The Anatomy of the Nuremberg Trials: A Personal Memoir

by Telford Taylor

A key member of the prosecution team at the Nuremberg war crimes trials offers an eyewitness account of the tribunal, shedding new light on the accused top-echelon Nazis, the events of the trials, and the verdicts

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Law, World War II, Germany, Politics, Crime

703 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1992

Reviews

[Helga · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a detailed and in depth eyewitness account of the first ever international tribunal of war crimes which was held in Nuremberg, Germany, during 1945-46.
The defendants who were the chief military and political leaders of the Third Reich were questioned and tried by 4 prosecutors, each from the four allied powers of Great Britain, France, United States and the Soviet Union.
Throughout the trial we hear of the atrocities committed and the denials and excuses. We are presented with the evidence of the crime and the defendants' role in the Nazi regime.
The book ends after passing of the sentences and accounting the fate of each of the defendants.

[Stefania Dzhanamova · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Nuremberg Trial, which was held in Bavaria, in the picturesque city of Nuremberg that in 1945 laid "ravaged", is considered the father of all modern war crime trials and was the first occasion when a whole group of states (Britain, the USSR, France, and the USA) joined efforts to try war criminals. This fateful trial and the subsequent "Little" Nuremberg trials held in American occupation zones between 1947 and 1949, pioneered the imposition of penalties for "crimes against humanity" (atrocities committed by a government against its own citizens) and "crimes against peace" ("waging wars of aggression and in violation of treaties" and proof that such wars were waged by the defendants). Nuremberg also succeeded in charging the Nazi with participation in criminal conspiracy, formed as early as 1933, to commit atrocious violations of the laws of war. Justice Robert Jackson, a "legal Brahmin" whose "higher” education consisted of one year at Albany Law School, but whose forensic talents were exceptional, managed to outline the willingness of Goering, Ribbentrop, Keitel, Raeder, and Jodl to follow Hitler’s every decision and order for the preparation and waging of wars which they knew to be in fact aggressive. He dealt with the arguments of many of the defendants that they could not have been conspirators because they disagreed even among themselves by reasoning that "of course it is not necessary that men should agree on everything in order to agree on enough things to make them liable for a criminal conspiracy. Unquestionably there were conspiracies within the conspiracy and intrigues and rivalries and battles for power . . . Wherever they differed, their differences were as to method or disputes over jurisdiction, but always within the framework of the common plan."

At Telford Taylor writes, most of those involved in developing the Nuremberg-Trial plan believed that due to the enormous quantity of evidence exposing Nazi atrocities, all that would be necessary to produce a speedy trial was careful planning and tight legal drafting. The opponents of the trial, who either agreed with Goering's cynical claim that "the victor will always be the judge, and the vanquished the accused" (Gilbert, G.M, Nuremberg Diary, p.10), or thought that it was an innovation without an adequate foundation in existing law, also believed the court proceedings would be quick and the sentences draconian. Yet, what actually happened was a prolonged, 12-month trial, full of twists and turns. The subject matter, the notoriety of the defendants, and the caliber of some of the witnesses brought about many sensational and shocking revelations. Telford Taylor remembers the stunned silence of the audience that followed the SS officer Otto Ohlendorf’s cold, impassive statement that, in southern Russia, his troops had rounded up and killed some 90,000 Jews. He also recalls "the sheer panic" of the defendant Walter Funk, formerly President of the Reichsbank (German State Bank), when prosecutor Thomas Dodd, cross-examining, suddenly produced, and put into evidence, documents showing that Funk well knew that the Reichsbank was receiving jewels and other valuables, including gold teeth, which had been taken from the bodies of Jews and other inmates of concentration camps. And in the end, instead of the expected 22 death sentences, three defendants – former Reich Chancellor Franz von Papen, former Reichsbank President and Minister of Economics Hjalmar Schacht, and Radio Propaganda Chief Hans Fritzsche – were acquitted, seven given prison sentences of different lengths, and only twelve hanged.

Telford Taylor is well fitted to provide a good survey of the surprises and complexities of the proceedings. A young lawyer, he joined the Nuremberg prosecution team under Justice Robert H. Jackson in Autumn 1945. He worked as a prosecutor at Nuremberg throughout the main "four-power" trial of 1945-46, and then, after being promoted to Brigadier General, directed the series of "Little" Nuremberg trials held in the American zone of Germany. It is obvious that he had thought long and hard about the events that unfolded at Nuremberg, and had tried to look at himself and his work with maximum detachment.
Interesting is his explanation of the purpose of the International Military Tribunal (IMT), "the most important and . . . successful new entity in the enforcement of the laws of war". What law exactly was the International Military Tribunal enforcing? The IMT was no ordinary court. It was established by the United States and three major European nations, and the laws by which the IMT was bound were not the laws of any of those or of any other nations. That is why for its rules on crime the IMT looked primarily to the international laws of war, which had developed gradually throughout the 19th and 20th century. When the war ended in 1945, except for the treaty provisions relating to poison gas and submarines, the declared and generally accepted laws of war were not fundamentally different from those embodied in the Hague and Geneva conventions. But, underscores Taylor, in 1945, public and social attitudes toward the laws of war had undergone a sea change: the perceived evil of Nazism in action was far deeper and more pervasive than was that of Imperial Germany. In World War I, U-boats, zeppelins, and poison gas had been brutally and ruthlessly used, but they were weapons of war employed to achieve military victory. The ideology of the Third Reich, however, embraced not only German aggrandizement by force of arms, but also the violent suppression of political opposition and reduction of Jews and Slavs to the status of “subhumans” targeted for enslavement at best. Nazism was a proudly avowed repudiation of the libertarian, humanitarian, and internationalist ideals to which most national governments gave "at least lip service."

