nuremberg trials

The Nuremberg trials were a series of trials held between 1945 and 1949 in which the Allies prosecuted German military leaders, political officials, industrialists, and financiers for crimes they had committed during World War II.

The first trial took place in Nuremberg, Germany, and involved twenty-four top-ranking survivors of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (Nazi Party). The subsequent trials were held throughout Germany and involved approximately two hundred additional defendants, including Nazi physicians who performed vile experiments on human subjects, concentration camp commandants who ordered the extermination of their prisoners, and judges who upheld Nazi practices.

World War II began in 1939 when Germany invaded Poland. Over the next few years, the European Axis powers (Germany, Italy, Albania, Bulgaria, Hungary, and Romania) successfully invaded and occupied France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Denmark, Norway, Greece, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Finland, and the Netherlands. But when Adolf Hitler’s troops invaded the Soviet Union, the Nazi war machine stalled. By the end of the war, the Axis powers were battered and beleaguered, and in 1945 they unconditionally surrendered to the United States, the Soviet Union, Great Britain, and France (the four Allied powers).

Although the surrender of the Axis powers brought the war to its formal conclusion, the Third Reich had left an indelible imprint on the world. During Germany’s attempted conquest and occupation of Europe and Asia, the Nazis slaughtered, tortured, starved, and tormented over six million Jews and countless others—including Catholics, prisoners of war, dissenters, intelligentsia, nobility, and other innocent civilians. As part of their systematic effort to extinguish persons they deemed subversive, dangerous, or impure, the Nazis constructed concentration camps around Europe where they murdered their victims in gas chambers and incinerated their bodies in crematories. Persons who escaped this fate were deported to Nazi labor camps where they were compelled upon threat of death to work for the Third Reich.

The Allies had been discussing the idea of punishing war criminals since 1943 when U.S. president franklin d. roosevelt, British prime minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet premier Joseph Stalin signed the Moscow Declaration promising to hold the Axis powers, particularly Germany, Italy, and Japan, responsible for any atrocities they committed during World War II. In 1944 Roosevelt and Churchill briefly entertained the idea of summarily executing the highest-ranking members of the Third Reich without a trial or legal proceeding of any kind.

However, by June of 1945, when delegations from the four Allied powers gathered in London at the International Conference of Military Trials, the U.S. representatives firmly believed that the Nazi leaders could not be executed without first being afforded the opportunity to defend themselves in a judicial proceeding. Principles of justice, fairness, and due process, delegates from the United States argued, required no less. U.S. leaders also feared that the Allies would be perceived as hypocritical for denying the vanquished powers the same basic legal rights that were denied to those persons summarily executed by Germany, Italy, and Japan during the war.

On August 8, 1945, the four Allied powers signed a convention called the Agreement for the Prosecution and Punishment of the Major War Criminals of the European Axis Powers, which set forth the parameters by which the accused would be tried. Under this convention, which is sometimes referred to as the London Agreement or Nuremberg Charter, the Allies would conduct the trials of leaders of the European Axis powers in Nuremberg, and would subsequently prosecute lower-ranking officials and less important figures in the four occupied zones of Germany. American military tribunals in the South Pacific, under the command of General Douglas MacArthur, tried accused Japanese war criminals.

The London Agreement also established the International Military Tribunal (IMT), which was a panel of eight judges, two named by each of the four Allied powers. One judge from each country actively presided at trial, and the other four sat on the panel as alternates. The four Allied powers also selected the prosecutors, who agreed to pursue a conviction against the defendants on behalf of the newly formed United Nations.

Under the Nuremberg Charter, each defendant accused of a war crime was afforded the right to be represented by an attorney of his choice. The accused war criminals were presumed innocent by the tribunal and could not be convicted until their guilt was proven Beyond a Reasonable Doubt. In addition, the defendants were guaranteed the right to challenge incriminating evidence, cross-examine adverse witnesses, and introduce exculpatory evidence of their own.

The court appointed interpreters to translate the proceedings into four languages: French, German, Russian, and English. Written evidence submitted by the prosecution was translated into the native language of each defendant. When considering the admissibility of particular documents or testimony, the IMT was not bound by technical rules of evidence common to Anglo-American systems of justice. The tribunal retained discretion to evaluate Hearsay and other forms of evidence that are normally considered unreliable in the United States and Great Britain.

The IMT made all of its decisions by a majority vote of the four judges. On issues that divided the judges equally, the president of the court, Lord Justice Geoffrey Lawrence from Great Britain, was endowed with the deciding vote. In all other situations, a vote cast by Lawrence carried no greater weight than a vote cast by Soviet judge Ion Nikitchenko, French judge Henri Donnedieu de Vabres, American judge francis biddle, or any of the alternates. The IMT’s decisions, including any rulings, judgments, or sentences, were final and could not be appealed.

Neither the defense nor the prosecution was permitted to challenge the legal, political, or military authority of the court. The IMT said that its jurisdiction stemmed from the London Agreement that was promulgated by the Allies pursuant to their inherent legislative powers over the conquered nations, which had unconditionally surrendered. According to the tribunal, each Ally possessed the unqualified right to legislate over the territory that it occupied. By establishing the IMT, the court said, the Allies “had done together what any one of them might have done singly.”

The IMT was given authority to hear four counts of criminal complaints: conspiracy, crimes against peace, War Crimes, and crimes against humanity. Count I encompassed conspiracies to commit crimes against peace, whereas count II covered persons who committed such crimes in their individual capacities. Crimes against peace included the planning, preparation, initiation, and waging of aggressive war in violation of international treaties, agreements, or assurances. Crimes against peace differed from other war crimes, the tribunal said, in that they represented the “accumulated evil” of the Axis powers.

