Nuremberg: Infamy on Trial

Rating:
Summary: A easily readable narration of a COMPLEX historical moment!!
Review: Great book for those that want a quick glance on the happenings of the Nuremberg trials. Four main sections: Preparation of the court, Prosecution statements, Defense and Counterinterrogation of the Nazi warlords, Sentencing and beyond. Narration keeps the reader interested in the book. The only problem is the fragmentation of the situations; chapters are really short and have little continuity. This is a curse for the Nuremberg lovers...but a blessing for the normal reader...you can delay reading and not lose the whole objective of the book. There are TOO MANY NAMES...it is more difficult when half of the names are German. Still...I would highly recommend the book.

Rating:
Summary: Fascinating to read! No question!
Review: J. Persico wrote a very well-written, fluid piece of historical book from the eyes and thoughts of many who were involved in the Nuremberg Trials. It's a human drama casted in words and it can give the readers a start-to-end true story all in one book, without resorting to needless, in-depth analysis pieces founded in other books on the Nuremberg Trials. This book is about human beings who did the terrible deeds and being prosecuted by fellow human beings who seek justice for the world still reeling from World War II. Must-read book!

Rating:
Summary: Quite Well Written Look At Nuremberg Trials!
Review: Nothing so defines the differences separating the Third Reich from the Allies as the way in which the defendants of the trials at Nuremberg were handled. With painstaking precision and at extraordinary cost in terms of international arm-twisting and back-door deals, the proponents of a judicial proceeding designed to illustrate the manifest individual guilt of the various Nazi officials forged a result that still stands today as a model of a non-retributive effort in the face of extraordinary pressure. In this book author Joseph Persico offers a ground-level introduction to the motley cast of characters on trial as well as the collection of interested others who gathered to oversee the proceedings.

Achieving the result of fair trials that would literally change the perspective of the world toward participants in war was anything but easy, and moving toward that deliberate goal is a theme providing an interesting theme punctuating the pace of the book. Churchill wanted revenge by way of summary trials and quick retribution, while the Russians just wanted to string up the whole group in a mass hanging. Yet American Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson was able to resolve the differences well enough to proceed, although at times the reader wonders if the trials will be anything like the fair-minded judicial event he has in mind. Indeed, the back-stabbing, personal ambitions, and petty jealousies of the various factions, trial officials, and individual defendants becomes a kind of political circus that sometimes resembles nothing so much as vaudevillian showboating.

Still, the efforts at conducting a fair and open forum for the world to watch as the prosecution and defense teams clashed before the international tribunal prevailed, and the trials concluded with mixed results in terms of the results. Most of the defendants were found guilty, and many were hanged. Yet few observers doubted that the defendants had had their day in court along with and adequate opportunity to defend their actions to a watching world. Given how little justice and liberty they collectively allowed for their tens of millions of victims, it is remarkable just how civilized and dignified a proceeding the Nuremberg trials were, with all their theatrics and subterranean undercurrents. One marvels at the fact that after fifty years the world still stands in awe at the deliberate, careful, and methodical way in which the Allies achieved the result of a rational and fair trial of the defendants in history's most horrific modern nightmare, the terror of the Third Reich.

This is an interesting and absorbing book, and a fascinating and entertaining book to read. It was also particularly interesting to me since I had recently viewed the telecast by TNT based on this book which covered the trials, and the book served to fill out a lot of the remaining questions I had regarding the nature of the individual personalities from Truman to Churchill to Jackson to Biddle and the others. This is a worthwhile book, and I recommend it to anyone interested in learning more about these singular trials and their impact on history.