One of the most engrossing parts of Taylor's memoir is his analysis of the Nazi defendants themselves, with their constant prevarication, self-justification, and appalling lack of remorse. For example, he, mostly drawing upon the almost always accurate descriptions of Justice Jackson, effectively outlines Luftwaffe Chief Herman Goering, whose large and varied role was half militarist and half gangster: "He stuck his pudgy thumb in every pie." He used his SA musclemen to help bring the gang into power, and in order to entrench that power, he contrived to have the Reichstag burned, established the Gestapo, and created the concentration camps. He was "equally adept at massacring opponents and at framing scandals to get rid of stubborn generals". He built up the Luftwaffe and hurled it at his defenseless neighbors. He was, next to Hitler, "the man who tied the activities of all the defendants together in a common effort."
Equally spot-on are the derogatory paragraphs attached to "the duplicitous Ribbentrop", "Streicher, the venomous vulgarian", "the zealot Hess", "Kaltenbrunner, the grand inquisitor", "Keitel, the weak and willing tool", "Rosenberg, the intellectual high priest of the 'master race'", and Sauckel, “the greatest and cruelest slaver since the Pharaohs of Egypt.”

While some of these retorts might be too much for me, the defendants also exasperated me beyond the reach of any compassion. Their constant chorus – "I only heard about these things here for the first time" – not only displays their most abject, cowardly side, but is also annoying and infuriating. Did those men, who were so concerned about their "honor", seriously persisted to deny, dodge, and lie to the very end in the vain hope that they would be able to save their skins? Could they actually believe they would succeed in selling the ridiculous composite picture of Hitler's government that emerged from their statements to the prosecution?
Because from the defense so often pled by the Nazi when confronted with infernal crimes – "Nobody knew about what was going on" – we get, according to Jackson, the following absurd version of the Third Reich: a "Number 2" man who knew nothing of the excesses of the Gestapo which he created, and never suspected the Jewish extermination program although he was the signer of over a score of decrees which instituted the persecutions of that race; a foreign minister who knew little of foreign affairs and nothing of foreign policy; a field marshal who issued orders to the Armed Forces but had no idea of the results they would have in practice; a Party philosopher who was interested in historical research and had no idea of the violence which his philosophy was inciting in the twentieth century; a Gauleiter of Franconia whose occupation was to pour forth filthy writings about Jews, but who had no idea that anybody would read them; a Reichsbank president who was totally ignorant of what went in and out of the vaults of his bank; a plenipotentiary for the war economy who secretly marshaled the entire economy for armament, but had no idea it had anything to do with war.... No comment.
In general, my opinion is that the Tribunal's judgements served those brutal, dishonest, greedy men right.

Throughout his whole account, Telford Taylor is as clear, concise and objective as possible; although his highlights the achievements of the prosecution, he doesn't gloss over its mistakes. Once he begins to recount the day-to-day story of the trial, the narrative rolls with the tension of a courtroom drama. His long introduction tackling the nuances and pitfalls inherent in war crime trials is as useful as the rest of this non-fiction story is lively and compelling. In addition, Taylor draws upon an impressive number of British and American archives. The Anatomy of Nuremberg is a powerful book that serves both as a lucid picture of the past and as a cautionary guidance for the future.

[Tim Pendry · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have always felt uneasy about the legitimacy and conduct of the Nuremburg Trials and this excellent memoire by one of the senior American prosecutors did little to make me feel more comfortable about the 'justice of the victors'.

Do not misunderstand me. The murderous out-of-control inhuman behaviour of the German military under an extremist and partially irrational political movement could not go unpunished. The victors were in an unenviable position in deciding to go about enforcing 'justice'.

There were four victors speaking for the 'United Nations' (the victors' own ideological construct which survives to this day) - the Soviet Union, France, the British Empire and the United States of America - and all had human rights skeletons in their closet.

The Soviet Union had a simple political position - it did not care how the bastards that had wrecked its country were punished but punished they must be. The French were distracted - they were lucky to be included in the victors' roster and had bigger problems rebuilding a shattered economy.

It was the two Western victors - the US and the British Empire, the first clearly by now displacing the latter as 'top dog' - who had to decide whether the victors' triumph should be a matter of simple political decision-making or should somehow be 'legitimised'.

Being pragmatists, the British initially wanted simply to sort things out as a set of political choices but the Americans had other ideas - they wanted a show trial with a difference, one that would be conducted not on Soviet lines but according to proper judicial procedures.

What Telford Taylor's book makes clear is that the Americans made the running in pushing forward the idea of a trial (which the Soviets certainly had no problem with on the basis that its results would be a foregone conclusion to all intents and purposes).

Taylor's book is remarkable as the testimony of the best of America - a decent, thoughtful and educated man trying to make sense of his own experience and giving a three-fold account of the atmosphere of the period, the processes involved and the moral issues raised by the trials.

Before we come to the reasons for unease in this reader (we detect slight unease at times in Telford), we should describe the book. It is an 'anatomy' not only of the trials themselves but of how they came to be, the thinking behind them and the mood of the time.

It is also a description of the Nazi defendants and their behaviour which adds to our understanding of their nature and motivation. It is not merely 'contemporary' narrative history but also a contribution to legal scholarship which the casual reader might find difficult and dull at times.

Nevertheless, it is worth persevering with because, while the legal issues can sometimes seem recondite and its structures built on sand when it comes to ethical considerations, the insight given into how lawyers make decisions in undoubtedly highly political circumstances is invaluable.

This is not to say that the trials were ever overtly political in procedure rather than initiation. The judges took their duty of care towards correct judicial form and as fair a trial as possible very seriously and this was no Vishinsky-style exercise in a witch hunt.

The defence was often poor from inexperience and part of one's unease lies in lack of allowance for the disadvantages it faced but there was an open and transparent defence process. The judges often challenged the prosecution and refused to let them dictate terms.

Telford's later access to Judge Biddle's notes of the deliberations of the judges before judgement and sentencing show us four judges and four alternates from four radically different political and judicial cultures horse-trading, yes, but attempting to be just according to their own lights.

Given the strength of feeling amongst the publics of the victorious nations and the emerging information about the deliberate and chaotic brutalities of the Nazi regime, the restraint being shown by the victors seems to be historically remarkable.

Nevertheless, what also comes across (and Telford's intellectual integrity in presenting and analysing what happened is commendable) is the degree to which the process and the judges fell between stools - neither a show trial along Soviet lines but also not something wholly depoliticised.

Looking back over what is now nearly seventy years, two contrasting thoughts emerge - that the 'American fix' of an international tribunal was probably the best bad option for dealing with a murderous regime and that the tribunal was not entirely fair either.

Unease lies in both the compromises essential to making this 'fix' work and its long term consequences with which we are still dealing today. It also lies in some specific decisions which remain disturbing of which more later.

