Being there . . . . for the very first account of how newspaper, broadcast, and wire-service
journalists covered the Nuremberg Trials, focusing on the first, the International Military
Tribunal, which set a precedent for subsequent trials. These after-World War II legal
proceedings at Nuremberg should be studied in two categories. The first would cover the
hearings conducted there between November 1945 and October 1946 before as the
International Military Tribunal (IMT) jointly established by the USA, the USSR, the UK, and
France. This trial focusing upon 22 major German war criminals was complemented by an
eleven-power prosecution and judgement of Japanese leaders at the broadly comparable Far
East War Crimes trials referred to as “Subsequent Proceedings”. They lasted until late Spring of
1949.
FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER, JOURNALISTS WHO COVERED THE 1945-1946 NAZI WAR TRIALS AND
EXECUTIONS SHARE NEW DETAILS NOT ONLY ABOUT THE MURDEROUS GERMAN CRIMINALS
AND THEIR HORRIFIC, UNDESCRIBLE CRIMES, BUT ALSO HOW THE GUILTY PAID WITH THEIR
OWN EXECUTIONS. OF COURSE, THIS IS A PEN AND SWORD HISTORY TITLE, AN IMPRINT OF
BRITAIN’S PEN & SWORD BOOKS LIMITED. NO MEASURE OF COMPARISON IS NEEDED IN THIS
COUNTRY’S LIST OF MILITARY PUBLISHERS. AS RECEIVER OR GIFT-GIVER, THE ASTUTES WILL
KNOW PEN & SWORD AND NOD WITH A SMILE.
Highly, Highly Recommended as an acute, shrewdly discerning Christmas gift for the sagacious
by Don DeNevi
“REPORTING THE NUREMBERG TRIALS – – How Journalists Covered Live Nazi Trials &
Executions”, by Noel Marie Fletcher. PEN & SWORD BOOKS, 1950 Lawrence Rd, Havertown, PA
9083: 2024, 214 pages, 6 ½” x 9 ½”, excellent photos hitherto unpublished, $42.95. Visit, www.
pen-and-swordbooks.com, or E-mail: uspen-and-sword@casematepublishers.com.
Author Noel Marie Fletcher’s skillfully organized narrative is enliven and ennobled by her
admirable balancing of the varied personal accounts – letters, interviews, reminiscences – –
which reflect not only the prosecutors’ heartfelt orientations toward each criminal but also the
court’s emotions of pain while weighing the guilt of each murderer. When a powerful book
such as hers is stuffed to bursting with photos of murder and otherwise unavailable information
to the general reader misery and haunting set in. There is no question Noel’s research which
will be interest to anyone whose heart weeps at the mention of Holocaust will find her
appraisal erudite and elegant.
By far, the best praise to come forth for “REPORTING THE NUREMBERG” is that of Scott
Wallace, bestselling author of the “Unconquered: In Search of the Amazon’s Last Uncontacted
Tribes” and “Central America in the Crosshairs of War”. Simply put, Scott writes, “Noel Marie
Fletcher has done us a great service in writing this lucid and highly readable account of the
pivotal role played by the international press at the Nuremberg Trials in the months following
Germany’s defeat in the Second World War. Via ‘Reporting the Nuremberg Trials’ brings to life
in vivid detail the evidence, the atmosphere of tension and the personalities assigned to inform
the world about the 20 th century’s most consequential tribunal that brought the most notorious
war criminals of the Nazi regime to justice. This is a must-read for scholars and students of 20 th
Century history, human rights and the role of media in the modern world.”
Lest we forget, the arrogant Nazis who murdered had their executions coming. 21 high
ranking defendants representing the German General Staff, government, and Nazi Party were
charged with crimes against peace, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and crimes of
conspiracy. Only Martin Bormann eluded capture, having been killed escaping Hitler’s Berlin
bunker. Prosecutors and judges were drawn from the Big Four, Russia, Britain, the USA, and
France. The trial continued month after month until August 1946. The theatrics were
deplorable, i.e., Goring cunningly dominating the trial with a bravura defense of NAZISM.
German names of small towns unheard of were now as well-known as Berlin – – Belsen,
Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Treblinka, and Dachau. The “I was only obeying orders” defense was
virtually the same for all 21. With “guilty” verdicts delivered on September 30, and death
sentences the next day, ten were hung in the Nuremberg prison gym after midnight on October
- Goring cheated them all – – he ingested cyanide. Their bodies were trucked to Dachau where
a freshly lit oven awaited. The ashes of the condemned were scattered in the nearby Isar River.
Thanks to career journalist and award-winning author, Noel Marie Fletcher of Washington,
D.C., military buffs, enthusiasts, aficionados have a fresh, more insightful glimpse of the events,
including the executions of war criminals of the highest order.
