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Inside Nuremberg Prison: Hitler's Henchmen Behind Bars
“The only right way to punish these twenty-one defendants was to put them into the death camps and subject them to the same treatment they gave millions of others. But we couldn’t do that as civilized people.”
Howard Triest
Charts the extraordinary true story of Howard Triest, the only German-Jewish interpreter to work with the psychiatrists in the Nuremberg Prison during the trial.
At the end of WW2, twenty-two surviving members of Hitler’s government were behind bars in Nuremberg Prison, awaiting trial for their part in the most heinous crimes in history. Munich-born Howard Triest fled Nazi Germany on the eve of war.
Four years later he landed on Omaha beach with invading American forces and served on the frontline all the way to the invasion of Germany. As he entered the country of his birth, he felt euphoric.
But there was a special, painful task ahead for the man whom the Nazis once wanted to kill and whose family had disappeared in France in 1942. For twelve months Howard walked into the prison cells on a daily basis and sat within inches of Hitler’s henchmen – the men who sent his parents to the gas chambers of Auschwitz.
How did Howard react to being so close to pure evil? Seventy years later Howard is the only surviving witness to those prison interviews.
Howard Triest
Charts the extraordinary true story of Howard Triest, the only German-Jewish interpreter to work with the psychiatrists in the Nuremberg Prison during the trial.
At the end of WW2, twenty-two surviving members of Hitler’s government were behind bars in Nuremberg Prison, awaiting trial for their part in the most heinous crimes in history. Munich-born Howard Triest fled Nazi Germany on the eve of war.
Four years later he landed on Omaha beach with invading American forces and served on the frontline all the way to the invasion of Germany. As he entered the country of his birth, he felt euphoric.
But there was a special, painful task ahead for the man whom the Nazis once wanted to kill and whose family had disappeared in France in 1942. For twelve months Howard walked into the prison cells on a daily basis and sat within inches of Hitler’s henchmen – the men who sent his parents to the gas chambers of Auschwitz.
How did Howard react to being so close to pure evil? Seventy years later Howard is the only surviving witness to those prison interviews.
211 pages, Kindle Edition
First published July 1, 2011
358 people are currently reading
277 people want to read
About the author
Helen Fry
38 books74 followersHelen Fry has written numerous books on the Second World War with particular reference to the 10,000 Germans and Austrians who fought for Britain in the war.
Other books by Helen include histories of various Anglo-Jewish communities, including The Lost Jews of Cornwall (with Keith Pearce); and The Jews of Exeter. Her titles also include books on Christian-Jewish Dialogue. Her textbook Christian-Jewish Dialogue: A Reader has been translated into Russian, Czech and Polish.
Helen has branched out into fiction with James Hamilton under the pseudonym JH Schryer. Together they have written two novels of historical fiction and been in development on scripts with Green Gaia Films for a TV drama based on their novels.
Helen is an Honorary Research Fellow in the Dept of Hebrew & Jewish Studies at University College London and Lecturer at the London Jewish Cultural Centre. She is a member of The Biographers’ Club, The Society of Authors and an Honorary member of The Association of Jewish Refugees.
Other books by Helen include histories of various Anglo-Jewish communities, including The Lost Jews of Cornwall (with Keith Pearce); and The Jews of Exeter. Her titles also include books on Christian-Jewish Dialogue. Her textbook Christian-Jewish Dialogue: A Reader has been translated into Russian, Czech and Polish.
Helen has branched out into fiction with James Hamilton under the pseudonym JH Schryer. Together they have written two novels of historical fiction and been in development on scripts with Green Gaia Films for a TV drama based on their novels.
Helen is an Honorary Research Fellow in the Dept of Hebrew & Jewish Studies at University College London and Lecturer at the London Jewish Cultural Centre. She is a member of The Biographers’ Club, The Society of Authors and an Honorary member of The Association of Jewish Refugees.
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Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
December 9, 2025
⭐️⭐️.5
While I heartily believe that the lessons learned from the Holocaust are vastly important, this particular book comes up a little on the dry side. It tells the story of Howard Treist, a Jewish boy who escaped to the US just before Hitler managed to shut all the borders down. He became a US citizen, enlisted, and returned to Germany with the military. He was actually with the American troops when Buchenwald was liberated.
Because he was spoke German fluently he was assigned to Nuremberg Prison as an interpreter for the psychiatrists who interviewed the imprisoned leaders of the Nazi regime during the Nuremberg trials. There is a chapter assigned to each of the major inmates. The information relayed seems superficial, not in depth.
On the positive side I had never heard of nor read about Howard Triest and the part he played in WWII history.
