PERHAPS A GIFT VOUCHER FOR MUM?: MOTHER'S DAY

Close Notification

Your cart does not contain any items

Soviet Judgment at Nuremberg

A New History of the International Military Tribunal after World War II

Francine Hirsch

$80.95

Hardback

In stock
Ready to ship

QTY:

English
Oxford University Press
15 June 2020
Organized in the immediate aftermath of World War Two by the victorious Allies, the Nuremberg Trials were intended to hold the Nazis to account for their crimes DL and to restore a sense of justice to a world devastated by violence. As Francine Hirsch reveals in this immersive, gripping, and ground-breaking book, a major piece of the Nuremberg story has routinely been omitted from standard accounts: the part the Soviet Union played in making the trials happen in the first place. Soviet Judgment at Nuremberg offers the first complete picture of the International Military Tribunal (IMT), including the many ironies brought to bear as the Soviets took their place among the countries of the prosecution in late 1945. Everyone knew that Stalin had allied with Hitler before the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact hung heavy over the courtroom, as did the suspicion that the Soviets had falsified evidence in an attempt to pin one of their own war crimes, the mass killing of Polish officers in the Katyn Forest, on the Nazis. Moreover, key members of the Soviet delegation, including the Soviet judge and chief prosecutor, had played critical roles in Stalin's infamous show trials of the 1930s. For the American prosecutor Robert H. Jackson and his colleagues in the British and French delegations, Soviet participation in the IMT undermined the credibility of the trials and indeed the moral righteousness of the Allied victory.

Yet without the Soviets Nuremberg would never have taken place. Soviet jurists conceived of the legal framework that treated war as an international crime, giving the trials a legal basis. The Soviets had borne the brunt of the fighting against Germany, and their almost unimaginable suffering gave them moral authority. They would not be denied a place on the tribunal and moreover were determined to make the most of it. However, little went as the Soviets had planned. Stalin's efforts to steer the trials from afar backfired. Soviet war crimes were exposed in open court. As relations among the four countries of the prosecution foundered, Nuremberg turned from a court of justice to an early front of the Cold War. Hirsch's book provides a front-row seat in the Nuremberg courtroom, while also guiding readers behind the scenes to the meetings in which secrets were shared, strategies mapped, and alliances forged. Soviet Judgment at Nuremberg offers a startlingly new view of the IMT and a fresh perspective on the movement for international human rights that it helped launch.

By:  
Imprint:   Oxford University Press
Country of Publication:   United States
Dimensions:   Height: 165mm,  Width: 239mm,  Spine: 46mm
Weight:   1g
ISBN:   9780199377930
ISBN 10:   0199377936
Pages:   512
Publication Date:  
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Undergraduate
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Introduction: The Untold Story Part I: The Road to Nuremberg Chapter One: When War Became a Crime Chapter Two: But What Is Justice? Chapter Three: Countdown to Indictment Chapter Four: Ready or Not Part II: The Prosecution's Case Chapter Five: The Trial Begins Chapter Six: Stuck on the Sidelines Chapter Seven: Course Corrections Chapter Eight: Bearing Witness Part III: The Defense Case Chapter Nine: The Cold War Comes to Nuremberg Chapter Ten: In the Name of a Fair Trial Chapter Eleven: Accusations and Counter-Accusations Chapter Twelve: The Katyn Showdown Part IV: Last Words and Judgments Chapter Thirteen: Collective Guilt and the Fate of Postwar Europe Chapter Fourteen: Judgment Chapter Fifteen: Beyond Nuremberg Acknowledgements Endnotes Research Note Notes and Sources Bibliographical Notes and Suggestions for Further Reading Index

Francine Hirsch is Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the author of Empire of Nations.

Reviews for Soviet Judgment at Nuremberg: A New History of the International Military Tribunal after World War II

Masterly... Richly detailed and well-written, this important new vantage point on Nuremberg will appeal strongly to history buffs. --Kirkus


  • Winner of Recipient of the Certificate of Merit for a Preeminent Contribution to Creative Scholarship by the American Society of International Law.

See Also