Overview

"The issues raised by the Nuremberg trials are dealt with in this book. These include: was it a necessary response to the crimes of the Third Reich?; how were Germany and the Germans capable of such extraordinary evil?; was the trial just, given the claims that the defendants were simply serving their country, doing as they had been told to do?; and if not just, was it nonetheless necessary as a warning to prevent future crimes against humanity? The author's approach to these and other questions of justice is made through examination of each of the defendants in the trial. His conclusion is: """"In a world of mixed human affairs where a rough justice is done that is better than lynching or being shot out of hand, Nuremberg may be defended as a political event if not as a court"""". Some sentences may have seemed too severe, but none was harsher than the punishments meted out to innocent people by the regimes these men served. """"In a certain sense"""", says Davidson, """"the trial succeeded in doing what judicial proceedings are supposed to do: it convinced even the guilty that the verdict against them was just""""."

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Reviews

Well researched and compelling. -- Boston Globe As complete a study as one could hope to have . . . will not be easily dislodged from its high position of authoritative testimony. -- Chicago Tribune A masterly, detailed study of the defendants and their prosecutors at Nuremberg. . . . It raises disturbing questions and provides even more disturbing answers. -- Detroit Free Press A study of the individual defendants and their innocence or guilt . . . fascinating . . . vastly superior in scholarship and detail. -- St. Louis Globe-Democrat The presentation is scholarly, well-organized, smoothly written. The pen portraits, sketched in acid, are sharp and illuminating. --L. L. Snyder, Saturday Review The presentation is scholarly, well-organized, smoothly written. The pen portraits, sketched in acid, are sharp and illuminating. --L. L. Snyder, Saturday Review A study of the individual defendants and their innocence or guilt . . . fascinating . . . vastly superior in scholarship and detail. --St. Louis Globe-Democrat A masterly, detailed study of the defendants and their prosecutors at Nuremberg. . . . It raises disturbing questions and provides even more disturbing answers. --Detroit Free Press As complete a study as one could hope to have . . . will not be easily dislodged from its high position of authoritative testimony. --Chicago Tribune Well researched and compelling. --Boston Globe The [Nuremberg] trial has never been reviewed with the scholarship, the thoroughness, and the advantages of hindsight that Eugene Davidson now brings to it in this absorbing and important book. . . . More than an analysis of the trial . . . [the biographies] build into a total picture of Nazi Germany. . . . A major contribution to history and to understanding. --Walter Millis Well researched and compelling. Boston Globe The presentation is scholarly, well-organized, smoothly written. The pen portraits, sketched in acid, are sharp and illuminating. L. L. Snyder, Saturday Review A study of the individual defendants and their innocence or guilt . . . fascinating . . . vastly superior in scholarship and detail. St. Louis Globe-Democrat A masterly, detailed study of the defendants and their prosecutors at Nuremberg. . . . It raises disturbing questions and provides even more disturbing answers. Detroit Free Press As complete a study as one could hope to have . . . will not be easily dislodged from its high position of authoritative testimony. Chicago Tribune Well researched and compelling. Boston Globe The [Nuremberg] trial has never been reviewed with the scholarship, the thoroughness, and the advantages of hindsight that Eugene Davidson now brings to it in this absorbing and important book. . . . More than an analysis of the trial . . . [the biographies] build into a total picture of Nazi Germany. . . . A major contribution to history and to understanding. Walter Millis Well researched and compelling. -- Boston Globe

The presentation is scholarly, well-organized, smoothly written. The pen portraits, sketched in acid, are sharp and illuminating. --L. L. Snyder, Saturday Review

In 1946 the occupying powers cooperated in the international trial held at Nuremberg of twenty-two major Nazi leaders for crimes against humanity and world peace. Although evidence of evil deeds was massive and incontrovertible, there were misgivings in many quarters about the unprecedented step of punishing the leaders of a defeated army. While other works on the Nuremberg Trials have appeared, Eugene Davidson's new synthesis ranks among the best. The Trial of the Germans is in every respect an excellent book. Its success is due in part to its organization. Not a chronological transcript of the trials, the books tells in one incisive chapter what we need to know about the general structure of the tribunal. The charges against the defendants, the differing motives of the Allies are placed within the political framework of 1946. What follows is a series of portraits of the defendants, each a model of clarity and incisiveness. These sketches grow out of the voluminous evidence presented at the trials and thereby accomplish several purposes: the reader learns about the individual defendant, about the horrors of the Third Reich, and about the trials themselves. The final chapter is alone worth the price of the book. Here Mr. Davidson discusses the unprecedented Nuremberg judgments - successes and failures - in light of the present. It is a chilling and sobering performance, with an implicit warning for all responsible readers. (Kirkus Reviews)

Author Information

Eugene Davidson, who lives in Santa Barbara, California, is on President Emeritus of the Conference on European Problems and former President of the Foundation for Foreign Affairs.

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