Goodreads 2025 Challenge - Book #114 of 115
While I heartily believe that the lessons learned from the Holocaust are vastly important, this particular book comes up a little on the dry side. It tells the story of Howard Treist, a Jewish boy who escaped to the US just before Hitler managed to shut all the borders down. He became a US citizen, enlisted, and returned to Germany with the military. He was actually with the American troops when Buchenwald was liberated.
Because he was spoke German fluently he was assigned to Nuremberg Prison as an interpreter for the psychiatrists who interviewed the imprisoned leaders of the Nazi regime during the Nuremberg trials. There is a chapter assigned to each of the major inmates. The information relayed seems superficial, not in depth.
On the positive side I had never heard of nor read about Howard Triest and the part he played in WWII history.
Goodreads 2025 Challenge - Book #114 of 115
January 3, 2025
The first half about Howard’s life is interesting, however the middle part about the trials is very basic and doesn’t go into enough detail. The author seems to summarised a lot from previous books about his experience but in no real depth
April 12, 2025
Interesting information but personally found it a little dry. Also thought it would be more about Howard, but a lot of the book was dedicated to pure information about the defendants and not really the connection they had to him or his work.
August 25, 2024
This is a moving and compelling account of a young man who was an interpreter for the psychiatrists assessing leaders of the Nazi regime held in Nuremberg prison before and during the trials after the end of World War ll. This young man had grown up as a Jew in Munich during the 1930s and witnessed many of the privations visited upon his people. Although he managed to escape to America the rest of his family were not so lucky. After Pearl Harbour, he joined the US army, fought his way through Europe back to Germany and became involved in the rooting out of those responsible for all the atrocities of the period leading up to and during the war. What stands out for me is the grace and wisdom with which he went about his task. To have to sit and listen to descriptions of what happened, knowing that this was the fate of his parents and grandparents, must have been agonising beyond words but he managed it without showing a flicker of emotion. He would not give these evil men the satisfaction of seeing his pain. They didn’t even know he was a Jew. He knew that they would not open up as they did if they had known. To find such courage, and sagacity in someone who has gone through what he did is remarkable, what makes it even more extraordinary is that he was only 22 years old at the the time.
This is a book which pulls on the emotions, at times heartbreaking and appalling but throughout it all the thread of hope because we know that this young man was victorious. He came through it all stronger and lived much longer than the men he was involved in interviewing in their prison cells, many of who were executed for their crimes.
This is a book which pulls on the emotions, at times heartbreaking and appalling but throughout it all the thread of hope because we know that this young man was victorious. He came through it all stronger and lived much longer than the men he was involved in interviewing in their prison cells, many of who were executed for their crimes.
February 21, 2025
Read It...But Read Gilbert and Get the Truth
The author, as his brother notes: was so biased by his hate that he simply lies and misrepresents history. My family's life has been intertwined with Holocaust Survivors...my mother bringing them into classrooms and creating curriculum tossing the Palm Beach School Board's and teaching the Diary of Anne Frank instead. But this author states no evil Nazi at Nuremburg had any remorse. Gilbert describes the remorse of some in detail. Hating Nazism does not mean playing about evil people. If we don't have accurate history: we're more likely to repeat it. By misrepresenting these evil men as one-dimensional, the author makes it impossible to understand how and why all the evil happened. Reading Gilbert: you gain real insight, and UNDERSTAND history. Hate ceases not with hatred. Hate ceases when you live and think like Elie Wiesel. The author couldn't get beyond his hate, and that prevented him from being a competent psychiatrist, and led him to misrepresent the realities at Nuremburg. He let the evil Nazis make him a hater: he let them win. Tragic.
The author, as his brother notes: was so biased by his hate that he simply lies and misrepresents history. My family's life has been intertwined with Holocaust Survivors...my mother bringing them into classrooms and creating curriculum tossing the Palm Beach School Board's and teaching the Diary of Anne Frank instead. But this author states no evil Nazi at Nuremburg had any remorse. Gilbert describes the remorse of some in detail. Hating Nazism does not mean playing about evil people. If we don't have accurate history: we're more likely to repeat it. By misrepresenting these evil men as one-dimensional, the author makes it impossible to understand how and why all the evil happened. Reading Gilbert: you gain real insight, and UNDERSTAND history. Hate ceases not with hatred. Hate ceases when you live and think like Elie Wiesel. The author couldn't get beyond his hate, and that prevented him from being a competent psychiatrist, and led him to misrepresent the realities at Nuremburg. He let the evil Nazis make him a hater: he let them win. Tragic.
October 17, 2024
Never Forget.
A fascinating incite to some of the top Nazi's and the fact that they received a punishment that could never match up to the horror and millions of deaths they forced upon a race of people plus many more that were not able to fight back.
