In Witness to Nuremberg, the chief interpreter for the American prosecution at the Nuremberg trials after World War II offers his insights into dealing directly with Hermann Goering, a leading member of the Nazi Party, as well as the story of his own colorful, eventful life before and after the trials. At age twenty-two, Richard Sonnenfeldt was appointed chief interpreter for the American prosecution of Nazi war criminals at Nuremberg. His pretrial time spent with Hermann Goering reveals much about not only Goering, but Hitler, Goebbels, Himmler, and other high-ranking Nazis. Sonnenfeldt was the only American who talked with all the defendants. Here is his inimitable life in wonderful detail.

In this gripping memoir by the chief American interpreter atthe Nuremberg trials, Richard Sonnenfeldt recounts a remarkable life. Bythe time he was 18, Sonnenfeldt had grown up in Germany, escaped toEngland, been deported to Australia as a "German enemy alien", arrived inthe U.S., and joined the U.S. army. By age 22 he had fought in the Battleof the Bulge and helped liberate the Dachau concentration camp, when he wasappointed chief interpreter for the American prosecution of Nazi warcriminals at the Nuremberg trials. During his service, he spent pretrialtime with Hermann Goering as well as other top Nazi leaders like vonRibbentrop, Rudolph Hoess, and Julius Streicher, the infamous editor of theanti-Semitic Der Sturmer. An engineer in later life, he was a principaldeveloper of color TV and computer technology and a key player in NASA'spreparation of the first moon shot.

& Quot;Witnesses to Nuremberg: An Oral History of American Participants at the War Crimes Trials brings this historic event into focus on a very personal level. Oral historians Bruce M. Stave and Michele Palmer, with the assistance of Leslie Frank, have conducted a series of interviews with Americans who were involved in the trials and, through eleven compelling oral histories, get behind the scenes to recreate the American community at Nuremberg. These first person accounts humanize history as readers share the experiences of American prosecutors, security personnel, journalists, and even the architect who designed the courtroom. Since the interviewees represent average people and not the "stars" of Nuremberg, their voices speak directly to the reader in terms that a modern audience can understand." "This latest addition to Twayne's Oral History Series allows us to come face-to-face with the Nazi defendants, learn about interactions with ordinary German citizens, and reflect upon the meaning of justice in the post-World War II world. Suitable for the classroom as well as the general reader, this volume recreates a historic reckoning that the world can ill afford to forget."--Jacket.

The Nuremberg Trial was a milestone in history, the first international tribunal for war crimes ever to occur. As such, much rested on the shoulders of the prosecutors and, in turn, on the witnesses for the prosecution. As the first witness to be called in the first and best-known Nuremberg Trial, Abwehr General Erwin Lahousen felt that burden more keenly than any who took the stand after him. His inside knowledge of the Third Reich and the intelligence he gathered over the course of his military career proved invaluable in convicting some of the most infamous war criminals in history, many of whom recognized and loudly proclaimed him a traitor as he took to the witness stand in the Nuremberg Palace of Justice on November 30, 1945. Newly declassified archival materials, such as the recently released memoirs of Madame Madeleine Bihet-Richou, and interviews with family members have shed new light on General Lahousen's role in bringing about an end to Hitler's reign of terror. These have been compiled by Harry Carl Schaub into this compelling biography.

Autumn 1945 saw the start of the Nuremberg trials, in which high ranking representatives of the Nazi government were called to account for their war crimes. In a curious yet fascinating twist, witnesses for the prosecution and the defense were housed together in a villa on the outskirts of town. In this so-called Witness House, perpetrators and victims confronted each other in a microcosm that reflected the events of the high court. Presiding over the affair was the beautiful Countess Ingeborg Kálnoky (a woman so blond and enticing that she was described as a Jean Harlowe look-alike) who took great pride in her ability to keep the household civil and the communal dinners pleasant. A comedy of manners arose among the guests as the urge to continue battle was checked by a sudden and uncomfortable return to civilized life. The trial atmosphere extends to the small group in the villa. Agitated victims confront and avoid perpetrators and sympathizers, and high-ranking officers in the German armed forces struggle to keep their composure. This highly explosive mixture is seasoned with vivid, often humorous, anecdotes of those who had basked in the glory of the inner circles of power. Christiane Kohl focuses on the guilty, the sympathizers, the undecided, and those who always manage to make themselves fit in. The Witness House reveals the social structures that allowed a cruel and unjust regime to flourish and serves as a symbol of the blurred boundaries between accuser and accused that would come to form the basis of postwar Germany.

During the Nuremberg trials, Leon Goldensohn—a U.S. Army psychiatrist—monitored the mental health of two dozen Germans leaders charged with carrying out genocide. These recorded conversations went largely unexamined for more than fifty years, until Robert Gellately—one of the premier historians of Nazi Germany—made them available to the public in this remarkable collection. Here are interviews with the likes of Hans Frank, Hermann Goering, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, and Joachim von Ribbentrop—the highest ranking Nazi officials in the Nuremberg jails. Here too are interviews with lesser-known officials essential to the inner workings of the Third Reich. Candid and often shockingly truthful, The Nuremberg Interviews is a profound addition to our understanding of the Nazi mind and mission.

This book is an attempt to make the material of the Nuremberg Trial available to a wider public in a comprehensible form. The verbatim reports of the court proceedings alone run to forty-two volumes. The authors have attempted to recreate for the reader the atmosphere of the immediate postwar period and a picture of the general circumstances of the time, as well as to describe the developments leading up to the Trial.