The most obvious concern (felt then by many lawyers and military men as much as today) lies in the retrospectivity of the charges, Despite their claims, the Tribunal was creating international law after the fact. They were turning moral beliefs in the present into law in the past.

We are back to the problem of how you deal with undoubted 'crimes' (in ethical terms) when, in fact, there was no rule of law pertaining to them when they were committed. The victorious allies were obliged to create retrospective legislation as the only means of avoiding political solutions.

The theoretically right approach would have been to create consensual binding global legislation for the future based on the terrible events of the preceding years and this is what emerged as the United Nations became a force that could help create a framework of international law.

But this does not get away from the difficulties that no one before the UN Charter was agreed and who had not signed up to it was bound by it and that international relations is a relation of sovereign states and so law is only enforceable to the degree that it can be enforced by a 'victor'.

Moreover, the German (and Nazi) arguments about the oppressive nature of the Versailles Treaty and its denial of self-determination to Germans in the Sudetenland and the Polish corridor were never adequately answered except by diktat.

It is really uncomfortable for us to say this today but, while it does not justify the expansion of activity into imperialist war and certainly not the atrocities that ensued, the Wilsonian position on national self-determination should have recognised some German aspirations.

In short, we have skewed the story into a binary tale of good and evil so thatinternational justice becomes a fiction wholly dependent on the 'macht' of victors. Its retrospectivity was simply a sign of that 'macht'. The judicial procedures were the justice of the victors at that point in time.

The reason this creates unease is that, while many progressives were sincere and are sincere in their belief in international justice, the creators of this system all had far from clean hands in judging the Nazi regime.

The Nazi regime merely concentrated its crimes into a short space of time at the heart of the 'civilised world' and made the unfortunate error of glorifying its own brutality as an imperialist race struggle. But let us look at the record of the judging countries.

The Soviet Union's record in this respect requires no introduction but it had actively participated in the carving up of Poland (an important part of the charge sheet against Germany) and its activities since 1917 towards peasants and dissenters were certainly comparable to that of the Nazis.

The Soviets could and did make arguments from necessity and ideology not much differently from the Nazis (as did the Western imperialist powers in their time) while the German argument about the invasion of Norway as pre-emptive might well have held water if evidence was not withheld.

The two Western imperiums - those of France and Britain - had long since been constructed on the conquest of many indigenous peoples, some of whom (as in Tasmania) had been exterminated, and there is barely a nation in the world not invaded by the British at some point in history.

The King of little Belgium (for whom hundreds of thousands of young British men died in the First War) had overseen a brutal exploitative slave state in the Congo and Hitler was taking many beliefs and actions of the West in the previous century only to their horrible logical conclusion.

The United States, the 'beacon on the hill' and self aware store of moral value, had also been built on the original sin of the near-extermination of indigenous peoples and had still not come to terms with its own racial attitudes (it still has not) as it was liberating Dachau.

And then there were the more specific 'war crimes' arguments. One of the few defence wins at Nuremburg was to show that Doenitz and the German naval approach to unrestricted submarine warfare was much the same as the heroised Admiral Nimitz in the Pacific in the war against Japan.

The British obsession with punishing the Germans for the infamous Commando Order conveniently forgot that those same Commandos were slitting German throats from behind in secret raids. The Germans were committing war crimes but the Tribunal was never good at explaining context.

Then, when considering the unrestricted slaughter of civilians, the undoubted evil of the German military in the East and Himmler's machine could be seen as part of a general degradation that included the fire bombings of Hamburg, Dresden and Tokyo and the atom bomb blasts.

There were other oddities - the Soviets drove Germans out of their lands as the Germans drove Slavs out of theirs. Even as the trials were ending, the Czechs expelled the Sudeten Germans from their homeland without a whisper of complaint from the allies.

This is not to minimise the evils of the Nazi regime (on the contrary, there was something peculiarly demonic about the Himmler machine and Hitler) but to say that the victors glossed over things to ensure a political result with only relatively late behaviour change on their part.

The low point was probably the Soviets pushing their interpretation of the Katyn Wood massacre but there was also 'mauvaise foi' in the entire construction of the conspiracy to mount an aggressive war that repeated for political purposes the reasoning at Versailles.

What was ultimately behind this was a peculiarly American ideological drive to build a world that did not exist at that time and we can either share that intent and accept that the means justified the ends or be concerned that the means would become the ends as history unfolded.

American internationalists had tried to build that world under Woodrow Wilson and failed abysmally because Congress was not in tune with their thinking.

The attempt to force democracy and national self-determination into the same pot at the expense of the losers in 1918/1919 had been the trigger for a second round of violence and brutality in the 1930s and early 1940s but American liberalism was not about to give up on its dreams.

The Nuremburg Trials were part, just one part, of an attempt to impose moral order on a political universe which needed to risk nuclear conflagration with the Soviet Union in the coming years just as it needs to risk economic melt-down with the same conflict with China to achieve meaning.

What started with the crushing of the Confederacy and required the dismantling of the old European empires continued with the settlement of 1945 and the creation of a liberal democratic bloc and today's confrontations. It is as ideological as anything from the pen of Karl Marx.

But we come back to the main problem of 1945. The Nazis had been defeated. The evidence was clear that they had considered war an instrument of policy (but who did not until relatively recently) and that they had engaged in vicious and monstrous behaviours, especially in the East.

Incidentally, what is fascinating about Telford's account is the great time spent on the conspiracy to wage war (the main international legal argument) and on crimes against Allied servicemen (mostly to satisfy the British) and the relatively secondary role given to atrocities.

The atrocities are covered alright. Very early in the trials, the defendants were cowed and many shattered by the revelations of cruelty in the East (which it is clear that some had no experience of) which were staggering in their brutality.

Even allowing for some slight exaggeration in untestable Soviet evidence, history has shown that there was no exaggeration required to demonstrate the barbarism, neglect and chaos of Nazi rule in which the Wehrmacht were wholly complicit.

The point is that atrocities were largely a PR and prosecutory back-drop to arguments that centred on national 'amour propre' and 'rule of law' - the Jews were treated as almost a side issue by all except the Soviet prosecutors explaining legitimate Jewish resentment in later years.