Count III consisted of war crimes committed in violation of the laws and customs of war as accepted and practiced around the world. This count aimed to punish those individuals who were responsible for issuing or executing orders that resulted in the plundering of public and private property, the wanton destruction of European cities and villages, the murder of captured Allied soldiers, and the Conscription of civilians in occupied territories for deportation to German labor camps.

Count IV consisted of crimes against humanity, including murder, extermination, enslavement, and other inhumane acts committed against civilian populations, as well as every form of political, racial, and religious persecution carried out in furtherance of a crime punishable by the IMT. This count aimed to punish the most notorious crimes committed by the Nazi regime, such as Genocide and torture. Early in the trial, however, the IMT ruled that the court did not have authority to try the defendants for crimes they committed before 1939 when World War II began.

Many of the prospective Nazi defendants were dead or could not be found after the war. Adolf Hitler, the totalitarian dictator of Germany who was the emotional and intellectual catalyst behind most of the war crimes committed by the Nuremberg defendants, Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS (Schutzstaffel, or Black-shirts, the Nazi organization in charge of the concentration camps and the Gestapo, the German secret police), and Paul Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi minister of propaganda, had all killed themselves during the final days of the war. Benito Mussolini, totalitarian dictator of Italy, was shot and hung by his own people in Milan in April 1945. Other German officials such as Karl Adolf Eichmann, a lieutenant colonel in the SS who was the architect of Hitler’s “final solution” to exterminate the Jewish population in Europe and Asia, and Dr. Josef Mengele, a physician who performed barbaric experiments on prisoners at the concentration camp in Auschwitz, Poland, eluded the Allies by fleeing Germany after the war.

Not all of the Nazi leadership was able to escape justice. Twenty-four Nazi officials were indicted under the Nuremberg Charter for war crimes. The tribunal convicted eighteen of the defendants and acquitted three defendants (Dr. Hjalmar H. G. Schacht, president of the German Central Bank, Hans Fritzsche, propaganda minister for German radio, and Franz von Papen, vice chancellor of Germany). One defendant (Dr. Robert Ley, leader of the Nazi Labor Front) committed suicide before the proceedings began; one defendant (Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach, a German military industrialist) was deemed mentally and physically incompetent to stand trial; and one defendant (Martin Bormann, Hitler’s secretary and head of the Nazi Party Chancellery) was tried and convicted in absentia because his whereabouts were unknown.

The trial began on November 20, 1945, and concluded on October 1, 1946. Thirty-three witnesses testified for the prosecution. Eighty witnesses testified for the defense, including nineteen of the defendants. An additional 140 witnesses provided evidence for the defense through written interrogatories. The prosecution introduced written evidence of its own, including original military, diplomatic, and government files of the Nazi regime that fell into the hands of the Allies after the collapse of the Third Reich.

robert h. jackson, an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, led the prosecution team. President Harry S. Truman had asked Jackson to assemble a staff of U.S. attorneys to investigate alleged war crimes and present evidence against the defendants. Jackson was joined on the prosecution team by Roman Rudenko, François de Menthon, and Sir Hartley Shawcross, the chief prosecutors for Russia, France, and Great Britain, respectively. Each of the four powers employed a number of assistant prosecutors as well.

Jackson commenced the trial with an Opening Statement that is considered one of the most eloquent in the annals of Jurisprudence. “The wrongs which we seek to condemn and punish”, Jackson said, “have been so calculated, so malignant, and so devastating that civilization cannot tolerate their being ignored because it cannot survive their being repeated…. That four great nations, flushed with victory and stung with injury, stay the hand of vengeance and voluntarily submit their captive enemies to judgment of the law is one of the most significant tributes that power has ever paid to reason.”

Hermann Goering was the most powerful surviving member of the German government to be tried at Nuremberg. Goering had been elected president of the Reichstag (the German parliament) in 1932. After Hitler was named chancellor of Germany in 1933, Goering was appointed minister of interior for Prussia where he created the Gestapo and established the first concentration camps. In 1935 Goering became chief of the Luftwaffe (the German air force), and two years later he was made commissioner of the Four Year Plan, an economic program designed to make Germany self-sufficient in preparation for the ensuing Nazi blitzkrieg. After Germany’s invasion of Finland in 1939, Goering was elevated to Reich marshall, the highest military rank in Germany, and designated as Hitler’s successor in the event of Hitler’s death.

The IMT convicted the Reich marshall on all four counts and sentenced him to death. The prosecution demonstrated that Goering had helped plan and direct the invasions of Poland and Austria. Other evidence indicated that Goering had ordered the Luftwaffe to destroy a business district in Rotterdam, Netherlands, even though the city had already surrendered. Goering was also implicated in the extermination of Polish intelligentsia, nobility, and clergy, the execution of British prisoners of war, the deportation of foreign laborers to Germany, the theft of art from French museums, and the suppression of domestic political opposition. Additionally, Goering admitted on cross-examination that he was responsible for promulgating laws that had facilitated the persecution of Jews throughout Europe.

