Curtis Shake

Who was Curtis Shake?

Curtis Grover Shake was a noted Indiana jurist, politician, and 72nd Justice of the Indiana Supreme Court, serving from 1938 to 1946. He was the presiding judge of the IG Farben trial, one of the Subsequent Nuremberg Trials held at Nuremberg, Germany after World War II.

Born in Harrison Township, Knox County, Indiana, he studied at Vincennes University where he was a member of Sigma Pi Fraternity, graduating in 1906. He subsequently earned his L.L.B. from Indiana University in 1910. He served as a State Senator from 1928 to 1946, and in December 1938, he was appointed to the Supreme Court of Indiana, where he sat until 1946 and which he presided three times. He was also an Indiana State Senator from 1928 to 1946. In 1947, he went to Nuremberg in Germany to preside over the IG Farben trial, one of the twelve trials for war crimes the U.S. authorities held in their occupation zone after the end of World War II.

He was elected to the Indiana Academy, an organization honoring people with a Hoosier background who have won national recognition for themselves or the state. The Sigma Pi Fraternity's Curtis G. Shake Scholarship is also named in his honor and is awarded to members of his fraternity who excel in legal studies.