The choice of defendants was also peculiar at times. There was confusion about which Krupp was to be charged so no Krupp was charged. Because Goebbels was dead, the prosecutors simply picked on an official, Fritsche, as close to him as possible (he was one of three acquitted).

Policy was being made on the hoof because events were moving fast from the process of persuading the United Nations to undertake a Tribunal through the pragmatic politics of rebuilding Germany (and the strange process of 'denazification') to the new politics of the Cold War.

This was not a stable process so it may best be understood as basically decent men of often limited capacity (this comes out strongly in Telford's text) and limited resources of information and time who were trapped in their cultural assumptions trying to work around political realities.

This meant many failures of process, lack of consistency, horse-trading and tokenism while the actual business of sorting out the consequences of Nazi rule were still being made politically. In some countries, such as France, it took quite a while to restore order and end 'rough justice'.

One particularly disturbing aspect of the trial was the link between the psychologist with access to the defendants and the prosecution and there were other procedures that may not have made the trial unfair but certainly loaded the dice heavily against the defendants.

In the end half of the defendants were hanged and most of the others got long terms of imprisonment with just three acquittals (all three of whom were then hunted down by the new German authorities in any case).

Were the sentences just? Perhaps so, possibly too soft in some cases and certainly in later trials, but 'justice' was only part of the story. The punishments and the 'show trial' aspects were politically necessary at the time in order to give meaning to the sacrifice of the allies and 'educate' Germans.

Indeed, given the violence done to so many people by the malice or incompetence or simple bureaucratic discipline of the defendants, no tears should be shed for those sentenced, including many of those summarily dealt with by the Soviets. Schacht and Speer got off lightly.

Indeed, one suspects that Schacht the banker and Speer the industrial fixer whose empire relied on the slave labour provided by the executed Sauckel were given some leeway because they were men of the judges' own class, professional men.

Some defendants behaved with exceptional dignity and one in particular, Seyss-Inquart, while remaining a Nazi to the end, earns some small respect both for his attempt to rule relaively humanely and to defy Hitler on a final destruction of the Netherlands. He was hanged.

Perhaps only two defendants end up as 'victims' for very different reasons. Doenitz had nothing to do with the 'conspiracy to war' nor direct involvement in the atrocities but got his jail sentence largely because he was the nearest they could get to the 'big bad' other than Goering himself.

The one that disturbs me the most is probably the least likeable personality (and weakest intellect), Julius Streicher, whose only crime was (it would appear) to run an antisemitic scandal sheet that was sidelined in much of the war and had a relatively small circulation.

He was notorious in the West and one gets the impression that he was to be hanged because a representative of ideology (other than Rosenberg who was also indicted as boss of a territory) was needed regardless of his actual lack of importance except as bogey man.

What is disturbing is that a man was hanged for expressing an opinion in a way that overturned the Voltairean Enlightenment position on freedom of speech and with no real evidence that his journal had anything directly to do with the crimes raised in the charges.

This is one of the darker sides of the liberal internationalist triumph of 1945 and more in accord with the Soviet influence in that triumph - the necessity for controlling the freedom that force brings to a people. It lives on in current German banning of free discourse.

Otherwise, we must accept the necessity of some sort of decisive act against the leaders of the Nazi regime and that it should be done by the Allies since Germany was in chaos (the US could rely on Iraqi revenge to deal with Saddam Husseion and leave with 'clean hands').

From that perspective, the Tribunal was flawed but necessary and there is no better book than Telford's for understanding the processes and compromises involved and how judgements were made under very difficult conditions.

Aspects of it may leave a bad taste in the mouth but the crimes of the Nazis leave an even nastier one and a 'St. Helena' solution of taking leading Nazis en masse and incarcerating them on a prison island or shooting them out of hand would have been even more problematic.

There was not time to think things through or to be pure about such issues as retrospectivity and admitting our own crimes as the basis for a new shared form of international justice.

Such a system is not possible now so it was scarcely going to be possible in the first flush of 1945. And so it was a 'fix', a well-intentioned and necessary one but a fix nevertheless.

As to the book, which I highly recommend for its decency and intellectual integrity, it is not quite definitive because we would need to read French, British and Soviet (and then German and even Nazi) perspectives for that but it is definitive enough in giving us an American view.

Non-lawyers might want to speed-read some of the more technical legal analyses (although they are worth studying in their own right) but Telford writes well and gives a good feel for what it was like to live as an occupier in a shattered post-war Germany.

[Megan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a brilliant biographical narrative - an excellent examination of the most overwhelming and important aspects of international law and ex-post facto jurisprudence - by Telford Taylor of the American prosecutorial team. Not much else could give the present day reader as opportunity to examine how the groundwork was laid for the Nuremberg Trials by the four victor nations (United States, United Kingdom, France, and the former USSR).

While the first quarter or so of the book was a bit too detailed for my taste, I can still appreciate its purpose. It’s definitely not for everyone: you’ll have to truly enjoy a blend of legalese, history and politics if you wish to make it through this voluminous work (I believe it ends on page 642, but given the fact that the print is about half the size of that of a fiction novel, it could easily work out to 1200 pages for readers unaccustomed to this type of writing/reading).

I’m not exactly sure how I feel, however, about the author not penning his memoir until 1990, nearly 50 years after the original “big trial” began. On the one hand, so many years have passed that yes, you may have the benefit of notes and hindsight, but no matter how excellent one’s memory may be, there can be no argument that it will be better or as good 45 years after the facts, as opposed to chronicling your thoughts at the exact time those events were occurring.

Ideally, there would have been a memoir at the time of the trial, and then another one 45-50 years later, examining his thoughts at the time compared to how he saw it at the onset of the 1990s. Although I suppose you can hardly blame the guy for not wanting to publish two memoirs of this size, especially since it wasn’t as though he packed up and went home like many of the other American prosecutors and judges at Nuremberg. Rather, he took over Justice Jackson’s responsibilities and became solely in charge of the subsequent trials of Nazi war criminals for the next three years (so yes, I suppose he can be forgiven for being a bit burnt out by the end to publish a memoir, lol).

