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The Nuremberg War Crime Trials are remembered now as an essential part of the end of the Second World War, where most of the surviving senior Nazis were put on trial, and most of them convicted and executed. However this book is a useful reminder that we only remember these trials so vividly because of the work of the reporters who covered them for the world’s media.
This first thing that becomes clear was that this was a massive endeavour. Nuremberg was in ruins after the war, and even the courtroom needed repairing before the trial could start. The hotel that the judges and prosecutors used had scaffolding outside and holes in the floors on higher levels. It thus took a great deal of effort to put the infrastructure in place to allow hundreds of journalists to transmit their reports to the outside world. Space was strickly limited, especially for photographers, who were placed in their own glazed booths to avoid causing too much distraction (although some of the defendents did complain about the bright lights needed to make sure no flash photography was needed). After some early setbacks this system largely worked smoothly, allowing news of the trial to be reported worldwide. Getting the news out in Germany caused more problems, with the wartime Nazi dominated media being dismantled and an entirely new German press and radio system having to be created first. One part of the solution here turned out to be rather easier than perhaps expected, with so many pre war German journalists arrested by the Nazis there was no shortage of people with an impeccable anti-nazi record to turn to!
A big challenge for the author is how to split the available space between telling the story of the trial and telling the story of the media. Without the first there is no framework, but too much of it and the overall aim of the book would disappear. For me Fletcher had got this balance just right – we get enough of a narrative of the trials, details of the suspects, how the process worked, how the court was laid out etc – to give us a good framework for the story of how the trial was reported.
The media story takes up more of the space and is a fascinating tale in its own right. The trial started with massive world wide interest, and the reporting of Nazi horrors often kept it in the news. However for long periods there wasn’t anything so dramatic to report, as each of the national prosecution teams presented hours of essential but often uninteresting evidence. Things always tended to liven up when the key defenders were on the stand, and interest was revived when the defense got its turn and these Nazi leaders attempted to defend themselves. What we would now call a sizable ‘media village’ was set up, with most of the journalists living on the estate of the Faber pencil family, who had been able to build a massive (if rather tastelessly decorated mansion) on the profits of ‘big pencil’. Life here appears to have been a mix of daily discomfort, with inadequate basic facilities, and entertaining evenings, with a cosmolitan crowd in the well stocked bar. Several hundred journalists were involved at any one time, so this was a fairly sizable challenge.
The result is a compelling story about the art of telling a story, and the importance of high quality reporting when major world events are taking place.
Chapters
1 – Showtime – 10am, Tuesday, 20 November 1945
2 – Peace on Earth, Goodwill to Man, December 1945
3 – A New Year Starts – January-February 1945
4 – Springing Forward – March-May 1946
5 – Grim Reaper in the Distance – June-August 1946
6 – Date with Death Press Wars – September 1946
7 – Curtain Drops – October 1946
Author: Noel Marie Fletcher
Edition: Hardcover
Pages: 224
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Year: 2024