The memoirs of Wolfe Frank lay hidden in an attic for more than twenty five years. The author has provided a unique insight into the war crimes trials that followed Victory in Europe – Most Recommended
NAME: Nuremberg's Voice of Doom, The Autobiography of the Chief Interpreter at History's Greatest Trials FILE: R2750 AUTHOR: Wolfe Frank PUBLISHER: Pen & Sword BINDING: hard back PAGES: 202 PRICE: £19.99 GENRE: Non Fiction SUBJECT: WWII, World War II, World War 2, World War Two, Show Trials. War criminals, international trials, interpreter, languages, German Nazis
ISBN: 1-52673-751-5
IMAGE: B2750.jpg BUYNOW: http://tinyurl.com/y8mc8nuk LINKS: DESCRIPTION: The memoirs of Wolfe Frank lay hidden in an attic for more than twenty five years. The author has provided a unique insight into the war crimes trials that followed Victory in Europe - Most Recommended This ex-German, ex-British officer became the Chief Interpreter at the show trials held in Nuremberg at the end of WWII. He was therefore in a position to offer a unique set of insights into the people and events, together with the impact they had on him. There will always be controversy about the War Crime Trials. They were as much symbolic as practical. They produced verdicts that were highly variable, with some defendants receiving what others regarded as too light, or too severe, a sentence. They were strongly supported by the Soviets and the Americans as Show Trials of a defeated enemy and they refused to accept the defence of 'following orders'. They failed to bring many to trial who were highly deserving of trial and the prize eluded them, because Hitler had cheated them by committing suicide before he could be captured, and his second in command, Goering, cheated them by committing suicide before his hanging sentence could be carried out. The strange figure of Hess was the only prize, which the Soviets insisted on serving a life sentence, even though many considered him mad and who had left the stage long before the end when he flew to Britain. Hess really became the excuse for the Soviets to have some troops in West Berlin. The public in Allied and liberated countries were initially enthusiastic about the trials but they soon became bored. The developing tensions between the Soviets and the Americans led to many potential trial subjects being spirited out of Germany and put to use by their new masters. Notably, von Braun, who had been closely implicated in the use of slave labour on the V1 cruise missile and V2 rocket programs, not only escaped trial, but was to be honoured by the Americans as the father of their manned space flight program and the creator of rockets to launch the US nuclear weapons in event of WWIII. The author lived through this extra ordinary trial process. He was a critical part of it and he receive plaudits from all of the Allies for his services. However he was marked by the process in much the same way as an executioner. Daily he had to sit with a selection of monsters and those caught up in events that they might otherwise have wished to avoid. As each was tried, the most appalling events and atrocities were described. Jurors often find sadistic murder trials a corrosive burden, exposing them to acts beyond they previous imagining. Frank was exposed acts where millions had been treated with great brutality and killed in the most atrocious circumstances. Whether the Nuremberg Trials actually achieved anything positive is highly questionable. Previous practices might have achieved more where a victor quickly took the most important prisoners out and executed them without giving them one more chance to present their beliefs. As the trials trundled on, the variable treatment of prisoners and the success of some to fool the judges and get off lightly showed up some of the serious weaknesses of the program. The author has provided a fascinating account of how he got where he was as Interpreter, how the trials progressed and his unique insights into those defendants he was most closely linked to as Chief Interpreter.