Rudolph Hess was another influential Nazi official prosecuted at Nuremberg. Hess was a longtime friend of Hitler. In 1923 the two joined forces in an unsuccessful attempt to incite a Nazi revolution in a Munich tavern. Although Hitler was arrested and convicted of Treason for his role in the so-called beer hall putsch, German interest in the Nazi movement grew after the publication of Mein Kampf, a manifesto Hitler dictated to Hess while serving his prison term. Mein Kampf planted the seeds of Aryan supremacy, German nationalism, anti-Semitism, and totalitarian government, seeds that Hess later cultivated in his capacity as deputy führer to the Third Reich.

During the Nuremberg trial, the prosecution offered evidence that Hess had signed orders authorizing the persecution of European Jews and the ransacking of churches. Documents signed by Hess and meetings he attended reflected his support for Hitler’s plan to invade Czechoslovakia, Poland, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands. Hess originally asserted a defense of amnesia to these charges, claiming that he had forgotten the entire period of his life in which he had acted as deputy führer. However, Hess withdrew this defense upon realizing that he would not stand trial with the other defendants if he were diagnosed as incompetent. Hess was convicted of counts I and II and sentenced to life imprisonment.

Joachim von Ribbentrop, Germany’s foreign minister during World War II, was convicted on all four counts and sentenced to death. When he took the witness stand, the prosecution asked him if he considered Germany’s invasions of Poland, Denmark, Norway, Greece, France, and the Soviet Union “acts of aggression.” In each case Ribbentrop answered in the negative, arguing that such invasions were more properly described as acts of war. Confronted with evidence that he had urged the German regent of Hungary to exterminate the Jews in that country, Ribbentrop responded only by saying that he did not use those words exactly.

Dr. Ernst Kaltenbrunner was the head of the Reich Central Security Office, the Nazi organization in charge of the Gestapo and the SD (Sicherheitsdienst, Security Service, the German intelligence agency) and was second in command to Himmler at the SS. Kaltenbrunner faced a mountain of evidence demonstrating that he visited a number of concentration camps and had personally witnessed prisoners being gassed and incinerated. One letter signed by Kaltenbrunner authorized the execution of Allied prisoners of war, and another letter authorized the conscription and deportation of foreign laborers. Laborers who were too weak to contribute, Kaltenbrunner wrote, should be executed,

regardless of their age or gender. Kaltenbrunner received a death sentence after being convicted under counts III and IV.

Alfred Rosenberg was the Nazi minister for the occupied Eastern European territories. Rosenberg told Axis troops that the accepted rules of land warfare could be disregarded in areas under his control. He ordered the Segregation of Jews into ghettos where his subordinates murdered them. His signature was found at the bottom of a directive approving the deportation of forty-five thousand youths to German labor camps. Cross-examined about his role in the unlawful confiscation of Jewish property, Rosenberg claimed that all such property was seized to protect it from Allied bombing raids. Rosenberg was found guilty on all four counts and sentenced to death by hanging.

Hans Frank, the governor-general of Poland during German occupation, was sentenced to hang after being convicted on counts III and IV. Frank described his administration’s policy by stating that Poland was “treated like a colony” in which the Polish people became “the slaves of the Greater German World Empire.” The tribunal found that this policy entailed the destruction of Poland as a national entity, the evisceration of all political opposition, and the ruthless exploitation of human resources to promote Hitler’s reign of terror. While on the witness stand, Frank confessed to participating in the Nazis’ systematic attempt to annihilate the Jewish race.

Wilhelm Frick, the German minister of interior, was found guilty on counts I, II, and III and sentenced to be hanged. Frick had signed decrees sanctioning the execution of Jews and other persons held in “protective custody” at the concentration camps and had given Himmler a blank check to take any “security measures” necessary to ensure the German foothold in the occupied territories. The tribunal also determined that Frick exercised supreme authority over Bohemia and Moravia and was responsible for implementing Hitler’s policies of enslavement, deportation, torture, and extermination in these territories.

Wilhelm Keitel, field marshall for the High Command of the armed forces, was sentenced to die after being found guilty on every count. On direct examination Keitel admitted that there were “a large number of orders” bearing his signature that “contained deviations from existing international law.” He also conceded that a number of atrocities had been committed under his command during Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union. As a defense to these charges, Keitel asserted that he had been following the orders of his superiors when committing these crimes. Yet some witnesses testifying on behalf of the defense tended to undermine this assertion.

Alfred Jodl, chief of the operations staff for the armed forces, also received the death sentence after being convicted on every count. During the early stages of World War II, Jodl had been asked to review an order drafted by Hitler authorizing German troops to execute all Soviet military commissars captured during the Nazi invasion of Russia. Aware that this order was a violation of the customs, practices, and laws governing the treatment of prisoners during times of war, Jodl made no attempt to dissuade Hitler from issuing it. Jodl was also found responsible for distributing an order that authorized the execution of Allied commandos caught by the Axis powers and for mobilizing the German army against its European foes.

Julius Streicher, an anti-Semitic propagandist, was found guilty of count IV and sentenced to death. Author, editor, and publisher of Der Stuermer, a privately owned Jew-baiting newspaper, Streicher held no meaningful government position with the Axis powers during World War II. Yet the tribunal determined that circulation of Streicher’s racist newspaper had fueled the Nazis’ maniacal hatred of Jews and fomented an atmosphere in which genocide was acceptable and desirable. The prosecution introduced an article Streicher had published during 1942 in which he described Jewish procreation as a curse of God that could only be lifted through a process of political and ethnic emasculation.

