Did the Nazis get a fair trial?

Summary

History Extra Podcast: Did the Nazis Get a Fair Trial?

Episode Date: November 30, 2025

Host: Dave Musgrove
Guest: Philippe Sands, specialist in international law, author of East West Street and The Ratline

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Overview

This episode delves into the dramatic conclusion of the Nuremberg War Trials (1945–46)—specifically, the delivery of verdicts, the immediate aftermath, the legacy of Nuremberg for international law, and the complex question: “Did the Nazis get a fair trial, or was it victor’s justice?” Philippe Sands joins Dave Musgrove to offer insights grounded in both historical record and personal research, including the intergenerational effects on families of both perpetrators and victims.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Drama of the Verdicts

• [03:08] The verdict’s announcement was a moment of global attention—the climax of holding Nazi leaders accountable. Four judges ruled on foundational acts of war and atrocity that shaped contemporary international law.
• The comprehensive judgment addressed many, but not all, of the crimes, laying out detailed facts.
• For the 21 defendants:
  • Many received death sentences.
  • Three were acquitted—regarded as surprising at the time, which “tended to support the idea that the trial had some legitimacy” (Dave Musgrove, 04:55).
  • Focus on prominent figures: Hermann Goering, Hans Frank, Arthur Seyss-Inquart, and Rudolf Hess.

Reactions from the Dock & Delivery of Sentences

• [05:58] Defendants’ public responses were kept subdued, but private reactions varied, as chronicled by court psychologist Dr. Gustave Gilbert.

  • Some, like Hans Frank, accepted their fate with resignation.
  • Others were elated to be acquitted (or not sentenced to death); some, like Rudolf Hess, “was just in a state of confusion, doesn't realize what has happened.”
  • For military men, the method of execution was controversial—they requested to be shot rather than hanged for reasons of “honor,” but were denied (07:24).

• [08:17] Goering commits suicide with poison before his scheduled execution, a fact that became a headline and a source of embarrassment for the prosecution.

International and Family Responses

• International response to Goering’s suicide:
  “That was seen to be very embarrassing for the prosecution team. How could they have let this happen?” (09:55)
• There was no appeals process, although pleas for clemency were made to the Pope, who had “no authority whatsoever” (10:54).
• Allied leaders broadly framed the verdicts as the delivery of justice but with some private disappointment about acquittals or escapes.

Execution, Aftermath, and Avoidance of Martyrdom

• [13:06] Executions took place two weeks after sentencing in the Nuremberg Palace of Justice courtyard. Some defendants faced death defiantly, others quietly.
• Bodies were photographed post-execution and images released to reinforce the message that justice was served.
  • Notably, Hans Frank’s son, Nicholas Frank, uses his father’s corpse photo as a daily reminder:
    “The first thing I do every day when I wake up, I look at the photograph to remind myself that my father is well and truly dead.” (Dave Musgrove quoting Nicholas Frank, 15:19)
• To prevent martyrdom, the bodies were cremated and ashes scattered so there would be “no place of pilgrimage or homage” (16:36).

The Fate of the Acquitted and Imprisoned

• [20:05] Those acquitted returned to regular life, surprised and elated, while those imprisoned served their terms—memoirs and post-trial lives continued for figures like Albert Speer.

Ongoing Prosecutions Post-Nuremberg

• Nuremberg’s end didn’t mark the close of prosecutions:
  • The US held further military trials for doctors, lawyers, and businesspeople.
  • Later German and international trials continued into the 1960s, 1970s, and even today for lower-level perpetrators.

The Legal Legacy: From Crimes Against Humanity to Genocide

• [22:56] Nuremberg influenced foundational international law:
  • United Nations resolutions enshrined “genocide” as a distinct crime—shockingly, the Nuremberg judgment did not mention “genocide,” greatly upsetting Raphael Lemkin, who coined the term.
  • This directly led to the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and the wider development of international human rights law.

Was it Victor’s Justice?

• [26:25] Philippe Sands acknowledges Nuremberg was a form of “victor’s justice”—the victors set and enforced the rules, and “didn’t apply the rules to themselves.”