Publishing the memoir in 1990, did, however, allow Taylor to tell us what became of the 24 defendants (23 if you’re not counting the absent Martin Bormann) as well as what happened in the lives of the other major players during the trial: prosecutors, defense counsel, judges. Most importantly, it let us answer three questions:
How necessary was it? How well was it done? And last but far from least, how successful was it?

The author believes the answer to the above questions (in chronological order) to be: “absolutely”, “hard to say if anyone could have done it better, but they did pretty damn well given what they had and given the mood of the times” (that’s how I interpret his response, not his response verbatim) and (again, my interpretation) “mostly so, but certainly not if you were to ask the German defense counsel. Which is to be expected, obviously. However, it seemed like the German civilians were very split during the trial.

On the one hand, you’d have American soldiers trying to protect Nazi defendants from mobs and police out looking for them, equipped with a warrant for their arrest. You’d have citizens complaining about them “going too soft” on the Nazis. But then you’d also have the Germans who saw the collapse of Germany all around them, whose day-to-day lives were a constant struggle, that would ask, ”Is there really the best use of all this money and time?”

Probably not, but then again, as the author points out, you couldn’t exactly let criminals who ordered 90,000 human beings to be executed and thrown into mass graves one after the other back out into the civilized world. You couldn’t just shrug your shoulders and say that type of brutality could be allowed to happen simply because it was during wartime. They certainly didn’t want to just leave the major Nazis alone, only for them to rebuild their precious empire - only this time, without Hitler’s fanaticism and impulsivity - to make German militarism even worse.

Let’s face it, no matter what you might think of Hitler, the Nazis, and how the conclusion of WWII played out, the one thing I think few people would deny is that the Germans were some of the most efficient people on the planet. Eerily so. Even Alexander Solzhenitsyn made a joke about WWII German veteran soldiers who landed in Stalin’s gulags: I can’t remember the exact joke, only that it was a joke inasmuch as it was immensely exaggerated, not because it was a false statement. It was based on how much work the average German prisoner completed vs. the average Russian.

The judges were also all so very different in their judicial styles, opinions, and thus decisions. You could take a clear look at their thoughts pertaining to the punishments, and establish a direct relationship between these thoughts and how their country had been treated/affected by Germany over the course of the war.

For example:
Not one of the four countries had clean hands, but America was undoubtedly the least affected by the Germans (former president Eisenhower, at the time the war’s leading general, was mainly concerned over the Malmédy massacre of of American troops in Belgium and the shooting of sixty-four British and American troops by the Waffen-SS Hitlerjugend Division). Obviously the British military suffered many casualties and Britain, particularly London, occurred serious damage from all of Germany’s aerial bombardment.

But that was little compared to what the French and Russian civilian populations suffered, and it likely explains the judges from those two countries and their ability to see things more objectively when arriving at punishments for the defendants, and often being the ones to switch sides to turn a tiebreaker 2-2 decision into a majority vote (the Russian judges never switched sides, and the French judges, rarely).

What was incredibly strange about the French judges were their unique capacity to be so… indecisive? For lack of a better word at the moment. The strange thing was, they didn’t want to impose any death sentences on the German defendants. However, they simultaneously were against acquitting the defendants, as well. Although maybe this shouldn’t come as such a surprise, given the fact that their country was uniquely divided during the war. On the one hand, you had the Free French and Charles de Gaulle fighting for France’s liberation. On the other, you had the German occupation of much of France, including Paris, and the infamous Vichy government headed by former French military general Marshall Petain. Not exactly the most cohesive unit during the war…

And the least shocking of all… the Soviets. No surprise there that after Germany violated the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact by occupying more than their agreed share of Poland, then attacking the former USSR and killing millions of Russian soldiers and civilians, that the Soviets would want anything less than the death penalty for all defendants. Of course, one may also ask ”What about the former USSR’s role in all of this horror and destruction?”

Well, aside from one clever German defense lawyer, Seidl, getting a mention of the Katyn massacre - or I believe it was the secret pact between Germany and the former USSR - in his closing argument, the victor nations chose to leave all documents out of the historical record at Nuremberg that had the potential for “embarrassing any of the four prosecuting nations.” Of course, today we’re all pretty well aware of each nation’s own culpability and atrocious actions, not just in that period of war history, but in times past and future.

This book is so lengthy that I’ve said about all I feel I can say in a review about it without going overboard. However, a quick aside: I loved some of the pettiness and the ego clashes between the judges at times. What better (and much needed) comic relief than a judge who has zero patience for not just the defendants, but his own colleagues?

English Judge Birkett loved to journal his thoughts concerning the proceedings, along with the ability and intellect of those around him. As Taylor tells us,

”Throughout May and June his notes and letters are chiefly diatribes against the German defense lawyers, the interpreters, and occasionally his more patient colleagues:

May 23rd: When I consider the utter uselessness of acres of paper and thousands of words and that life is slipping away, I moan for the shocking waste of time.
I used to protest vigorously and suggest matters to save time, but I have now got completely dispirited and can only chafe in impotent despair…

June 20th: When Fläschner [Speer’s counsel] succeeded Kubuschok [Papen’s] at the microphone, it became clear that there were lower depths of advocacy to be reached, unbelievable as it sounds…

June 21st: Oscar Wilde began De Profundis by asserting that “suffering is one long moment“ and the truth of that assertion cannot be better exemplified than in this awful cross-examination, which the tribunal is compelled to suffer and endure.

There’s plenty more hilarious complaints logged by Birkett and other judges on occasion, but I thought it best to provide just the one example.

5 stars - four for the quality of writing and presentation of the facts, one for the unique historical significance.

[Megan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book could get dryly analytical - you have to really dig legal particulars to get fully into this book sometimes. Fortunately, I do enjoy that kind of examination. This narrative thoroughly lays out the Nuremberg trials with just a little bit of personality and color. Taylor largely stays professional and focused, and really gives you everything you need to understand the pivotal Nuremberg trials.

[Mikey B. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Telford Taylor was a member of the American prosecution team at Nuremburg during 1945-46, so this book gives us a very personal view of the court proceedings. There were four prosecuting teams, from the U.S., Britain, the Soviet Union and France. I list them in that order because the U.S. team had many more members than Britain. Britain had more members than both the U.S.S.R. and France combined. Four judges made up what was called the Tribunal, and were also from the same prosecuting countries. There were also four alternate judges during the entire trial and they participated in the sentencing. The defense lawyers were German, and some were even ex-Nazis.