Albert Speer, Nazi minister of armaments, received a prison term of twenty years after being convicted on counts III and IV. Speer had fascinated Hitler long before the war with his architectural prowess, designing buildings that were both immense and imposing. After the war began, however, Speer’s primary obligation was to supply the German armed forces with military supplies, equipment, and weapons. Thus, Speer became a lynchpin in the Nazi military empire. In an effort to maintain this empire, the prosecution demonstrated, Speer had repeatedly cajoled Hitler to procure foreign labor to work in his weapons factories.

Dr. Arthur Seyss-Inquart, an Austrian who was appointed by Hitler to govern Austria and the Netherlands during German occupation, was found guilty on counts II, III, and IV and sentenced to death for his confessed mistreatment of racial minorities in those territories, including the deportation of more than 250,000 Jews to Germany. Seyss-Inquart also assisted Hitler’s takeover of Austria, Poland, and Czechoslovakia.

Baron Konstantin von Neurath, Reich protector of Czechoslovakia, was convicted on all four counts and sentenced to fifteen years in prison for participating in the Nazi militarization campaign. Hoping to immunize the Nazi regime from its obligations under International Law, Neurath had advocated Germany’s withdrawal from the League of Nations and denounced the Versailles Treaty that had formally concluded World War I. Neurath was also implicated in various brutalities committed against the Czechoslovakian civilian population.

Baldur von Schirach, governor of occupied Vienna and leader of the Hitler Youth, was convicted on count IV and sentenced to a twenty-year prison term. The IMT determined that Schirach had provided the visceral foundations for the militarization of Germany’s youngest Nazis through psychological and educational indoctrination and had conspired with Hitler to deport Viennese Jews to Poland where most of them met their death. Fritz Sauckel, the plenipotentiary general for the allocation of labor, was convicted on counts III and IV and sentenced to death for his central role in the Nazi forced labor program that enslaved more than eleven million Europeans.

Erich Raeder served as Germany’s naval commander and chief until 1943 when he resigned due to a disagreement with Hitler, and he was succeeded by Karl Doenitz. Both Raeder and Doenitz were indicted under counts I, II, and III for war crimes committed on the high seas, and both were convicted based in part on evidence that they had authorized German submarines to fire on Allied commercial ships without warning in contravention of international law. Doenitz was sentenced to a ten-year prison term, and Raeder received a life sentence. Walther Funk, Nazi minister of economics, also received a life sentence for financing Germany’s aggressive warfare and for exploiting foreign laborers in German industry.

The IMT declared four Nazi organizations to be criminal: the SS, the SD, the Gestapo, and the Nazi Party. A team of Allied attorneys, including American Telford Taylor, subsequently prosecuted individual members of these organizations. Three Nazi organizations were acquitted: the SA (Sturmabteilung, the paramilitary organization also known as the Brownshirts or Stormtroopers), and the general staff and High Command of the German armed forces.

The Nuremberg trials made three important contributions to international law. First, they established a precedent that all persons, regardless of their station or occupation in life, can be held individually accountable for their behavior during times of war. Defendants cannot insulate themselves from personal responsibility by blaming the country, government, or military branch for which they committed the particular war crime.

Second, the Nuremberg trials established that individuals cannot shield themselves from liability for war crimes by asserting that they were simply following orders issued by a superior in the chain of command. Subordinates in the military or government are now bound by their obligations under international law, obligations that transcend their duty to obey an order issued by a superior. Orders to initiate aggressive (as opposed to defensive) warfare, to violate recognized rules and customs of warfare, or to persecute civilians and prisoners are considered illegal under the Nuremberg principles.

Third, the Nuremberg trials clearly established three discrete substantive war crimes that are punishable under international law: crimes against peace, crimes against humanity, and crimes in violation of transnational obligations embodied in treaties and other agreements. Before the Nuremberg trials, these crimes were not well defined, and persons who committed such crimes had never been punished by a multinational tribunal. For these reasons the Nuremberg convictions have sometimes been criticized as ex post facto justice.

The Nuremberg trials have also been criticized as “victor’s justice.” Historians have observed that the Allied nations that tried and convicted the leading Nazis at Nuremberg did not come to the table with clean hands. The Soviet Union had participated in Germany’s invasion and occupation of Poland and had been implicated in the massacre of more than a thousand Poles in the Katyn forest. Bombing raids conducted by the United States and Great Britain during World War II left thousands of civilians dead in cities like Dresden, Germany, and Nagasaki and Hiroshima, Japan. President Roosevelt had implemented a relocation program for more than 100,000 Americans of Japanese descent that confined them to concentration camps around the United States.

The Nuremberg trials were not typical partisan trials, though. The defendants were afforded the Right to Counsel, plus a full panoply of evidentiary and procedural protections. The Nuremberg verdicts demonstrate that these protections were taken seriously by the tribunal. The IMT completely exonerated three defendants of war crimes and acquitted most of the remaining defendants of at least some charges. Thus, the Nuremberg trials, while not perfect, changed the face of international law, both procedurally and substantively.

love

Love is the emotion of strong affection and personal attachment. In philosophical context, love is a virtue representing all of human kindness, compassion, and affection. In some religious contexts, love is not just a virtue, but the basis for all being, as in the Roman Catholic phrase, "God is love". Love may also be described as actions towards others (or oneself) based on compassion. Or as actions towards others based on affection.

The word love can refer to a variety of different feelings, states, and attitudes, ranging from generic pleasure ("I loved that meal") to intense interpersonal attraction ("I love my partner"). "Love" can also refer specifically to the passionate desire and intimacy of romantic love, to the sexual love of eros (cf. Greek words for love), to the emotional closeness of familial love, or to the platonic love that defines friendship, to the profound oneness or devotion of religious love. This diversity of uses and meanings, combined with the complexity of the feelings involved, makes love unusually difficult to consistently define, even compared to other emotional states.