  • However, he emphasizes the necessity of starting somewhere: “Imperfect as it was, it was a vital and necessary starting point.”
  • The question remains: Will the standards set for Nazi leaders ever be applied to the victors themselves? Historically, they have not.

• No Allied crimes were addressed by Nuremberg, even when, as in the Katyn massacre, the blame was wrongly assigned—an enduring flaw.

The Shadow of the Cold War & Nazi Evasion

• [29:34]–[34:55] Sands shares cases of former Nazis escaping justice, such as Otto Wächter and Walter Rauff, the latter of whom worked for Augusto Pinochet in Chile postwar.
  • The shifting threat from Nazism to Communism allowed former perpetrators to find new roles in the West, sometimes unpunished.

Trials’ Flaws and Necessity

• [35:34] Sands reflects on the unique, hasty, and “remarkable” achievement of the Nuremberg trial, but laments imperfect justice:
  • The invention of crimes after the fact.
  • Absence of defense counsel diversity.
  • Exclusion of Allied crimes.
  • Despite this: “Imperfect justice. Yes. Better than nothing. Absolutely... if Nuremberg had not happened, we would not have our modern system of international criminal justice.”

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On acquittals surprising even the victors:
  “You get the sense in Gilbert's account... of almost a sense of elation for those who've escaped the hangman's noose.”
  —Dave Musgrove, [08:17]

• On Goering’s suicide:
  “He cheated the verdict in that sense and killed himself between the date of the judgment and the sentencing and the date of the hanging.”
  —Dave Musgrove, [09:06]

• Personal, intergenerational impact:
  “The first thing I do every day when I wake up, I look at the photograph to remind myself that my father is well and truly dead.”
  —Nicholas Frank (quoted by Philippe Sands), [15:19]

• On preventing martyrdom:
  “That was why the decision was to dispose of the corpses in that way, to leave no place of pilgrimage or homage. And that was it. That was the end of the matter.”
  —Dave Musgrove, [16:36]

• On the legal legacy of Nuremberg:
  “The legacy of the Nuremberg Tribunal now moves its way into broader international law... and a commitment to develop the principles and practices of international criminal law over the coming period.”
  —Dave Musgrove, [25:15]

• On the question of victor’s justice:
  “It was a form of Victor's justice. It was lopsided. It was the victors that determined the rules, and it was the victors that determined and applied the rules against the losers.”
  —Philippe Sands, [26:25]

• On the necessity of imperfect justice:
  “Imperfect justice. Yes. Better than nothing. Absolutely... if Nuremberg had not happened, we would not have our modern system of international criminal justice.”
  —Philippe Sands, [35:34]

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 03:08 — Worldwide response and drama of judgment day
• 05:58 — Private reactions of defendants via Dr. Gustav Gilbert’s interviews
• 08:17 — Goering’s suicide and reactions
• 10:21 — Lack of appeals, pleas to the Pope
• 13:06 — Execution day, photographic evidence, family perspectives
• 16:19–16:36 — Avoiding martyrdom, cremation and scattering of ashes
• 20:05 — What became of the acquitted and imprisoned
• 22:56 — The continued US military trials and their process
• 24:10 — International law legacy: Genocide, UN conventions
• 26:25 — Was Nuremberg “victor’s justice”?
• 29:34 — Postwar fate of Nazis, Cold War politics
• 35:34 — The enduring flaws, necessity, and lessons of Nuremberg

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Tone and Language

The tone blends sober legal analysis with striking personal anecdotes, providing historical context alongside emotional resonance. Philippe Sands and Dave Musgrove maintain a reflective, balanced, and occasionally introspective mood, especially when discussing the descendants of both victims and perpetrators.

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Conclusion

This episode of History Extra offers an illuminating, nuanced look at the Nuremberg Trials’ outcome—exploring justice, its limits, and its long shadow on families, international law, and our understanding of historical accountability. The legacies of justice and injustice, the avoidance of martyrdom, and the evolving interpretation of fairness remain deeply relevant, and as Sands reminds us, “all roads lead to Nuremberg.”

