The Nuremberg Trial by Ann Tusa and John Tusa (1983, Hardcover)

The Nuremberg Trial
by Ann Tusa and John Tusa
Publisher:  Atheneum
Copyright 1983

The twenty-two leaders of Nazi Germany who stood trial at Nuremberg almost forty years ago hoped at best for an honorable exit in front of a firing squad.  In the end, for many of them, the old-fashioned rope won the day:  eleven defendants were hanged; seven were sentenced to long prison terms; three were acquitted altogether; and one took his own life.  At first, the Russians and the English thought that all of them should be executed:  for them the trial was a formality.  For the rest of us the Nuremberg Trial was the most famous trial of the century, if not in history.  The fate of the accused related not only to the deaths of millions of innocent victims, the pillage of the continent, and the violation of all civilized standards of behavior; it also raised the most fundamental issues of the rule of law.

The Nuremberg Trial is both a brilliant re-creation of the drama of the trial itself and a reasoned, often profound examination of the processes that create international law.  The authors begin by describing the atmosphere at Nuremberg on the day the trial opened and then step back to consider the obstacles that first had to be surmounted.  The difficulties were indeed great.  There was the sheer physical problem of arranging for the tribunal in a devastated country lacking even basic communication facilities.  Then there was the question of whom to charge -- the central figures of National Socialism, Hitler, Himmler, and Goebbels, were all dead -- as well as the sensitive legal problem of how to charge (and sentence) those finally brought to trial when laws forbidding what they had done were absent.  (There were no statutes making illegal Crimes Against Humanity or even declaring that it was criminal to wage aggressive war.)

Drawing on a multiplicity of sources -- including the minutes of the tribunal's closed deliberations on verdicts, to which John and Ann Tusa had exclusive access -- the authors take readers behind the scenes to relate the stories of the prosecution and defense teams (including that of American prosecutor Robert Jackson); and of defendant such as Georing, who was apprehended with an entourage of chauffeurs, chefs, and valets, and sixteen monogrammed suitcases; and the homosexual Streicher, who exercised in the nude and was shunned by the other defendants.  Here, as well, are the stories of the pathetic Hess, who flitted in and out of sanity, and the cunning Speer, whose admission of guilt impressed the Court and saved his life.  We also encounter those charged with the day-to-day job of running the defendants' jail, and those who put together the colossal simultaneous translation service; and we have the story of the doctor who looked after the prisoners and of the pastor who offered them spiritual guidance all the way to the gallows.  And, finally, we meet the judges, who kept their heads cool even as some of the most heinous crimes in history were being described, while the accused looked on.

The Nuremberg Trial is a narrative history at its best, and insistently raises contemporary questions as to whether the law, rather than war, can govern the way in which nations behave.

Condition:  Used.  Hardcover.  Dust cover.  Pages are tanned and darkening from age.  Previous owner's "Library Of" stamp is on the front endpaper.  Dust cover and flaps are tanned from age.  Dust cover shows a bit of edge wear and tear and creasing.  This is a THREE POUND BOOK.

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