Nuremberg: A personal record of the trial of the major Nazi war criminals

Airey Neave

Feb 2021 · Biteback Publishing

About this eBook

On 18 October 1945, a day that would haunt him for ever, Airey Neave personally served the official indictments on the twenty-one top Nazis awaiting trial in Nuremberg – including Hermann Goering, Rudolf Hess and Albert Speer. With his visit to their gloomy prison cells, the tragedy of an entire generation reached its final act.

The 29-year-old Neave, a wartime organiser of MI9 and the first Englishman to escape from Colditz Castle, had watched and listened over the months as the trials unfolded. Here, he describes the cowardice, calumny and in some cases bravado of the defendants – men he came to know and who in turn would become known as some of the most evil men in history.

A milestone in international law, the Nuremberg trials prompted uncomfortable but vital questions about how we prosecute the worst crimes ever committed – and who is entitled to deliver justice. Challenging, poignant and incisive, this definitive eyewitness account remains indispensable reading today.

About the author

Airey Neave worked as an intelligence officer for MI9 in World War Two before serving with the International Military Tribunal at the Nuremberg trials. After the war he became Member of Parliament for Abingdon. The author of several highly acclaimed books on the Second World War, he was assassinated by the Irish National Liberation Army in a car bomb attack at the House of Commons in 1979.