With 60 million dead from the war and many cities destroyed, there was much work to do to rebuild. Famine and disease swept through the devastated areas of Europe. European dominance and hegemony in the world was over. Japan’s empire was conquered. There needed to be fundamental changes in both Germany and Japan.
In Germany, the Nuremberg Trials in 1946 reviewed the most heinous acts of Germans during the war. Josef Mengele fled undetected to Brazil, but other war criminals were caught, tried, and executed. Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson was appointed as the Chief Prosecutor. Jackson, who never attended college, was known to be a brilliant, conservative judge. Evidently he conducted the trial in a reasonably fair manner, as 3 persons were acquitted and a substantial percentage avoided the death penalty. Some of the Allies, perhaps fearing the release of embarrassing information, kept Rudolph Hess (a German who had mysteriously visited England during the war) from telling what he knew and he spent most of the trial drugged up by his captors. He was sentenced to life in jail and kept from the public until he died. Twelve were executed. There were more trials afterwards afterward, leading to the execution of 250 criminals. Ever since, the Nuremberg Trials have served as a precedent for future trials for misdeeds during war.
After Japan surrendered, the United States forced it to adopt a new constitution, a parliamentary form of government, and an admission by Emperor Hirohito that he was not divine. All men and women over the age of 20 obtained the right to vote, and the emperor was reduced to the role of a figurehead, like the monarchy in England today. The new Japanese constitution prohibited Japan from declaring war. American troops occupied Japan, and General Douglas MacArthur moved there to rule over the country.