For more on this subject, the next episode will trace how these trials shaped international justice throughout the rest of the 20th and into the 21st century.

Transcript

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[Felix Sams]

Hello and welcome to the third of this four part History Extra podcast series all about the Nuremberg War Trials, 1945. 46. My name's Dave Musgrove and I am joined by Felix Sams, writer and specialist in international law whose books include East west street and the Ratline. And in episode three, here we are going to be exploring the verdict of the trial and the immediate aftermath of what was quite a momentous episode in world history. So, Philippe, thanks again for joining us. In the last episode, we talked a bit about the verdict and the way it was delivered, and particularly how it was delivered. To Hans, can we hear a little bit more about the drama or otherwise around these verdicts? You mentioned that it was kind of sanitized in the sense that it wasn't filmed, but presumably there was quite a lot of drama as these verdicts were handed down.

[Dave Musgrove]

I think that's right. I think there was huge drama. It was a big moment. It was on the front pages of every newspaper of the world. The four judges were giving judgment on some momentous issues. The decisions to go to war in September 1939, the conduct of that war, the crimes that were committed across the whole of Europe in occupied territory. And the judgment, which is a very long judgment, goes into great detail, obviously, not on absolutely everything, but on many things, and just lays out facts that I think for many people are very striking or even shocking in relation to the 21 defendants, they receive news of their fate. For many of them, it is death. For three, it is an acquittal. They are, I think, rather surprised to have been acquitted. And in the media comment, there was some surprise that any of them were acquitted. But as I've said already, that tended to support the idea that the trial had some legitimacy, that it was indeed a proper trial, a fair trial, and that was significant. The attention really focused on those who were getting the death penalty. The attention focused on the big names. Hermann Goering obviously got a huge amount of attention. Hess, because in Britain, he had flown to the uk, getting a sentence of life imprisonment. Frank sentenced to death. Seyss Inquart, who was head of Austria for a period of time, sentenced to death. These were very dramatic consequences. And so the attention around the world was enormous. But I think it was significant in another respect also. And it was this. Although many, many hundreds, if not thousands of trials took place across national jurisdictions, it marked the end of the international phase. With the judgment, the work of the international military tribunal was over. There would be national court decisions, national tribunals, but it marked a change of direction. It was as a sort of line in the sand for issues of international responsibility. And now the world would move on.

[Felix Sams]

We're going to explore that a bit more in this episode and in the final episode. But just in terms of the delivery of those verdicts, I wonder, did people keep their composure throughout? Did the defendants keep their composure? Was there anyone in the gallery who was kind of, you know, offered any utterance of delight or anything. When the verdicts were handed down, I.

[Dave Musgrove]

Mean, amongst the defendants, public responses were not demonstrable. Where it gets interesting is in the accounts of each of the defendants given by Dr. Gustav Gilbert, the psychologist, because he visits each of them individually after they've received their judgment. And so he describes how they have reacted. Some, like Hans Frank, who has learned he is going to be hanged, says, I expected it. It's what I thought would happen. Others are slightly elated to have escaped the hangman's noose. Others are thrilled to have been acquitted. Some Hess is just in a state of confusion, doesn't realize what has happened. And so it's a very sort of mixed set of reactions. One theme that emerges that is interesting is that for the military men in the dock, they are outraged that they're going to be hanged. They consider that to be a death without dignity, and they ask to be shot to death, which is an honourable way for a military man to end his life. But that request is not acceded to.

[Felix Sams]

Why did they sort of explain that decision?

[Dave Musgrove]

The decision was that it would be death by hanging. That had been stated publicly in the moment of the handing down of the sentence, and death by hanging it was. There was a hangman who was brought in, there was a chaplain who attended to the needs of each of the defendants and who would later give his own accounts of how each of the defendants took the news of their conviction and sentence. Those who were not acquitted and those I find very fascinating in terms of the press reaction. I mean, it was front page of every British newspaper and of every newspaper in the world. It was headline news and people were interested in particular in the sentences of death.