Love in its various forms acts as a major facilitator of interpersonal relationships and, owing to its central psychological importance, is one of the most common themes in the creative arts.

definitions

The word "love" can have a variety of related but distinct meanings in different contexts. Often, other languages use multiple words to express some of the different concepts that English relies mainly on "love" to encapsulate; one example is the plurality of Greek words for "love." Cultural differences in conceptualizing love thus make it doubly difficult to establish any universal definition.

Although the nature or essence of love is a subject of frequent debate, different aspects of the word can be clarified by determining what isn't love. As a general expression of positive sentiment (a stronger form of like), love is commonly contrasted with hate (or neutral apathy); as a less sexual and more emotionally intimate form of romantic attachment, love is commonly contrasted with lust; and as an interpersonal relationship with romantic overtones, love is sometimes contrasted with friendship, although the word love is often applied to close friendships.

When discussed in the abstract, love usually refers to interpersonal love, an experience felt by a person for another person. Love often involves caring for or identifying with a person or thing, including oneself (cf. narcissism). In addition to cross-cultural differences in understanding love, ideas about love have also changed greatly over time. Some historians date modern conceptions of romantic love to courtly Europe during or after the Middle Ages, although the prior existence of romantic attachments is attested by ancient love poetry.

Because of the complex and abstract nature of love, discourse on love is commonly reduced to a thought-terminating cliché, and there are a number of common proverbs regarding love, from Virgil's "Love conquers all" to the Beatles' "All you need is love". St. Thomas Aquinas, following Aristotle, defines love as "to will the good of another." Bertrand Russell describes love as a condition of "absolute value," as opposed to relative value. Philosopher Gottfried Leibniz said that love is "to be delighted by the happiness of another."

Love is sometimes referred to as being the "international language", overriding cultural and linguistic divisions.

impersonal love

A person can be said to love an object, principle, or goal if they value it greatly and are deeply committed to it. Similarly, compassionate outreach and volunteer workers' "love" of their cause may sometimes be borne not of interpersonal love, but impersonal love coupled with altruism and strong spiritual or political convictions. People can also "love" material objects, animals, or activities if they invest themselves in bonding or otherwise identifying with those things. If sexual passion is also involved, this condition is called paraphilia.

interpersonal love

Interpersonal love refers to love between human beings. It is a more potent sentiment than a simple liking for another. Unrequited love refers to those feelings of love that are not reciprocated. Interpersonal love is most closely associated with interpersonal relationships.

Such love might exist between family members, friends, and couples. There are also a number of psychological disorders related to love, such as erotomania.

Throughout history, philosophy and religion have done the most speculation on the phenomenon of love. In the last century, the science of psychology has written a great deal on the subject. In recent years, the sciences of evolutionary psychology, evolutionary biology, anthropology, neuroscience, and biology have added to the understanding of the nature and function of love.

chemical basis

Biological models of sex tend to view love as a mammalian drive, much like hunger or thirst. Helen Fisher, a leading expert in the topic of love, divides the experience of love into three partly overlapping stages: lust, attraction, and attachment. Lust exposes people to others; romantic attraction encourages people to focus their energy on mating; and attachment involves tolerating the spouse (or indeed the child) long enough to rear a child into infancy.

Lust is the initial passionate sexual desire that promotes mating, and involves the increased release of chemicals such as testosterone and estrogen. These effects rarely last more than a few weeks or months. Attraction is the more individualized and romantic desire for a specific candidate for mating, which develops out of lust as commitment to an individual mate forms. Recent studies in neuroscience have indicated that as people fall in love, the brain consistently releases a certain set of chemicals, including pheromones, dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin, which act in a manner similar to amphetamines, stimulating the brain's pleasure center and leading to side effects such as increased heart rate, loss of appetite and sleep, and an intense feeling of excitement. Research has indicated that this stage generally lasts from one and a half to three years.

Since the lust and attraction stages are both considered temporary, a third stage is needed to account for long-term relationships. Attachment is the bonding that promotes relationships lasting for many years and even decades. Attachment is generally based on commitments such as marriage and children, or on mutual friendship based on things like shared interests. It has been linked to higher levels of the chemicals oxytocin and vasopressin to a greater degree than short-term relationships have. Enzo Emanuele and coworkers reported the protein molecule known as the nerve growth factor (NGF) has high levels when people first fall in love, but these return to previous levels after one year.

psychological basis

Psychology depicts love as a cognitive and social phenomenon. Psychologist Robert Sternberg formulated a triangular theory of love and argued that love has three different components: intimacy, commitment, and passion. Intimacy is a form in which two people share confidences and various details of their personal lives, and is usually shown in friendships and romantic love affairs. Commitment, on the other hand, is the expectation that the relationship is permanent. The last and most common form of love is sexual attraction and passion. Passionate love is shown in infatuation as well as romantic love. All forms of love are viewed as varying combinations of these three components. American psychologist Zick Rubin seeks to define love by psychometrics. His work states that three factors constitute love: attachment, caring, and intimacy.

