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Why did the Leipzig war crimes trials after World War I result in few convictions?

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Adolf Eichmann listening to an Israeli court's verdict — War crime Former Nazi official Adolf Eichmann listening as an Israeli court declares him guilty on all counts at his war crimes trial in Jerusalem, 1961.

Following World War I, the Allied powers initially sought to prosecute German war criminals through an inter-Allied tribunal. However, due to German reluctance to surrender suspects to the Allies, a compromise was reached to hold a limited number of trials before the Supreme Court in Leipzig.1

These trials resulted in few convictions and lenient sentences, typically ranging from only a few months to four years in prison. The outcome was largely driven by the fact that the proceedings were conducted within the German national legal system rather than by an international body, which undermined the pursuit of accountability for violations of the law of war. This failure to effectively prosecute individuals for war crimes highlighted the limitations of relying on national courts for such cases and underscored the necessity for the more robust international legal frameworks later established by the Nuremberg trials.1