Reaching Judgment At Nuremberg (1977) By Bradley F. Smith
 
Examines the attitudes, social and political backgrounds, and biases of the eight judges of the Nuremberg tribunal, appraising the reasons for their votes on each defendant and their clashes, bargaining sessions, and compromises.
 
 Bradley F Smith was a ground-breaking historian of the Second World War and intelligence. He was born in 1931. He joined the air force. After four years' service he went to Berkeley to study history and then on a Fulbright scholarship to Munich, where he honed his skills in German documentary sources. In the 1970s he began to write the books which would make his name as a scholar. The journal Foreign Affairs welcomed Reaching Judgment at Nuremberg (1977) as "a superbly written and novelesque account, which is also a sound work of historical scholarship". The Shadow Warriors: OSS and the Origins of the CIA (1983) was, like all his books, meticulously researched, and it remains the best general account of the Office of Strategic Services, the US's Second World War intelligence agency. Bradley F. Smith sets forth the documentary record of the development of the Nuremberg trial system. The basic plan for the Nuremberg trials was formulated in the 1944 and early 1945, almost exclusively by a handful of American government officials. In an effort to counter Henry Morgenthau's harsh plan for de-industrialization of Germany and summary execution of Nazi leaders, these officials devised a plan aimed to punish the guilty, eliminate the threat of a Nazi revival in Germany, and avoid the economic destruction of central Europe. Through a series of conferences and political maneuvers, the Nuremberg trial plan was revised in draft after draft. From the Moscow Doctrine, which warned those responsible for atrocities committed in occupied territories to the London Charter, which laid down the trial system for surviving leaders of the Third Reich and Nazi criminal organizations, these documents reveal the vision, purpose, and technical competence of the officials responsible for the trial plan.
 
Hard Cover With Dust Jacket
349 pages
In Good condition