The expectation prior to the Nuremberg Trial was that many trials would be held and that the precedents in the Nuremberg case would be used in subsequent ones. In fact, several war crimes trials were held at Nuremberg, but when one speaks of "the Nuremberg Trial," the reference is usually to the trial of the twenty-two main defendants.

Twelve other trials were held in Nuremberg to prosecute 185 defendants for a variety of crimes. These trials included the "Medical Case" to punish the people responsible for the ghoulish experiments on concentration camp prisoners; the "I.G. Farben Case" to prosecute industrialists who sold Zyklon B, the chemical used in concentration camp gas chambers, and who constructed industrial plants at Auschwitz; and the "Einsatzgruppen Case" to try the men involved in the Nazi's mobile killing squads. The trial dealing with the mistreatment of prisoners of war...