These animals went to their executions believing they were right in the pain they put on these poor, defenceless human beings.
A book that does not give the full horrors of the treatment that was received in the concentration camps but the story is told by a person who was there when they paid a penalty for the atrocities they ordered to be given.
A fascinating incite to some of the top Nazi's and the fact that they received a punishment that could never match up to the horror and millions of deaths they forced upon a race of people plus many more that were not able to fight back.
These animals went to their executions believing they were right in the pain they put on these poor, defenceless human beings.
A book that does not give the full horrors of the treatment that was received in the concentration camps but the story is told by a person who was there when they paid a penalty for the atrocities they ordered to be given.
March 11, 2025
The title of the book is misleading – it tells the story of a German-Jewish man and his family, with very little focus on the Nuremberg prisoners during the trials.
Unlike millions of Jews and most of his family, he was one of the few fortunate ones; he survived the Nazi Holocaust and became a translator for the psychiatrists who examined the leaders of Nazi Germany during the Nuremberg trial. Aside from the fact that he collected autographs from the defendants in original books published by the Nazis, nothing new is revealed.
His and his family’s story is both sad and compelling, but the book was advertised as an insider account, and disappointingly, it is not.
Unlike millions of Jews and most of his family, he was one of the few fortunate ones; he survived the Nazi Holocaust and became a translator for the psychiatrists who examined the leaders of Nazi Germany during the Nuremberg trial. Aside from the fact that he collected autographs from the defendants in original books published by the Nazis, nothing new is revealed.
His and his family’s story is both sad and compelling, but the book was advertised as an insider account, and disappointingly, it is not.
January 21, 2026
This was interesting and written in a flowing manner, interspersing research with quotes from Howard Triest. The first half was Howard's biography and then the second went into his interactions with the prisoners at Nuremberg. These chapters were not given significant detail but were enough to gain a picture of what it would have been like. It is something that always hits home to me when reading narratives of war, how normal so many of these men and women of chaos were.
4 stars, only because the author tells some incidents out of order, and repeats herself in a variety of ways, sometimes in neighbouring paragraphs which makes some chapters read quite disjointed.
4 stars, only because the author tells some incidents out of order, and repeats herself in a variety of ways, sometimes in neighbouring paragraphs which makes some chapters read quite disjointed.
December 3, 2024
A heart wrenching story
Like a bitter pill and difficult to swallow, this is a story that shows man's blind indifference to his fellow men. Cruelty holds no borders or barriers and we are so easily swept along like a tidal wave of emotion. Man has not learned anything whatsoever from the genocide of WW2. hardly a single year has ever passed since then that one nation or country has committed atrocities, mass killings and repression of the beliefs of minorities in the name of religion. When will it all end?
Like a bitter pill and difficult to swallow, this is a story that shows man's blind indifference to his fellow men. Cruelty holds no borders or barriers and we are so easily swept along like a tidal wave of emotion. Man has not learned anything whatsoever from the genocide of WW2. hardly a single year has ever passed since then that one nation or country has committed atrocities, mass killings and repression of the beliefs of minorities in the name of religion. When will it all end?
March 31, 2025
Full of insight and heartbreak
Inside Nuremberg Prison is full of the thoughts and revelations going through the mind of a U.S. Jewish soldier and later civilian who was in the room with the most heinous of war criminals. I put this book down after reading it and thought yet again how mundane true evil can appear. These people behaved and looked more like kindly grandfather's than ruthless killers, yet they were responsible for millions of deaths. The author struggled to reconcile this frightening contradiction, and it remains frightening today.
Inside Nuremberg Prison is full of the thoughts and revelations going through the mind of a U.S. Jewish soldier and later civilian who was in the room with the most heinous of war criminals. I put this book down after reading it and thought yet again how mundane true evil can appear. These people behaved and looked more like kindly grandfather's than ruthless killers, yet they were responsible for millions of deaths. The author struggled to reconcile this frightening contradiction, and it remains frightening today.
December 22, 2025
Fue una buena lectura para también tener la perspectiva de un alemán judío sobre lo que pasaba en Munich durante el comienzo de las leyes de Nuremberg hasta el inicio de la segunda guerra mundial.
Se centra bastante en pequeñas anécdotas de Triest antes y durante los juicios de Nuremberg y después de cómo fue parte de la desnazificación de Munich. También es una buena fuente de experiencias en una Alemania a los inicios del nazismo.
Algo que encontré molesto fue que cada rato esté la palabra: La ironía, qué ironía, lo irónico...
