Tyranny on Trial

Condensing an avalanche of documents and trial transcripts which reveal the horrific record of Hitler's twelve-year dictatorship, this book distills the evidence presented to the 1945–46 Nuremberg tribunal when former Nazi leaders were indicted and tried as war criminals. Whitney Harris's analysis uses verbatim accounts by key figures in the Nazi regime to tell the story of Hitler's rise to power, of Nazi planning and execution of war crimes and crimes against humanity, and of the final destruction of Nazi tyranny. It concludes with an explanation of the law of the case—the judicial process, law and war, and the precedent of Nuremberg. The final chapter ends with the adoption of the Rome Treaty of 1998 creating the permanent International Criminal Court.

First published by SMU Press in 1954, this book recounts the full story of the historic Nuremberg Trial, told in dramatic and accessible prose by a man who served throughout the trial as counsel on the staff of Robert H. Jackson, U.S. Chief of Counsel. Harris presented the evidence against the first of the Nuremberg defendants, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, as well as against the principal Nazi repressive agencies, the Gestapo and the SD.