Following developments in electrical theories such as Coulomb's law, which showed that positive and negative charges attract, analogs in human life were developed, such as "opposites attract." Over the last century, research on the nature of human mating has generally found this not to be true when it comes to character and personality—people tend to like people similar to themselves. However, in a few unusual and specific domains, such as immune systems, it seems that humans prefer others who are unlike themselves (e.g., with an orthogonal immune system), since this will lead to a baby that has the best of both worlds. In recent years, various human bonding theories have been developed, described in terms of attachments, ties, bonds, and affinities.

Some Western authorities disaggregate into two main components, the altruistic and the narcissistic. This view is represented in the works of Scott Peck, whose work in the field of applied psychology explored the definitions of love and evil. Peck maintains that love is a combination of the "concern for the spiritual growth of another," and simple narcissism. In combination, love is an activity, not simply a feeling.

Noted psychologist Eric Fromm also maintained in his book "The art of loving" that love is not merely a feeling but is also actions, and that in fact, the "feeling" of love is superficial in comparison to ones commitment to love via a series of loving actions over time. In this sense, Fromm held that love is ultimately not a feeling at all, but rather is a commitment to, and adherence to, loving actions towards another, ones self, or many others, over a sustained duration. Fromm also described Love as a conscious choice that in it's early stages might originate as an involuntary feeling, but which then later no longer depends on those feelings, but rather depends only on conscious commitment.

comparison of scientific models

Biological models of love tend to see it as a mammalian drive, similar to hunger or thirst. Psychology sees love as more of a social and cultural phenomenon. There are probably elements of truth in both views. Certainly love is influenced by hormones (such as oxytocin), neurotrophins (such as NGF), and pheromones, and how people think and behave in love is influenced by their conceptions of love. The conventional view in biology is that there are two major drives in love: sexual attraction and attachment. Attachment between adults is presumed to work on the same principles that lead an infant to become attached to its mother. The traditional psychological view sees love as being a combination of companionate love and passionate love. Passionate love is intense longing, and is often accompanied by physiological arousal (shortness of breath, rapid heart rate); companionate love is affection and a feeling of intimacy not accompanied by physiological arousal.

Studies have shown that brain scans of those infatuated by love display a resemblance to those with a mental illness. Love creates activity in the same area of the brain where hunger, thirst, and drug cravings create activity. New love, therefore, could possibly be more physical than emotional. Over time, this reaction to love mellows, and different areas of the brain are activated, primarily ones involving long-term commitments.

cultural views

persian

Rumi, Hafez and Sa'di are icons of the passion and love that the Persian culture and language present. The Persian word for love is eshgh, derived from the Arabic ishq, however is considered by most to be too stalwart a term for interpersonal love and is more commonly substituted for 'doost dashtan' ('liking'). In the Persian culture, everything is encompassed by love and all is for love, starting from loving friends and family, husbands and wives, and eventually reaching the divine love that is the ultimate goal in life. Over seven centuries ago, Sa'di wrote:

The children of Adam are limbs of one body
Having been created of one essence.
When the calamity of time afflicts one limb
The other limbs cannot remain at rest.
If you have no sympathy for the troubles of others
You are not worthy to be called by the name of "man."

chinese and other sinic cultures

Two philosophical underpinnings of love exist in the Chinese tradition, one from Confucianism which emphasized actions and duty while the other came from Mohism which championed a universal love. A core concept to Confucianism is Ren ("benevolent love"), which focuses on duty, action and attitude in a relationship rather than love itself. In Confucianism, one displays benevolent love by performing actions such as filial piety from children, kindness from parent, loyalty to the king and so forth.

The concept of Ai was developed by the Chinese philosopher Mozi in the 4th century BC in reaction to Confucianism's benevolent love. Mozi tried to replace what he considered to be the long-entrenched Chinese over-attachment to family and clan structures with the concept of "universal love" (jiān'ài). In this, he argued directly against Confucians who believed that it was natural and correct for people to care about different people in different degrees. Mozi, by contrast, believed people in principle should care for all people equally. Mohism stressed that rather than adopting different attitudes towards different people, love should be unconditional and offered to everyone without regard to reciprocation, not just to friends, family and other Confucian relations. Later in Chinese Buddhism, the term Ai was adopted to refer to a passionate caring love and was considered a fundamental desire. In Buddhism, Ai was seen as capable of being either selfish or selfless, the latter being a key element towards enlightenment.

In contemporary Chinese, Ai is often used as the equivalent of the Western concept of love. Ai is used as both a verb (e.g. wo ai ni or "I love you") and a noun (such as aiqing or "romantic love"). However, due to the influence of Confucian Ren, the phrase ‘Wo ai ni’ (I love you) carries with it a very specific sense of responsibility, commitment and loyalty. Instead of frequently saying "I love you" as in some Western societies, the Chinese are more likely to express feelings of affection in a more casual way. Consequently, "I like you" (Wo xihuan ni) is a more common way of expressing affection in Chinese; it is more playful and less serious. This is also true in Japanese (suki da). The Chinese are also more likely to say "I love you" in English or other foreign languages than they would in their mother tongue.

japanese

In Japanese Buddhism, ai is passionate caring love, and a fundamental desire. It can develop towards either selfishness or selflessness and enlightenment. Amae , a Japanese word meaning "indulgent dependence," is part of the child-rearing culture of Japan. Japanese mothers are expected to hug and indulge their children, and children are expected to reward their mothers by clinging and serving. Some sociologists have suggested that Japanese social interactions in later life are modeled on the mother-child amae.

ancient greek

Greek distinguishes several different senses in which the word "love" is used. For example, Ancient Greek has the words philia, eros, agape, storge, and xenia. However, with Greek (as with many other languages), it has been historically difficult to separate the meanings of these words totally. At the same time, the Ancient Greek text of the Bible has examples of the verb agapo having the same meaning as phileo.