[Felix Sams]

Presumably they were all expecting the death sentence.

[Dave Musgrove]

I think those who only got sentences of imprisonment or those who were acquitted were pretty surprised. You get the sense in Gilbert's account of his meeting with each of them of almost a sense of elation. For those who've escaped the hangman's noose and for those who know they're going to die, you know, the reality is setting in. Of course, not everyone who is sentenced to death dies by the hangman's noose. And one defendant, the most important defendant in the eyes of many people, Hermann Goering cheats the hangman's noose by taking a vial of poison and committing suicide. And how that poison was made available to him is not known. I think to this day there are lots of speculations that it was one of the guards he Cut a deal with. But he cheated the verdict in that sense and killed himself between the date of the judgment and the sentencing and the date of the hanging.

[Felix Sams]

Do you have any inkling as to what happened there?

[Dave Musgrove]

No, I think what is said to have happened is that a vial of poison was left attached in the dock underneath the table in which they were sitting. And who put it there is not known. There are various speculations. One of the guards, one of the lawyers, someone else, while the courtroom is not in session, retouching it under the table, but he committed suicide.

[Felix Sams]

What was the sort of international response to that? The fact that he had cheated justice?

[Dave Musgrove]

That was huge. That was huge. That got a huge amount of attention. That was seen to be very embarrassing for the prosecution team. How could they have let this happen? How could it be that poison was somehow smuggled into the courtroom or into the jail cells and there was a sort of high degree of outrage that he had cheated justice?

[Felix Sams]

Was there any sort of appeal process? Presumably it was. They was just like, this is it.

[Dave Musgrove]

You know, there was no appeal process, but many of the defendants who were sentenced to death made pleas for clemency to the Pope. Right. I know that Hans Frank did. He had converted to Catholicism during the course of the trial and that his lawyers wrote to the Pope and the Pope interceded on his behalf and sought clemency for him, but that was refused.

[Felix Sams]

Oh, I didn't know that. The Pope, I noticed, didn't have any particular authority over these proceedings.

[Dave Musgrove]

He had no authority whatsoever. The proceedings, it was purely a sort of religious intervention intended to, I suppose, move the world along. I don't know how much you can really read into that intervention, but the prosecuting authorities and the judges took no account of that request.

[Felix Sams]

Did any of the international leaders of the Allies, Churchill, et cetera, offer any response to the verdicts?

[Dave Musgrove]

I mean, the responses, the public responses were that this was justice delivered. I think there was a slight element of disappointment that anyone had been acquitted or that someone escaped the hangman's noose. The more interesting accounts really are those of prosecutors and the judges. Robert Jackson writes a very long report to President Truman, sets out the details of the whole trial, how many witnesses, how many days, how many hearings, how many hours, and so on and so forth, and concludes that justice has been delivered. Even though I think privately he was a little disappointed with some of the acquittals and some of the sentences. There's a very nice exchange that I find in the scrapbook of Geoffrey Lawrence letter received from President Truman. Thanking him for his service. He's now free to go back. And for many of the judges and the prosecutors and the lawyers, there were books to be written and accounts to be given of their role in the most famous trial in history.

[Felix Sams]

Yeah, well, how far have the judges sort of issued further comment after the trial?

[Dave Musgrove]

Some of the judges wrote accounts. The alternate French judge wrote a lengthy account, but it was only published after his death. And I think the general rule in life is that if you're a judge, you don't provide a private account of what is a sort of public function until after. Until after you've gone. I think Francis Biddle wrote in general terms. I think Geoffrey Lawrence may have written in general terms about the process, but they didn't disclose anything that shouldn't have been disclosed.

[Felix Sams]

And in terms of the actual death sentences being carried out, how quickly was that carried out and where and when did it.

