Supreme National Tribunal

The Supreme National Tribunal, in Polish the Najwyższy Trybunał Narodowy, was a war-crime tribunal that operated in communist-era Poland from 1946 to 1948. Its purpose was set out by the State National Council in decrees of 22 January and 17 October 1946 and 11 April 1947, which built on an earlier decree of 31 August 1944 punishing Nazi German criminals and traitors to the Polish nation. It was formed on 22 January 1946 as a single-instance court, so its verdicts could not be appealed. The tribunal had three judges together with four members of a jury, as well as procurators and defenders. It tried seven high-profile cases involving forty-nine defendants, among them the trial in Warsaw of Ludwig Fischer, Ludwig Leist, Josef Meisinger and Max Daume, high-ranking Nazi officials of occupied Warsaw.