentencing was called the “leading war aggressor and creator of the oppressive program against the Jews” and was scheduled to be among those executed, killed himself via poison the night before.

Eleven deaths for 85 million was only a drop in the bucket. But the Nuremberg trials–as well as the subsequent ones held from December 1946 to April 1949–were a small step toward global healing, bringing at least a taste of justice to those who lives had been upended or obliterated by the Nazi thirst for power.