[Dave Musgrove]

Did it occur two weeks later? I think the date was 16th October. As far as I recall, it took place very early in the morning in the courtyard of the palace of justice in Nuremberg, where they would previously have taken their exercises. It happened one after the other. We have accounts of what each of them said as they approached their death. We have the accounts of the chaplain, we have the accounts of what is said whilst actually standing with the noose around their neck. Some went quietly, some went defiantly, some shouted, some said nothing. It's a very mixed set of actions. What then happened was also very surprising. And this was done, I think, for publicity purposes, was that of those who had been executed post their hanging, photographs of their bodies were released. They were laying out with a name tag. Some of them had a bit of blood coming out of their nose or their ears. I mean, these are distressing photographs. They were photographs that were used for public opinion to show that justice had really been done. And these photographs have often had very significant personal consequences. So I mentioned earlier in the series that I had come to know Nicholas Frank, who was Hans Frank's son. The first time I met Nicholas was in 2011. I'd been looking for him because in researching the book, East west street, the way I conduct my research is I read everything I can find about the individuals who I'm going to write about. And I came across a book about Hans Frank, written by Nicholas, his son, called the Father, Dear Father. And it was an interesting book, it was a shocking book in many ways. And I wanted to meet Nick to talk about his father. And so I tracked him down. It took a little While. But eventually I found him. He lives near Hamburg in Germany. And I went to see him and we met in the courtyard of a hotel on the banks of the river, the Hotel Jakob. And I sat down with him. And the first thing Nicholas said to me was, I need you to know, Philippe, that I am against the death penalty in all cases, except in the case of my father, who was a criminal and you deserved to die. And the next thing Nick did was he put his hand in his jacket pocket and took out the photograph of his father's hanged corpse. I was pretty surprised. And he looked at me and he said, the first thing I do every day when I wake up, I look at the photograph to remind myself that my father is well and truly dead. I was pretty shocked, I have to say, by that. But it gives you an indication of the use to which in at least one case the photograph has been put. There was no burial for any of those who were hanged. They were cremated and their remains were discharged into a river. So no martyrs.

[Felix Sams]

Yeah, well, that's what I was going to ask. So, you know, you've just talked about a very specific case of a son reacting to his father there. But you know, there was surely a risk that these figures would have become martyred for those who, for whatever reasons, wanted to see heroism in their actions. Was there a concern about that?

[Dave Musgrove]

There was a concern about it. And that was why the decision was to dispose of the corpses in that way, to leave no place of pilgrimage or homage. And that was it. That was the end of the matter. I mean, Nicholas has given me an account of the end which is very moving. He was seven years old at the end of the trial. And he described to me how he had gone to see his father, this was just before the sentences were hanged down. And he described how his father had assured him he would be home for Christmas and they would celebrate together. And Nick describes his fury because he said to me, I knew my father was lying to me and why could he not, right at the end of his life, be honest with me, his son. So they're very affecting tales and, you know, I've, if you like, come from the other side of the story. My grandfather was on the receiving end of the Nazis, lost his entire family pretty much. And growing up, I'd never thought of what it was like to be the son of someone who was a defendant at Nuremberg, charged with murdering 4 million people. And getting to know Nick, I've come to understand that when you're a seven year old boy and this has happened to your father, it leaves a pretty huge impression, and he lives with a very big burden, as does his own daughter, of coming from a family where, you know, one person was a mass murderer and convicted as such by an international tribunal and tried. So these things have consequences within those families. And that I found rather affecting.

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[Felix Sams]

So the trial's over. The census has been carried out, and those who've been sentenced to life in prison have been sent off to prison. Those who acquitted, do they just free.

[Dave Musgrove]

Men and get on with their lives? They were all business people and they were not found to have been involved in any of the decisions to go to war or the commission of crimes against Jews or Roma or Poles or anyone else. And they're free to go. And I think you see there's film of this and you can see it on the newscasts and on YouTube. They're pretty surprised and pretty elated.

[Felix Sams]

Yeah, I mean, if anything, that's the strangest bit of the story, isn't it? Like, how would you cope with that? If you've been through this trial where probably assume you're going to be hung and then suddenly you'll wander about with.