Se centra bastante en pequeñas anécdotas de Triest antes y durante los juicios de Nuremberg y después de cómo fue parte de la desnazificación de Munich. También es una buena fuente de experiencias en una Alemania a los inicios del nazismo.
Algo que encontré molesto fue que cada rato esté la palabra: La ironía, qué ironía, lo irónico...
December 15, 2024
Such evil in the world
My goodness I thought I’d read all the books to do with the WW2. I know there was so much evil with the Nazi’s but oh my word 😪
Breaks ones heart reading this, what a brave man, seeing it through like he did at such a young age, he definitely deserves a medal for not dishing out cyanide pills to all of the Nazi’s.
I’m so pleased Howard found his soulmate and had a good life. ❤️
My goodness I thought I’d read all the books to do with the WW2. I know there was so much evil with the Nazi’s but oh my word 😪
Breaks ones heart reading this, what a brave man, seeing it through like he did at such a young age, he definitely deserves a medal for not dishing out cyanide pills to all of the Nazi’s.
I’m so pleased Howard found his soulmate and had a good life. ❤️
March 23, 2025
Remarkable account of the Nuremberg trials
This book provides the reader with a ringside seat for a grand your of man's greatest inhumanity to man. I chose to read it in preparation for a visit to the Auschwitz camp and holocaust museum in April 2025. As Europe struggles to cope with yet another dangerous and deluded dictator in the shape of Putin this book is a vivid reminder of the horrors of war and is a stark warning of what we may have to deal with once again in 2025.
This book provides the reader with a ringside seat for a grand your of man's greatest inhumanity to man. I chose to read it in preparation for a visit to the Auschwitz camp and holocaust museum in April 2025. As Europe struggles to cope with yet another dangerous and deluded dictator in the shape of Putin this book is a vivid reminder of the horrors of war and is a stark warning of what we may have to deal with once again in 2025.
May 7, 2025
Excellent account of a German Jew who fled Germany, joined the US Army, and then acted as a translator for the psychiatrists who were interviewing defendants and witnesses involved in the Nuremberg Trials. His sister also survived the Holocaust but his parents were deported from Vichy France to Auschwitz, where they were murdered upon arrival.
January 12, 2025
Brilliant
So true to life follows the exact story as it was in the film brilliant secondary schools should have this as part of our history what made Britain and American people so 👍
So true to life follows the exact story as it was in the film brilliant secondary schools should have this as part of our history what made Britain and American people so 👍
April 6, 2025
Best Book WWII
This is a must read for anyone interested in WWII history. It has history wrapped all the way through. The main character, an enlisted Army soldier is the strongest of the strong soldiers. As a former soldier, I am glad I read this book. Look
This is a must read for anyone interested in WWII history. It has history wrapped all the way through. The main character, an enlisted Army soldier is the strongest of the strong soldiers. As a former soldier, I am glad I read this book. Look
December 8, 2025
absolutely fascinating
I read this book in the days after seeing the film “Nuremberg “ in December 2025.
Reading this book rounded out the experience of this brave and well-balanced man.
I read this book in the days after seeing the film “Nuremberg “ in December 2025.
Reading this book rounded out the experience of this brave and well-balanced man.
August 21, 2024
A must
An excellent book that sensitively reviews the input of Howard Triest. This is one that everyone should read. Would thoroughly recommend.
An excellent book that sensitively reviews the input of Howard Triest. This is one that everyone should read. Would thoroughly recommend.
September 13, 2024
Moving
How one man's journey of self control when facing those responsible for the murder of his parents and the millions of others.
How one man's journey of self control when facing those responsible for the murder of his parents and the millions of others.
October 9, 2024
A great book
A riveting book that keeps you wanting more n more an incredible book you can't put down ...I loved it !
A riveting book that keeps you wanting more n more an incredible book you can't put down ...I loved it !
October 16, 2024
Patronizing, basic, at times even childish (see statements like 'the evil Nazis').
More appropriate for mid-school students or those not familiar with WWII and the Nazis (?)
More appropriate for mid-school students or those not familiar with WWII and the Nazis (?)
December 4, 2024
I could not put this book down. After teaching this period of history for many years there was still plenty for me to yet learn.
February 15, 2025
It’s a 3 if only for the effect it had on Howard Triest. It’s actually written by Dr Fry as a documentary. I may have to watch Triests documentary Journey to Justice.
April 10, 2025
Missing feelings.
I would have liked more first person dialogue as the third person passages often seemed strangely to fail to induce emotion in the reader.
I would have liked more first person dialogue as the third person passages often seemed strangely to fail to induce emotion in the reader.
December 20, 2024
anytime a book comes on my TBR about the atrocious acts of the holocaust, i will always make time to read it. this was very open, honest and heartbreaking.
Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews