Tyranny on Trial: The Trial of the Major German War Criminals at the End of World War II at Nuremberg, Germany, 1945-1946

by Whitney R. Harris, Robert G. Storey (Foreword), Robert H. Jackson (Introduction)

Condensing an avalanche of documents which reveals the horrific record of Hitler's 12-year dictatorship, this book distills the evidence presented to the 1945-46 Nuremberg tribunal when former Nazi leaders were tried as war criminals. 46 photos. Index.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

704 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1961

Reviews

[Wilson Hines · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quite frankly, he covers EVERYTHING; sometimes I can read four or five pages and sometimes (rarely) I can read 70 or 80. There are times you want to cry. There are times I was utterly blown away at why the Tribunal did things. But, by the end, it all makes sense (almost all).

I have a very different view of the judicial system than most people. Quite frankly, I questioned the authority on which the Tribunal could stand and much of the terminology used by the Tribunal. Let me be clear, I am not a Nazi sympathizer, but it is recognized in the book, as well it should be, that the Nuremberg Tribunal was on virgin soil in its desire to convict by rule of law, law which did not exist before or during the war.

Therefore, an attempt (probably inadequate) to parallel the problem with a purely hypothetical situation would be the example two persons who runs takes two cars through an intersection which has never had a stop sign in the very earliest days of automobiles. Neither person has a drivers license because the drivers license hasn't been legislated yet and neither has any "rules of the road." The two automobiles happen to be going through the intersection at the same time and have an accident whereas the first person in history dies in an automobile accident. Who is at fault? There are no laws regulating any part of the use of the highways and automobiles. The local prosecutor decides to prosecute and hopefully convict the living person to set an example for the drivers of the future. Based on what premise or precedent?

The accused of the Tribunal saw things in my way as well,
"The accused complained that a trial of this scope and magnitude should not have been brought before a special tribunal established for that purpose by the victors in the war. It would have been preferable to have held such a trial before a preexisting international judicial instrumentality. But none existed on November 20, 1945, at the commencement of the trial. (Harris, pg. 572)

Trust me, in my mind, in my flesh, I like the method at which Stalin insisted to Churchill on pg. 525. Kill them all; all of the 50,000 + war criminals and bury them in a ditch. Churchill responded that he would rather have Stalin take him personally, shoot him in the woods and bury his body, instead.

But, my heart knows better than my flesh, as Mr. Justice Jackson, the U.S. Chief Counsel of the Tribunal stated so eloquently, "But the wrongs which we seek to condemn and punish have been so calculated, so malignant, and so devastating, that civilization cannot tolerate their being ignored, because it cannot survive their being repeated. That four great nations, flushed with victory and stung with injury stay the hand of vengeance and voluntarily submit their captive enemies to the judgment of the law is one of the most significant tributes that Power has ever paid to Reason." (Harris)

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

probably invaluable if you are researching Nuremberg. its coverage of the specific crimes committed by the Nazis is worthwhile to the general public, however. the barbarism is truly horrifying.

still, this book is largely a product of its mid-1950s time. we can see this early on in its acceptance of the Clean Wehrmacht Myth, which is repeated throughout despite there being instances where killings by Wehrmacht are referenced. there are also quite a few mentions of “Christian” civilization and the idea of “civilized people” in general, which seems to make the moral claims herein a bit less universal than it seems.

I would have been more interested in a book that was more skeptical of the legal foundations of the trial. it was disappointing to see Harris fall back on “the common law of nations” to justify criminalizing aggressive war, even as he notes that one of the prosecutors, the Soviets, are guilty of the very crime they are punishing. Harris confidently asserts that failing to enforce a law at times doesn’t mean there is no law, but I found that wholly unconvincing.

to be fair, it’s a hard argument to make, and they’re not totally wrong in prosecuting crimes that had not been codified. as he notes, someone who stole a horse in a frontier town could not expect to go free if caught just because no law existed — the act of punishment is a way of the community codifying a crime that had hitherto been implicit.

nonetheless, I wish there was a more modern interpretation of this trial, without any of the baggage of Christianity or appeals to a “universal moral sense” that seem to only care what Europeans have thought. besides that particular point, as an overview of the trial by someone deeply involved in it, this book is worth reading for anyone interested in the trials.

[Mary]

Very strong case laid out. Told pretty matter of factly with slight anti soviet union bias. I thought it was great start to the Holocaust's legal and justice history, admitting mistakes made and looking at many of the precedents set.
Could be gruesome and disturbing at times because author uses direct testimony to explain some if the massacres and crimes.

[M · Rating 4 out of 5]

All the details you could ever want, divided by crimes (aggressive war, war crimes, crimes against humanity), which is then divided by specific examples (Case Otto, The Night and Fog Decree, The Einsatz Groups, etc.).

[Chewie]

I decided to stop reading this book for a while.