[Dave Musgrove]

Your briefcase and they get on with their lives. And they mostly have normal lives. I mean, those who spend time in prison, one, at least Hess is there for life. Famously, in Spandau is. You know, I remember as a kid growing up seeing images of Hess wandering around the courtyard looking slightly demented, which I think he probably was. Others did their time and then resumed their lives. The most, the one I know best is the story of Albert Speer. And he got on with his life and made films and told stories and wrote a book and resumed a sort of semi normal life. And they had, of course, children and grandchildren who live with those histories. One of the people who went through the trial, Baldor van Schirach, who was head of Hitler Youth, his grandson has become a very famous writer in Germany. I've not met him, but I've read his books, and they're very fine books.

[Felix Sams]

So what happens in Nuremberg itself after the trial? Everything's just taken down?

[Dave Musgrove]

Oh, no, no, no, no. There's more work to be done. The international military trial comes to an end, and the judges are released, the prosecutors are released, and the building is then handed over to the United States army, which runs a series of trials called the US Military trial. And the way they did it was quite interesting. It runs on for the next year or two. Trials of the lawyers, trials of the doctors, trials of the business people, and they gather groups of between 20 and 30 and they put them on trial for crimes. But that's not an international military tribunal. That is a U.S. military tribunal.

[Felix Sams]

And does that follow the same sort of process?

[Dave Musgrove]

Yes, it follows very much the same sort of process. It's the same list of crimes over which the trial has jurisdiction, different judges, different prosecutors.

[Felix Sams]

And how long does that go on for?

[Dave Musgrove]

That goes on for a couple of years.

[Felix Sams]

Okay. And then so we're sort of at the end of the 1940s by now. Is that kind of the end of it in terms of the trial process for the Second World War, excluding things going on outside of Germany?

[Dave Musgrove]

Well, there will be trials in Germany through to the 60s and the 70s and beyond. We have some trials still going on today in relation to former prison guards and others who may have had a role. And that is the same in other parts of the world. But for the purposes of the system of international criminal justice, what happens next is important. The embryonic United nations meets at the end of the year in December, and it adopts two resolutions. One of the resolutions recognizes that all of the crimes identified in the Nuremberg Statute are to be treated as part of international law. And the judgments reflect rulings under international law. And then a second resolution determines that the crime of genocide is part of international law. Now, why do I mention this? The judgment handed down on the 1st of October, 1946 makes no mention of the crime of genocide. It is not referred to by any of the judges, even in passing. And Raphael Lemkin, the man who invented that word, genocide, meaning the extermination of groups, describes the day of the Judgment as the darkest day of his life, darker even than the day he learned of the deaths of his beloved parents and many of his family members. And so he determines that what he will do is devote the time between Judgment Day, the 1st of October, 1946, and the opening of the United nations meeting, which I think may have been in Lake Placid in the United States, in New York State, to obtaining the adoption of a resolution confirming that the crime of genocide, which he has invented is part of international law. And that resolution is adopted. And with that resolution, there is a decision by the United nations to negotiate a treaty on the crime of genocide emerging, but not addressed by the Nuremberg Tribunal. And two years later, at a meeting in Paris in December 1948, the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide is adopted. And it becomes the first of the modern human rights treaties. It's adopted alongside the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, the idea that every individual has rights. So the legacy of the Nuremberg Tribunal now moves its way into broader international law, if you like, spreading its wings and the development of treaties limiting the sovereignty of states, limiting what states can do, and a commitment to develop the principles and practices of international criminal law over the coming period.

[Felix Sams]

Now, we will return to that in the final episode. Before we get to that, I want to pick off on something which we talked about a bit, but we haven't properly nailed out here, this question of how far Nuremberg was Victor's justice. Now, you've said before that the defendants felt it was a fair trial. And this point that some people were acquitted, kind of add some heft to that. But taken in the rounds. What do you think about that position?