Agape (ἀγάπη agápē) means love in modern-day Greek. The term s'agapo means I love you in Greek. The word agapo is the verb I love. It generally refers to a "pure," ideal type of love, rather than the physical attraction suggested by eros. However, there are some examples of agape used to mean the same as eros. It has also been translated as "love of the soul."

Eros (ἔρως érōs) (from the Greek deity Eros) is passionate love, with sensual desire and longing. The Greek word erota means in love. Plato refined his own definition. Although eros is initially felt for a person, with contemplation it becomes an appreciation of the beauty within that person, or even becomes appreciation of beauty itself. Eros helps the soul recall knowledge of beauty and contributes to an understanding of spiritual truth. Lovers and philosophers are all inspired to seek truth by eros. Some translations list it as "love of the body."

Philia (φιλία philía), a dispassionate virtuous love, was a concept developed by Aristotle. It includes loyalty to friends, family, and community, and requires virtue, equality, and familiarity. Philia is motivated by practical reasons; one or both of the parties benefit from the relationship. It can also mean "love of the mind."

Storge (στοργή storgē) is natural affection, like that felt by parents for offspring.

Xenia (ξενία xenía), hospitality, was an extremely important practice in Ancient Greece. It was an almost ritualized friendship formed between a host and his guest, who could previously have been strangers. The host fed and provided quarters for the guest, who was expected to repay only with gratitude. The importance of this can be seen throughout Greek mythology—in particular, Homer's Iliad and Odyssey.

turkish (Shaman & Islamic)

In Turkish, the word "love" comes up with several meanings. A person can love a god, a person, parents, or family. But that person can "love" just one person from the opposite sex, which they call the word "aşk." Aşk is a feeling for to love, or being "in love" (Aşık), as it still is in Turkish today. The Turks used this word just for their loves in a romantic or sexual sense. If a Turk says that he is in love (Aşık) with somebody, it is not a love that a person can feel for his or her parents; it is just for one person, and it indicates a huge infatuation. The word is also common for Turkic languages, such as Azerbaijani (eşq) and Kazakh (ғашық).

ancient roman (Latin)

The Latin language has several different verbs corresponding to the English word "love." Amāre is the basic word for to love, as it still is in Italian today. The Romans used it both in an affectionate sense as well as in a romantic or sexual sense. From this verb come amans—a lover, amator, "professional lover," often with the accessory notion of lechery—and amica, "girlfriend" in the English sense, often as well being applied euphemistically to a prostitute. The corresponding noun is amor (the significance of this term for the Romans is well illustrated in the fact, that the name of the City, Rome—in Latin: Roma—can be viewed as an anagram for amor, which was used as the secret name of the City in wide circles in ancient times), which is also used in the plural form to indicate love affairs or sexual adventures. This same root also produces amicus—"friend"—and amicitia, "friendship" (often based to mutual advantage, and corresponding sometimes more closely to "indebtedness" or "influence"). Cicero wrote a treatise called On Friendship (de Amicitia), which discusses the notion at some length. Ovid wrote a guide to dating called Ars Amatoria (The Art of Love), which addresses, in depth, everything from extramarital affairs to overprotective parents.

Complicating the picture somewhat, Latin sometimes uses amāre where English would simply say to like. This notion, however, is much more generally expressed in Latin by placere or delectāre, which are used more colloquially, the latter used frequently in the love poetry of Catullus. Diligere often has the notion "to be affectionate for," "to esteem," and rarely if ever is used for romantic love. This word would be appropriate to describe the friendship of two men. The corresponding noun diligentia, however, has the meaning of "diligence" or "carefulness," and has little semantic overlap with the verb. Observare is a synonym for diligere; despite the cognate with English, this verb and its corresponding noun, observantia, often denote "esteem" or "affection." Caritas is used in Latin translations of the Christian Bible to mean "charitable love"; this meaning, however, is not found in Classical pagan Roman literature. As it arises from a conflation with a Greek word, there is no corresponding verb.

religious views

abrahamic religions

judaism

In Hebrew, Ahava is the most commonly used term for both interpersonal love and love between God and God's creations. Chesed, often translated as loving-kindness, is used to describe many forms of love between human beings.

The commandment to love other people is given in the Torah, which states, "Love your neighbor like yourself" (Leviticus 19:18). The Torah's commandment to love God "with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your might" (Deuteronomy 6:5) is taken by the Mishnah (a central text of the Jewish oral law) to refer to good deeds, willingness to sacrifice one's life rather than commit certain serious transgressions, willingness to sacrifice all of one's possessions, and being grateful to the Lord despite adversity (tractate Berachoth 9:5). Rabbinic literature differs as to how this love can be developed, e.g., by contemplating divine deeds or witnessing the marvels of nature. As for love between marital partners, this is deemed an essential ingredient to life: "See life with the wife you love" (Ecclesiastes 9:9). The biblical book Song of Solomon is considered a romantically phrased metaphor of love between God and his people, but in its plain reading, reads like a love song. The 20th-century Rabbi Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler is frequently quoted as defining love from the Jewish point of view as "giving without expecting to take" (from his Michtav me-Eliyahu, Vol. 1).

christianity

The Christian understanding is that love comes from God. The love of man and woman—eros in Greek—and the unselfish love of others (agape), are often contrasted as "ascending" and "descending" love, respectively, but are ultimately the same thing.

