This report was written by Telford Taylor (who should be credited as the author in Amazon.com's listing) and summarizes the 12 "subsequent" or "American" trials of Germans in 1947-48, which were his responsibility as Chief of Counsel for War Crimes. It is an essential historical document and Wm. Hein deserves credit for reissuing it.

I was astonished to find that no customer has written a review of this excellent book. It ranks near the top of World War II histories, up there with Shirer's Rise & Fall of the Third Reich and Churchill's memoirs. This book doesn't cover the war itself; rather, it is a detailed (1000 pages) political & diplomatic history of the 1930's in Europe, culminating in the Munich conference in 1938 in which France & Britain surrendered Czechoslovakia's vital border defenses to "appease" Hitler in a vain attempt to secure "peace in our time." Hitler, strengthened by Munich, started the war 11 months later. A lawyer & historian, Taylor was a prosecutor at the Nurnberg war crimes trials. In his absorbing narrative, he tells the story of the craven cowardice & stunning stupidity of the French & British leaders and the cunning & mendacity of Hitler & Mussolini. As Taylor shifts the spotlight from country to country and details the domestic political situation in each and the moves of each leader on the diplomatic chessboard, the tension builds as events move toward the tragic climax at Munich. The corrupt bargain struck by Daladier & Chamberlain with Hitler & Mussolini at Munich was the biggest diplomatic sellout & disaster of all time. Taylor has written the definitive history of this disgraceful episode. Some European leaders today would profit from reading this work.
This book won the National Book Critics Circle Award for non-faction. It's a rivetting narrative, but it's not beach reading.

Literate, precise, comprehensive and understandable. Nobody writes like Taylor. Despite the title, this is really a treatise on the development of the law of war, and a probing analysis of some of the big moral questions it presents. All in 200 pages. A terrific book

The author was a member of the American Prosecution staff at the International
Military Tribunal that was held in Nuremberg in 1945-6 with the purpose of judging
major Nazi war criminals. The book, as the subtitle states, is a personal description of the trial,
including its pre-history, that is, the negotiations between the Allies in the last part of
the War that resulted in the decision of constituting the IMT and helding the trials (largely
an American idea) instead of some other methods of dealing with the emprisioned Nazi top leadership (such
as shooting them without trial, as Churchill defended, or prosecuting them in national courts). The
problems and frictions encontered in drafting the Charter of the IMT, the Indictements, and the selection
of the defendants is covered in detail in the first fourth of the book. The remaining deals with the
trial itself. What makes this a very interesting book is that it not only describes the public
part of the trial but also the backstage, and even some developments that would probably never been known
if the author had not been himself personaly involved in the works. Near the end of the trial the author was
made Chief U.S. Prosecutor for the ensuing war crimes trials that took place in Nurember for the
next three years. It would have be interesting to read his account of those ones.

A very enjoyable read and enlightening in ways that a narrative history can't be...Mr. Taylor tells it like he saw it, especially about the key people involved!

This is quite a long book that gives a detailed exposition of the events of the initial 21 or so cases at Nuremberg. Taylor participated at a high level. He is a distinguished author and scholar.

This covers not only description of the cases, but gives insights into all the main personalities present, including Goering and Jackson. It is written nearly 50 years after the event, so interesting information on what happened in the years afterward is given as well.

Taylor writes well, gives his own opinions in a balanced way and does not back off from sensative issues. And they don't come much more sensative than this.

Strongly recommended.

Sword and Swastika is a good look at how Hitler subjugated the German Army and made it his own instrument taking it away from the Prussan nobility during the 1930's. There are parts of laborious historical detail which I scanned through as ranks and titles didn't interest me. But there are some very exciting descriptions about how Hitler took one of the independent pillars of the pre-Nazi German government, the German military machine (especially the Army), and turned it into his own tool for European domination. He destroyed the army's independence by getting rid of its independent leaders. This book goes into detail about cause and effect about a number of incidents which are merely noted as happennings in other books. It's primarily a book about organizational politics in Nazi Germany at the highest levels with the focus being on the interrelationship between the Nazi civilian authorities, the military, and the largest of the industrial companies such as Krupp and Farbin during the 1930's.