Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal, Nuremburg, 14 November 1945-1 October 1946, Volume 01

This is the original, unfiltered record of the trial that invented modern international justice. In the rubble of defeated Nazi Germany, the world's Allied powers gathered in Nuremberg to do something unprecedented: hold individual human beings accountable for crimes committed on a continental scale. This first volume contains the opening proceedings of the International Military Tribunal, establishing the court itself through the very Charter that defined its powers and jurisdiction. Here are the charges: crimes against peace, war crimes, crimes against humanity. Here are the defendants: Hermann Göring, Rudolf Hess, and their co-conspirators. But this is more than a legal proceeding. It is the documentary record of humanity attempting to codify a moral principle into law, that sovereign authority does not shield its wielders from accountability. For historians, legal scholars, and anyone grappling with the question of how justice confronts atrocity, this is the foundational text.