[Dave Musgrove]

Well, I mean, it was a form of Victor's justice. It was lopsided. It was the victors that determined the rules, and it was the victors that determined and applied the rules against the losers. They didn't apply the rules to themselves. They didn't allow the vanquished country of Germany to have any say in the crimes that would be addressed. It was a sort of group of four countries, essentially, that concocted the entire system. And so I think it has, in a sense, that sign hanging around its neck. But you have to ask yourself, if you're going to begin a system of international criminal justice, you have to begin somewhere. And so I've come to the position that, imperfect as it was, it was a vital and necessary starting point, and it did more good than harm by setting in train the idea that the powers of the state in times of war and in times of peace are not unlimited. And what we will get onto, no doubt, is the extent to which the principles and the rules and the crimes that were invented in 1945 for the Nuremberg trial and the processes that were applied could in the future be applied to the states, which in 1945, were the victor states. That becomes a very, very big issue. Are these rules only adopted for others, or will they eventually be applied also to those who created them and invented them? And that's a big, big question. After Nuremberg, of course, no one's really thinking about that. In 1946 and 1947, the hope is, as Jackson said in that clip that we listened to, these things will not be repeated. Of course, we know they have been repeated. And so the question then becomes, what is the legacy of Nuremberg going Forward from the 1950s and beyond?

[Felix Sams]

Was there ever any sort of conversational question that any Allied contentious actions might be tried?

[Dave Musgrove]

There was never any question that the crimes perpetrated by the Allies would themselves be addressed. And in fact, one of the issues that comes up in the trial of Nuremberg is the question of responsibility for certain massacres that took place during the war. I'm thinking in particular of the massacre of Polish officers at Katyn, which in Nuremberg was addressed as a German crime, but it eventually emerged that it was a Soviet crime. And this indicates that a trial like Nuremberg can, if it is overly lopsided, come down the wrong way in terms of an outcome. But, no, the short answer to your question is the crimes of the Allies, and there were crimes, were not addressed by Nuremberg and indeed had never been addressed by an international tribunal.

[Felix Sams]

Before we leave Nuremberg in the 1940s, I just wonder, in your books, you've examined sort of changing attitudes to narcissism, or at least the fact that with the onset of the Cold War, the new threat was Communism, and people were concerned about that, and former Nazis were able to dispense with some of their past and work with the Allies. Tell us a little bit about that process and what happened.

[Dave Musgrove]