Of the 21 defendants Goering was the highest ranking in terms of guilt and leadership. He was also the magnet who drew the defendants together – or precipitated rivalries between them.

It was the U.S. that started to push and organize for trials in 1944. As described by the author there was much dissension on the U.S. prosecution team – two of the major prosecutors left shortly after the trial began. Robert Jackson was the leader of the U.S. team and he was both responsible and successful in getting this trial going. From the onset he constructed his team and got the British, Soviet Union and French involved. Unfortunately Jackson could be abrasive and was not the best administrator as the author himself experienced. Jackson was brilliant at prepared presentations, like at the trial opening; but he was not so good at witness interrogation. For example he became too emotional with Hermann Goering on the witness stand.

The amount of documents and witnesses was staggering. All documents had to be available in English, German, French and Russian. Simultaneous translations into these languages were done throughout the trial. This was the first time that such a trial had occurred and it was followed world-wide.

Besides being an International Military Tribunal there were many new and innovative aspects of international law introduced by this trial. Many of the defendants were charged with conspiracy to deliberately plan aggressive war, many were charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity. The terms “holocaust” and “genocide” came out after the conclusion of the trial. The trial also made clear that both the SS and the German Army participated in vast massacres of human beings – the round-up and slaughter of Jews across all of Europe, the deliberate starvation and negligence of Soviet prisoners of war that led to the death of millions of them, the utilization of slave labour... It is a horrendous list. The trial also negated “the out” of following orders as an escape route to avoid punishment.

As with any trial the defendants with the less “presentable personalities” tended to suffer grievous consequences. Julius Streicher, who was physically repulsive and published an ugly racist rag constantly portraying Jewish people as subhuman, was sentenced to death. Albert Speer, who looked like a bright office manger, was sentenced to twenty years imprisonment, even though he used hundreds of thousands of slave labourers under atrocious conditions, to produce armaments for the German Army undoubtedly prolonging the war. Speer was intelligent and adaptable to the changing conditions and thus survived.

This book provides many insights into the Nazi regime. We can clearly see how Hitler manoeuvred and used these 21 defendants for his schemes of German racial domination.

Because the author was a lawyer there are passages redolent with legal phrases, more so at the beginning of the book. And I would have wished for an index of characters involved with a short description of their role. There are many introduced throughout. It was an extremely long trial – lasting over a year - something unusual for all the participants. It must have been emotionally draining and costly for all. This is a tremendous book on the major trial of the 20th century.

Additional observations:
All were quite happy that the major participants did not make it to trial; namely Hitler, Goebbels, and Himmler. Bormann was tried in absentia which the author found unnecessary.

There was an attempt to bring the Krupp family to trial, but this was botched.

Rudenko, on the Soviet team, started off on the prosecution, and was after moved to the position of a judge on the Tribunal.

Soviet war crimes like their invasion of Poland and Finland did surface embarrassingly at times. The Soviets also insisted on prosecuting the Germans for the Katyn massacres, which Gorbachev acknowledged in 1990. This book was published in 1992, so I don’t know why the author did not mention it.

Aerial bombardment was not brought up as a war crime. As the author mentioned, one had only to look out the courtroom windows at Nuremburg to see long that argument would hold.


Page 294 (my book) Francois de Menthon (opening statement of French prosecution team)

I propose today to prove to you that all this organized and vast criminality springs from what I may be allowed to call a crime against the spirit. I mean a doctrine which, denying all spiritual, rational, and moral values... This monstrous doctrine is that of racialism... The expression “blood” which appears so often in the writings of the Nazi theorists denotes this stream of real life... National Socialism ends in the absorption of the personality of the citizen into that of the state and in the denial of any intrinsic value of the human person. .. give way to the primacy of race, its instincts, its needs and interests. The individual, his liberty, his rights, and aspirations, no longer have any real existence of their own.

[Catherine · Rating 5 out of 5]

“That four great nations, flushed with victory and stung with injury, stay the hand of vengeance and voluntarily submit their captive enemies to the judgement of the law is one of the most significant tributes that Power has ever paid to reason.” Justice Robert H Jackson, opening statement at Nuremberg.

I wanted to read more about the Nuremberg Trials after visiting Courtroom 600 a couple of months ago. Telford Taylor was part of the American prosecution staff and describes the trial in great detail as it unfolded. I’ve had this book on my shelf for years but never read it. It took me about 4 weeks to get through the entire book. I was particularly fascinated by Justice Robert Jackson and his determination to conduct a fair trial. I’d never read his opening statement before - it surely must be one of the greatest speeches of the 20th century. What an influential and inspiration figure from history!

[Irene · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you are looking for exhaustive detail, then look no further. This is a beautiful collection of the absolute minutiae of the set-up of the trial, and things definitely pick up when he gets to the trial itself, but I would not call this an easy read.

[William Schrecengost · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent. This is an account of Taylor’s time with Judge Jackson on the American Prosecution team at Nuremberg. Lots of interesting stuff in how they gathered information and how they got along with the other countries prosecutors. He ended the book with his opinions of the lasting value of the Nuremberg court precedents.

As the war came to a close, they started discussing what to do with the major war criminals. Some argued for a simple firing squad, but others pushed for a trial that would establish precedent for international law. This is what was decided upon and so teams from America, Britain, France and Russia began gathering evidence to bring to trial against these people. A lot of this was hired out to agencies who worked of it for the close of the war and when asked to provide the information they gathered it turned out that they hadn’t done anything. So all the information they gathered for the trial came from the end of the war (May 7) to the beginning of the trials (November 20). Most of the data came from personal diaries, letters, meeting minutes and verbal testimony.
The four prosecution teams had a lot of disunity and arguing and infighting throughout. Even within the national teams. Each man was seeking his own glory. The prosecution was also limited in its abilities because of their own country’s war crimes that weren’t being prosecuted. There were some submarine warfare and aerial bombings that were not prosecuted because the allies had done the same things. Then the tensions with Russias early involvement with the Germans put a stain on the entire proceedings.
Despite all of this, the trials went well. At the end Taylor talked about how he would like to see war crime trials to be held by international courts rather than the victors and to try both sides of the conflict. This would hold everyone to a higher standard and hold criminals responsible for their actions rather than giving them a pass because they won.

