On 20 April 1942 , representatives from the nine countries occupied by Germany met in London to draft the " Inter-Allied Resolution on German War Crimes " . At the meetings in Tehran ( 1943 ) , Yalta ( 1945 ) and Potsdam ( 1945 ) , the three major wartime powers , the United Kingdom , United States , and the Soviet Union , agreed on the format of punishment for those responsible for war crimes during World War II . France was also awarded a place on the tribunal . The legal basis for the trial was established by the London Charter , which was agreed upon by the four so-called Great Powers on 8 August 1945 , and which restricted the trial to " punishment of the major war criminals of the European Axis countries " Some 200 German war crimes defendants were tried at Nuremberg , and 1,600 others were tried under the traditional channels of military justice . The legal basis for the jurisdiction of the court was that defined by the Instrument of Surrender of Germany . Political authority for Germany had been transferred to the Allied Control Council which , having sovereign power over Germany , could choose to punish violations of international law and the laws of war . Because the court was limited to violations of the laws of war , it did not have jurisdiction over crimes that took place before the outbreak of war on 1 September 1939
Yalta
Yalta Conference
Nuremberg trials