>>103848499Not quite, that was part of the court's case against them.
You see in a modern military and in nazi germany's case, the officer's, generals and commanders all had a certain degree of autonomy. Hitler trusted them more and thus gave them more freedom to make decisions on their own. Part of assigning and determining guilt in these cases was finding out what was their decisions and what was coming from higher up or the fuhrer himself. A few were exonerated for that reason. Many however were executed because they made a decision on their own to be cruel, unjust, or otherwise knowingly violate international law. Regardless of what orders they received, there were more than a few officers, rank officials, commanders etc. that made decisions of their own will and volition. Those are the decisions for which they were prosecuted and ultimately convicted of.
They didn't try every single German soldier that surrendered or was otherwise captured. One of those reasons was simply cost and scope. That would have taken decades. But the other reason of course is because your average conscript didn't have any decision or choice in who they fought, when, or even where. They gave you a gun and told you to fight. And if you didn't, you'd be executed.
And, in WW2:
So did the allies. There was a man who refused to fight and he was executed for it. He was American as well.