[Roberta · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF. Way too much detail which was not very engaging to read.

[Jeanne Andersen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating legal problems.

[T.J. Petrowski · Rating 3 out of 5]

Telford Taylor’s “The Anatomy of the Nuremberg Trials: A Personal Memoir” is both a memoir/autobiography and a scholarly legal analysis of the International Military Tribunal.

The book begins with some details about Taylor and international law as it existed at the time of WWII. Taylor had served in the American Army intelligence in Europe during WWII before being assigned as assistant to Chief Counsel Robert H. Jackson at Nuremberg in 1944. He describes international law as it existed at the time of the establishment of London Charter of the International Military Tribunal, such as the Lieber Code, the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907, the Geneva Convention of 1864, the Kellogg-Briand Pact (Pact of Paris) of 1928, etc., and the legal challenges of including crimes against peace, crimes against humanity, and the waging of aggressive wars in the Charter’s indictment.

Taylor moves on to describe the difficulties of reaching agreement on the indictment. Firstly, there were differences in what to do with the top ranking Nazis. The British initially supported killing all the major Nazis, while the Americans wanted a trial, which Taylor notes was a reversal of the outcome of WWI, when the British wanted a trial of Kaiser officials and the Americans were indifferent, if not opposed. Secondly, differences between Anglo-American and Continental European law posed major challenges on reaching an agreement between the U.S., Britain, France, and the USSR, which affected everything from what the indictment was and how it should be written, to whether or not the SS and the Gestapo could be charged as entities. Thirdly, the charge of “conspiracy”, the brainchild of Murray C. Bernays, to wage aggressive wars was and remained throughout the trial extremely controversial.

The rest of the book is a mixture of Taylor’s memoirs (what he heard, witnessed, experienced, etc.) and legal analysis (of the defense and prosecutions arguments, the evidence, etc.). This is where the value of the book really comes to light. Taylor offers a penetrating insider’s perspective of the participants (judges, prosecution, defense, and Nazi criminals), both within the courtroom and outside, and the progress of the trial.

Taylor describes Hermann Goering’s stunning victory over Jackson in the courtroom. According to Taylor, “Jackson was ‘unable to follow’ Goering, ‘much less outmaneuver him’” in his cross-examination. Jackson proceeded to have a meltdown in court, bitter at Goering’s victory over him, causing tension between the judges and the American prosecution. Goering was apparently too smart for the Americans; the British and Soviets were more effective with him. Throughout the book Taylor frequently describes the mental deterioration of Rudolph Hess throughout he trial. Despite the court psychologist’s evaluation of Hess as fit to stand trial, Taylor repeatedly makes it known that he disagreed. Taylor takes pity on Hess, which I found strongly disagreeable. Hess was a vicious Nazi that should have been hanged with the rest of them, but that is my opinion.

Here is a glimpse of how Taylor describes some of the Nazis. Ribbentrop was “regarded with utter scorn” at Nuremberg. Keitel was “the sort of weak man whom Hitler could count on to follow his orders regardless of law or morals.” Kaltenbrunner was “the most ominous-looking man in the dock and had no friends there.” Rosenberg “was maddeningly verbose and drove both his counsel (Dr. Alfred Thoma) and [President Judge] Lawrence to distraction with his insistence on treating every question as raising theoretical and historical matters. It was much easier to find him irritating than evil, and it was not until the evidence was forced onto the stage that one became aware of the atrocious consequences of this woolly and maundering man’s activities.” Frank “was no more attractive than most of his fellow defendants, but he was among the more interesting.” Frick “was the consummate bureaucrat — stiff, orderly, taciturn, unimaginative — and the least interesting of the defendants” as well as “a very cold fish.” Streicher posed the most difficult legal issues, his sole crime at Nuremberg being incitement since he had never participated or organized any violence against Jews. Schacht “was at the top of Dr. Gilbert’s IQ ladder (though only marginally above Seyss-Inquart, Goering, and Doenitz)” and as well as having superior education and linguistic skills, “he was the most sophisticated in the ways of the world. To those whom he respected, Schacht could be charming, but he did not suffer fools gladly and was arrogant, tough, sarcastic, and domineering. He was invariably convinced that he was both right and in the right…”. Funk was “Pasty, pudgy, in poor health, blubbering when testimony or photographs illuminated the horrors of the Nazi record, and openly scared — a pitiful wreck of a man who had fallen beneath respect, and knew it.” Schirach “ was the weakest of the defendants. If wimps had been spoken of, Schirach would have been so styled.”

Almost 200 pages of the book are devoted to the Nazi criminals, their testimonies, the arguments of their defense lawyers and the prosecution, and Taylor’s personal assessment of the Nazi criminals and the conduct of their trials. The above is a glimpse of the insider’s perspective that Taylor offers.

An element of the book I strongly disliked — and eventually found unbearable — was Taylor’s American righteousness. Throughout the book Taylor repeatedly criticizes all the other powers for their actions during WWII, such as (correctly) British and French appeasement of the Nazis, the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia, and British unwillingness to provide evidence to the defense counsel of British plans for the occupation of Norway, and (incorrectly) especially the Soviets, such as the Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact and the division of Poland, the Soviet-Finnish War, the pre-WWII purges, and the Katyn Massacre. But nowhere does he criticize the U.S., even when evidence of American crimes under the Nuremberg charter are brought out in open court. For example, Doenitz, commander of the German Navy, was accused of sinking British merchant ships in violation of the London Submarine Protocol of 1936. According to Taylor, this agreement prohibited the sinking of merchant ships without the attacking vessel first placing “the passengers, crew, and ship’s paper in a place of safety.” Thus, Taylor writes, “the German practice was a gross violation, causing many deaths at sea, and the charge could well lead to a capital consequence” for both Nazi navy officers at Nuremberg. Yet, when Doenitz’s lawyer offered evidence of the U.S. Navy committing the exact same “gross violation” in the sinking of Japanese merchant ships, all Taylor has to say is that the British prosecutor Fyfe’s objection that “the question whether the United States broke the laws and usages of war is quite irrelevant…it raises the old problem of evidence directed to tu quoque” and that Fyfe was “on sound ground; in general criminal law, if a defendant has committed a particular crime, the fact that others have also, even if the others are the accusers, is no defense.” The fact that American crimes during WWII receive a pass from Taylor throughout the book really diminished my respect for Taylor and his legal analyses.