There are several Greek words for "love" that are regularly referred to in Christian circles.
Agape: In the New Testament, agapē is charitable, selfless, altruistic, and unconditional. It is parental love, seen as creating goodness in the world; it is the way God is seen to love humanity, and it is seen as the kind of love that Christians aspire to have for one another.
Phileo: Also used in the New Testament, phileo is a human response to something that is found to be delightful. Also known as "brotherly love."

Two other words for love in the Greek language, eros (sexual love) and storge (child-to-parent love), were never used in the New Testament.

Christians believe that to Love God with all your heart, mind, and strength and Love your neighbor as yourself are the two most important things in life (the greatest commandment of the Jewish Torah, according to Jesus; cf. Gospel of Mark chapter 12, verses 28–34). Saint Augustine summarized this when he wrote "Love God, and do as thou wilt."

The Apostle Paul glorified love as the most important virtue of all. Describing love in the famous poem in 1 Corinthians, he wrote, "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, and always perseveres." (1 Cor. 13:4–7, NIV)

The Apostle John wrote, "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him." (John 3:16–17, NIV) John also wrote, "Dear friends, let us love one another for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love." (1 John 4:7–8, NIV)

Saint Augustine says that one must be able to decipher the difference between love and lust. Lust, according to Saint Augustine, is an overindulgence, but to love and be loved is what he has sought for his entire life. He even says, “I was in love with love.” Finally, he does fall in love and is loved back, by God. Saint Augustine says the only one who can love you truly and fully is God, because love with a human only allows for flaws such as “jealousy, suspicion, fear, anger, and contention.” According to Saint Augustine, to love God is “to attain the peace which is yours.” (Saint Augustine's Confessions)

Christian theologians see God as the source of love, which is mirrored in humans and their own loving relationships. Influential Christian theologian C.S. Lewis wrote a book called The Four Loves. Benedict XVI wrote his first encyclical on "God is love". He said that a human being, created in the image of God, who is love, is able to practice love; to give himself to God and others (agape) and by receiving and experiencing God's love in contemplation (eros). This life of love, according to him, is the life of the saints such as Teresa of Calcutta and the Blessed Virgin Mary and is the direction Christians take when they believe that God loves them.

In Christianity the practical definition of love is best summarised by St. Thomas Aquinas, who defined love as "to will the good of another," or to desire for another to succeed. This is the explanation of the Christian need to love others, including their enemies. As Thomas Aquinas explains, Christian love is motivated by the need to see others succeed in life, to be good people.

islam and arab

In a sense, love does encompass the Islamic view of life as universal brotherhood that applies to all who hold the faith. There are no direct references stating that God is love, but amongst the 99 names of God (Allah), there is the name Al-Wadud, or "the Loving One," which is found in Surah 11:90 as well as Surah 85:14. It refers to God as being "full of loving kindness." All who hold the faith have God's love, but to what degree or effort he has pleased God depends on the individual itself.

Ishq, or divine love, is the emphasis of Sufism. Sufis believe that love is a projection of the essence of God to the universe. God desires to recognize beauty, and as if one looks at a mirror to see oneself, God "looks" at itself within the dynamics of nature. Since everything is a reflection of God, the school of Sufism practices to see the beauty inside the apparently ugly. Sufism is often referred to as the religion of love. God in Sufism is referred to in three main terms, which are the Lover, Loved, and Beloved, with the last of these terms being often seen in Sufi poetry. A common viewpoint of Sufism is that through love, humankind can get back to its inherent purity and grace. The saints of Sufism are infamous for being "drunk" due to their love of God; hence, the constant reference to wine in Sufi poetry and music.

eastern religions

buddhism

In Buddhism, Kāma is sensuous, sexual love. It is an obstacle on the path to enlightenment, since it is selfish. Karuṇā is compassion and mercy, which reduces the suffering of others. It is complementary to wisdom and is necessary for enlightenment. Adveṣa and mettā are benevolent love. This love is unconditional and requires considerable self-acceptance. This is quite different from ordinary love, which is usually about attachment and sex and which rarely occurs without self-interest. Instead, in Buddhism it refers to detachment and unselfish interest in others' welfare.

The Bodhisattva ideal in Mahayana Buddhism involves the complete renunciation of oneself in order to take on the burden of a suffering world. The strongest motivation one has in order to take the path of the Bodhisattva is the idea of salvation within unselfish, altruistic love for all sentient beings.

hinduism

In Hinduism, kāma is pleasurable, sexual love, personified by the god Kamadeva. For many Hindu schools, it is the third end (artha) in life. Kamadeva is often pictured holding a bow of sugar cane and an arrow of flowers; he may ride upon a great parrot. He is usually accompanied by his consort Rati and his companion Vasanta, lord of the spring season. Stone images of Kamadeva and Rati can be seen on the door of the Chennakeshava temple at Belur, in Karnataka, India. Maara is another name for kāma.

In contrast to kāma, prema – or prem – refers to elevated love. Karuna is compassion and mercy, which impels one to help reduce the suffering of others. Bhakti is a Sanskrit term, meaning "loving devotion to the supreme God." A person who practices bhakti is called a bhakta. Hindu writers, theologians, and philosophers have distinguished nine forms of bhakti, which can be found in the Bhagavata Purana and works by Tulsidas. The philosophical work Narada Bhakti Sutras, written by an unknown author (presumed to be Narada), distinguishes eleven forms of love.