Call Your First Witness

Book excerpt: The Nuremberg Trial was a milestone in history, the first international tribunal for war crimes ever to occur. As such, much rested on the shoulders of the prosecutors and, in turn, on the witnesses for the prosecution. As the first witness to be called in the first and best-known Nuremberg Trial, Abwehr General Erwin Lahousen felt that burden more keenly than any who took the stand after him. His inside knowledge of the Third Reich and the intelligence he gathered over the course of his military career proved invaluable in convicting some of the most infamous war criminals in history, many of whom recognized and loudly proclaimed him a traitor as he took to the witness stand in the Nuremberg Palace of Justice on November 30, 1945. Newly declassified archival materials, such as the recently released memoirs of Madame Madeleine Bihet-Richou, and interviews with family members have shed new light on General Lahousen's role in bringing about an end to Hitler's reign of terror. These have been compiled by Harry Carl Schaub into this compelling biography.