With a New Introduction by Benjamin Ferencz, Chief Prosecutor for the United States at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trial Originally published three years before the withdrawal of U.S. troops in 1973, this important book was not a polemic, but a sober account of the Vietnam conflict from the perspective of international law. Framed in reference to the Nuremberg Trials that followed the Second World War, it described problems the United States may have to face due to its involvement in the Vietnam conflict. After presenting a general history of war crimes and an account of the Nuremberg Trials, Taylor turns his attention to Vietnam. Among other points, he examined parallels between actions committed by American troops during the then-recent My Lai Massacre of 1968 and Hitler's SS in Nazi-occupied Europe. Commissioned for this edition, Ferencz's introduction evaluates Taylor's study and its lessons for the present and future. When this book was published in 1970, Telford Taylor had concluded that U.S. involvement in the war in Vietnam was an American tragedy: "Somehow we failed ourselves to learn the lessons we undertook to teach at Nuremberg." What were those lessons? How acceptable were they? Which laws of war could realistically be enforced on a raging battlefield against an implacable foe? Forty years later, it is worth re-examining how it came about that this powerful and humanitarian country could have come to be seen by many as a giant "prone to shatter what we try to save. -From the Introduction by Benjamin B. FerenczTelford Taylor 1908-1998] was chief counsel for the prosecution at the Nuremberg Trials. Later Professor of Law at Columbia University, he was a vigorous opponent of Senator Joseph McCarthy and an outspoken critic of U.S. actions during the Vietnam War. His books include Sword and Swastika: Generals and Nazis in the Third Reich (1952), Grand Inquest: The Story of Congressional Investigations (1955) and The Anatomy of the Nuremberg Trials: A Personal Memoir (1992). Benjamin Ferencz, a member of Taylor's legal staff, was the Chief Prosecutor for the United States at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trial. He is the author of Defining International Aggression-The Search for World Peace (1975), Adjunct Professor of International Law, Pace University and founder of the Pace Peace Center.

"A masterly work of military and judicial history." -New York Times. Telford Taylor's book is a defining piece of World War II literature, an engrossing and reflective eyewitness account of one of the most significant events of our century. In 1945, the Allied nations agreed on a judicial process, rather than summary execution, to determine the fate of the Nazis following the end of World War II. Held in Nuremberg, the ceremonial birthplace of the Nazi Party, the British, American, French, and Soviet leaders contributed both judges and prosecutors to the series of trials that would prosecute some of the most prominent politicians, military leaders and businessmen in Nazi Germany. This is the definitive history of the Nuremberg crimes trials by one of the key participants, Telford Taylor, the distinguished lawyer who was a member of the American prosecution staff and eventually became chief counsel. In vivid detail, Taylor portrays the unfolding events as he "saw, heard, and otherwise sensed them at the time, and not as a detached historian working from the documents might picture them." Table of Contents: 1 Nuremberg and the Laws of War 2 The Nuremberg Ideas 3 Justice Jackson Takes Over 4 Establishing the Court: The London Charter 5 The Defendants and the Charges: Krupp and the German General Staff 6 Berlin to Nuremberg 7 Nuremberg: Pretrial Pains and Problems 8 On Trial 9 The Nuremberg War Crimes Community 10 The SS and the General Staff-High Command 11 Individual Defendants, Future Trials, and Criminal Organizations 12 The French and Soviet Prosecutions 13 The Defendants: Goering and Hess 14 The Defendants: "Murderers' Row" 15 The Defendants: Bankers and Admirals 16 The Defendants: The Last Nine 17 The Closing Arguments 18 The Indicted Organizations 19 The Defendants' Last Words 20 The Judgments of Solomons 21 Judgment: Law, Crime, and Punishment Taylor describes personal vendettas among the Allied representatives and the negotiations that preceded the handing down of sentences. The revelations have not lost their power over the decades: The chamber is reduced to silence when an SS officer recounts impassively that his troops rounded up and killed 90,000 Jews, and panic overcomes the head of the German State Bank as it becomes clear that he knew his institution was receiving jewels and other valuables taken from the bodies of concentration camp inmates.

International Conciliation, No. 450, April, 1949.

International Conciliation, No. 450, April, 1949.

With a New Introduction by Benjamin Ferencz, Chief Prosecutor for the United States at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trial Originally published three years before the withdrawal of U.S. troops in 1973, this important book was not a polemic, but a sober account of the Vietnam conflict from the perspective of international law. Framed in reference to the Nuremberg Trials that followed the Second World War, it described problems the United States may have to face due to its involvement in the Vietnam conflict. After presenting a general history of war crimes and an account of the Nuremberg Trials, Taylor turns his attention to Vietnam. Among other points, he examined parallels between actions committed by American troops during the then-recent My Lai Massacre of 1968 and Hitler's SS in Nazi-occupied Europe. Commissioned for this edition, Ferencz's introduction evaluates Taylor's study and its lessons for the present and future. When this book was published in 1970, Telford Taylor had concluded that U.S. involvement in the war in Vietnam was an American tragedy: "Somehow we failed ourselves to learn the lessons we undertook to teach at Nuremberg." What were those lessons? How acceptable were they? Which laws of war could realistically be enforced on a raging battlefield against an implacable foe? Forty years later, it is worth re-examining how it came about that this powerful and humanitarian country could have come to be seen by many as a giant "prone to shatter what we try to save. -From the Introduction by Benjamin B. FerenczTelford Taylor 1908-1998] was chief counsel for the prosecution at the Nuremberg Trials. Later Professor of Law at Columbia University, he was a vigorous opponent of Senator Joseph McCarthy and an outspoken critic of U.S. actions during the Vietnam War. His books include Sword and Swastika: Generals and Nazis in the Third Reich (1952), Grand Inquest: The Story of Congressional Investigations (1955) and The Anatomy of the Nuremberg Trials: A Personal Memoir (1992). Benjamin Ferencz, a member of Taylor's legal staff, was the Chief Prosecutor for the United States at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trial. He is the author of Defining International Aggression-The Search for World Peace (1975), Adjunct Professor of International Law, Pace University and founder of the Pace Peace Center.