Overall it was a really eye-opening book about a critical period in the establishment of modern international law.

[Adam Morris · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's a very long book but surprisingly interesting. I'm starting to believe that history is best when written by someone actually involved. Taylor participated in most of these events and in the interim between the trials and the publishing of the book in 1993, what he didn't witness he was able to discover through research.
Since he was there he not only explains the proceedings but also the characteristics of the players from the defendants and their counsel to the prosecution and also the judges with their quirks and peculiarities.
The book covers the whole scope of the main (first) Nuremberg trial from the point in time at which the idea of an international tribunal was first conceived in 1943 to the sentencing of the defendants in 1946 and what followed immediately after. Taylor discusses the highly original legal aspect of the trial as clearly as possible and also his perceptions of the strengths and shortcomings of the process.
Taylor himself was involved with the subsequent trials but those are not addressed in this book.

[Martin Chudik · Rating 5 out of 5]

Probably the single most comprehensive reading on the Nuremberg Trials. Exhaustive to the point of sometimes being exhausting, and also very slightly being a personal memoir (the author having been a Counsel for the Prosecution).

However, the breadth and depth of the information makes this well worth a (long) read. The trials had their share of ups and downs, both from a procedural and from a legal standpoint, and this book covers them well - the author is certainly quite open and direct where he thinks criticism is warranted.

[Relstuart · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you want to read your way to a comprehensive understanding of the Nuremberg trials this is a must read. Not a big fan of Taylor and his world view as an internationalist but his insight into the people and process at the trials is primary material.

[Nancy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Finally finished the book. It was okay but, too long and dragged out.

[Marty · Rating 3 out of 5]

Long and dry with little unknown info

[Jack Townsend · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very detailed account of the main Nuremberg Trial by one of the mid-to-high level prosecutors. I am a lawyer, so I could understand much of the jargon used. Although, they created new trial procedures and processes, they were pretty much patterned on the Anglo-American judicial systems with some blending of other systems (France and Russia). One thing that surprised me was the negative comments on Justice Robert Jackson, the chief U.S. prosecutor and perhaps the major force across the various prosecution teams. I am a big fan of Justice Jackson for his service as Chief Counsel of the IRS, Assistant Attorney General for the Tax Division, Solicitor General of the United States, Attorney General of the United States and then, of course, Justice of the Supreme Court. Wow, did he have a career. And, would have been (at least perhaps) Chief Justice had President Roosevelt lived somewhat longer. At any rate, this is a good recount of all the problems in putting together a war crimes trial with meaning where there had never been one before. And, they had to present a fair trail that could be a lesson for the future, for the ages. Good story, although it tends to get bogged down in detail at some points.

[Larry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Detailed and I do mean detailed look behind the scenes of the most famous trial of war criminals. Surprising concern was highlighted of how to apply law and sometimes create new legal positions on how to ensure there was even-handed justice to some of those responsible for the greatest war in human history. All of this was done without becoming an exercise of the victors over the vanquished and dealing with the multiple viewpoints and legal systems of the United States, Great Britan, the Soviet Union and France.

[Joe A · Rating 4 out of 5]

The end of a cataclysmic European war that saw death and destruction beyond comprehension. What is justice for the evil doers that plunged civilization into depths of suffering that exceeded comprehension. This is what the victorious nations faced, a true justice or would it be a victor’s justice.
The author was a key part of the process, truly interesting read. Was justice achieved? Probably as best as possible, or perhaps I should say as much as possible. In the end, what justice could there be in the face of such evil?

[Tom Schulte · Rating 4 out of 5]

this is an in-depth analysis of the famous trials of nazi leadership, military and otherwise. Taylor participated on the prosecution side even cross examining some of these 21 defendants in the inaugural trial. defiant goering and muddled, mysterious Hess stand out. also standing out is the Russian arm of the four nation tribunal for its focus on the Katyn massacre and dancing around the difficulties of their partnership with Hitler in partitioning poland.

[Nick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely spellbinding and fascinating!

Taylor was there and was a key cog, so you get this great element of having the story from the inside. It helps also that he's an engaging writer who manages to make the intense amount of detail accessible and entertaining.

This is a great book that pulls back the curtain on the last days of Nazi leadership. If you are interested in the period, the War in Europe, or even just judicial history, you need to read this book.

[Craig Beam · Rating 5 out of 5]

A long-awaited memoir of the Nuremberg war crimes trials by one of its key participants. In 1945 Telford Taylor joined the prosecution staff and eventually became chief counsel of the international tribunal established to try top-echelon Nazis. Telford provides an engrossing eyewitness accounts of one of the most significant events of our century.

[Renee · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the first book I've read on the Nuremberg trials, but it seems my bizarre obsession with the Halocaust has brought us here, so it will not be the last. This book gave so much information, but it was mostly about the legal thought that went into how to try these men and what the rules of war were, and that part of it was something I'd never really considered, so I appreciated the angle.

[Gerry Connolly · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the Anatomy of the Nuremberg Trials Telford Taylor, a prosecutor at the Nazi war crimes trials, recounts the debates and defenses of 24 Nazis charged on four counts in 1946. Nuremberg advanced international law. 11 were hanged. Goering escaped by suicide

[Paul H. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Three stars is generous -- I'm actually kind of impressed that Taylor managed to make a topic as inherently dramatic and interesting as the Nuremberg Trials seem mind-numbingly boring. This one is for legal scholars only, I suppose.

[Laurence · Rating 3 out of 5]

Taylor's legal training is clear and this is not just an account of the trial, the legal, political and ethical standpoints are considered often well detailed. A bit too dry at times for popular history, but certainly thorough and well presented.

A bit dry at times, generally worthwhile.

[Emg · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read it because I had just seen the Russell Crowe movie and wanted to get some context. Book seemed a little lop-sided and glided over or excused some of the American shortcomings and failures. I'm hoping to get a copy of a book from the perspective of the other nations involved.

[Kari · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fascinating, brutal, and dense

[Tim Cahalan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very thorough assessment of the trial