Well, I was very surprised. So the first book that I read was East West Street. It homed in on Hans Frank, Lauter, Pacht, Lemkin and my grandfather. The second book. I wrote the Ratline, because Nicholas Frank had introduced me to Horst Wachter, the son of Otto Wachter, the Governor of District Lyciat, the Governor of Krakow, the governor of Lviv. And I became fascinated with the story of Otto Wachter. And in particular when Horst gave me access to the private family archive, I found material about what had happened to him. After May 1945 he was never caught. He went into hiding. He hid in the Austrian alps for about three years and then in 1949 he made his way to to Italy, hoping to escape to South America. He never did. He dies in mysterious circumstances before he can get onto the rat lines to South America in a Vatican run hospital in Rome. And actually, curiously, I've just in relation to another one of my books and cases the Last Colonies had tended with the original residents of the Chagos Archipelago, the Chagossians, a private audience with Pope Leo XIV just a few weeks ago, which was fascinating and his aides had asked me to bring some of my books along and I wondered whether to bring a copy of the Ratline. But I included the Ratline in the pile of books that I gave to him and he seemed happy to receive it. So Otto Wachter is never judged. He goes into hiding for four years, then dies in mysterious circumstances. But in the papers of Otto Wachter I find a letter written in May 1949 to him sent from someone in Damascus, Syria, basically telling him, don't come to the Arab world. It's not a good place for Germans and Austrians to try to escape, to head instead to South America. As you know, Fechter doesn't make it to South America. But I got curious about the writer of the letter. And the writer of the letter was a man called Walter Ralph. Walter Ralph's name does come up in the Nuremberg trial. You will find him in the proceedings. Why? He is fingered as the man who operated the system of mobile gas vans which operated across central and eastern Nazi occupied Europe, gassing people to death in groups of about 50. The famous mobile gas vans, precursors to Auschwitz and Treblinka and Belzec, the mass extermination camps. So I got interested in this guy, Walter Ralph. What did I learn? I learned that he followed his own advice. He left Damascus soon after he wrote the letter to Wachter. He goes to Genoa and then with his wife and two boys he flees to South America and sets up shop in Ecuador and living in Quito and makes a new life for himself as a businessman. In 1956, he and his wife Edith meet a delightful Chilean couple who say, you're in the wrong country, you should head for Chile. And they do, in 1958, and they set up shop in Punta Arenas, the southernmost town in the whole world. And he becomes the manager, does Walter Ralph, of a king crab cannery, putting the flesh of crabs into little tins for export around the world. And he's doing fine until five years later, in 1963, he's arrested and sent up to Santiago with a view to being extradited to West Germany to face trial in one of the West German trials for crimes against humanity and genocide. He gets off because Chile has a 15 year statute of limitations and since the alleged crimes occurred in 1941 and 42, and it's 1963, 22 years have passed. He goes back to Punta Arenas, he resumes his work as the manager of the Pesquera camellio. And then 10 years later, on September 11, 1973, there is a coup d' etat in Chile and Augusto Pinochet, General Pinochet, takes charge as the head of a four man military junta. And Walter Rauff is thrilled. Why? Because the charming Chilean couple that he and Edith had met in Quito, Ecuador, are none other than Lucia and Augusto Pinochet. It is Pinochet who has brought the Ralphs to Chile. And the moment I Learnt that about 2014, 2015, a little sort of light went off in my brain. I'd been one of the lawyers, one of the barristers in the case involving Pinochet when he was arrested in London in October 1998 for torture, for crimes against humanity, for genocide, for disappearance. And it occurred to me, could it be that Walter Ralph worked with Pinochet during the dictatorship? Did Walter Ralph resume his work on disappearing people as he'd done in 41 and 42? And that's the subject of the third book in the trilogy, 38 Ondress Street. Did one of the Nazis assist one of the dictatorships? There's always been lots of speculation about it. We now have a clear answer and.

[Felix Sams]

It'S, it's a, it's a fascinating story and well worth reading that book. Right, I think we should finish here unless there's any sort of concluding remarks on the, on the Nuremberg Trials or the. Actually, I would be interested to know, do you think the trials were. You've said that they, they, they did a job, but how flawed were they? And what would have been better if they were, you know, if they could have been done in a different way?

[Dave Musgrove]

Well, I mean, mistakes were made. I described Cat in and for others, obviously no trial is ever perfect. I think in the circumstances, words were used in episode one. I think it was remarkable and stunning that this form of justice was delivered in essentially less than a year. I mean, that is pretty remarkable given the gravity of the issues, the nature of the issues, the scale of the facts that they were having to address. I think we're left with a slightly empty taste. The absence, for example, of English barristers allowed to act for the defence. The fact that it was lopsided justice and that none of the crimes perpetrated by the Allies were an issue at all, leaves an unfortunate taste. And it's always complex when a trial proceeds on the basis of crimes invented for the trial that did not apply at the time that the acts were committed. I mean, there was no crimes against humanity, there was no crime of aggression, there was no crime of genocide in September 1939. They all saw the light of day in the summer of 1945. But I suppose, Wartsmore, if you're going to start somewhere, that's how you start. So imperfect justice. Yes. Better than nothing. Absolutely. And what we'll see in the next episode is that as things do improve, other problems creep in. But all roads lead to Nuremberg. If Nuremberg had not happened, we would not have our modern system of international criminal justice. We may have invented another one, but we wouldn't have had what we've got now.

[Felix Sams]

In the final episode, that's where we will go. We will look at at the story of international justice through the rest of the 20th and into the 21st century. But for now, if you've enjoyed this episode, do of course download the History Extra app where you can find loads more about the Nuremberg Trials, about some of the Allied actions in the war, the atomic bombs and the great conversation about that. Download the History Extra app and you'll find all manner of other interesting topics about Second Wolf. Thank you very much for listening.

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