The Nuremberg Scripts
By JOE NOCERA
NYT
In November 1945, six months after Germany’s surrender to the Allies, a 24-year-old Army combat engineer named Harold Burson was handed a new assignment: to cover the upcoming Nuremberg trial for the American Forces Network. For the next five months, Burson was one of two soldiers who reported on the trial and produced a daily “script,” which was read over the air by the network’s announcers.
Harold Burson is 90 now. The co-founder of Burson-Marsteller, one of the world’s largest public relations firms, he still goes to the office every day where he holds the title of founding chairman and even writes the occasional blog post. He told me not long ago that every five years or so, he goes back and re-reads those old scripts, marveling at the remarkable experience he’d been afforded at such a young age.
My response was immediate: Could I see his scripts? A few days later, a thick binder landed on my desk. As I began to read the old, typewritten scripts, I found myself marveling as well, for different reasons than Burson.
Though there were a series of Nuremberg trials, that first one was by far the most important. It was the only one conducted jointly by the Soviet Union, Britain, America and France; the cold war would soon make it impossible for the Soviets and the Americans to work together. It also put on trial the most important Nazis still living, 20 in all. (A 21st defendant, Martin Bormann, Hitler’s private secretary, was tried in absentia because the Allies were not yet sure that he was dead.)
(More here.)
NYT
In November 1945, six months after Germany’s surrender to the Allies, a 24-year-old Army combat engineer named Harold Burson was handed a new assignment: to cover the upcoming Nuremberg trial for the American Forces Network. For the next five months, Burson was one of two soldiers who reported on the trial and produced a daily “script,” which was read over the air by the network’s announcers.
Harold Burson is 90 now. The co-founder of Burson-Marsteller, one of the world’s largest public relations firms, he still goes to the office every day where he holds the title of founding chairman and even writes the occasional blog post. He told me not long ago that every five years or so, he goes back and re-reads those old scripts, marveling at the remarkable experience he’d been afforded at such a young age.
My response was immediate: Could I see his scripts? A few days later, a thick binder landed on my desk. As I began to read the old, typewritten scripts, I found myself marveling as well, for different reasons than Burson.
Though there were a series of Nuremberg trials, that first one was by far the most important. It was the only one conducted jointly by the Soviet Union, Britain, America and France; the cold war would soon make it impossible for the Soviets and the Americans to work together. It also put on trial the most important Nazis still living, 20 in all. (A 21st defendant, Martin Bormann, Hitler’s private secretary, was tried in absentia because the Allies were not yet sure that he was dead.)
(More here.)
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