The twelve proceedings before the Nuremberg Military Tribunal (NMT), in which American prosecutors brought the functional elites from the military, bureaucracy, party, and economy of the "Third Reich" to justice between 1946 and 1949, long remained overshadowed by the first so-called main war crimes trial. Yet, the proceedings of the Nuremberg Military Tribunals were to exert significant historical and legal impact. The investigators and prosecutors faced a highly complex task: not only were they to hold those responsible beyond the immediate perpetrators accountable and create legal precedents, but they also aimed to establish a historically accurate interpretation of Nazi rule. Law, justice, and history were to go hand in hand. In practice, this ambitious undertaking encountered challenges.