The Scourge of the Swastika: A Short History of Nazi War Crimes

This factual account of German war crimes of World War II is a formidable indictment of Nazi brutality and of the monstrous organisation which so terrorised occupied Europe and murdered at least 12,000,000 civilians. Along with The Knights of Bushido: A Short History of Japanese War Crimes by the same author, it was a phenomenal bestseller when first published. Drawing on documentary evidence submitted to the Nuremberg trials and brilliantly written by an expert intimately connected to the prosecution of war criminals, this searing condemnation of the Third Reich’s crimes is factual, objective and unstinting in its efforts to expose the truth behind real or alleged atrocities. It examines Hitler’s instruments of tyranny - the SS, Gestapo and Army - and repression; German crimes against prisoners of war; outrages committed on the high seas; crimes against civilian populations; the mass use of slave labour; the concentration camps; and the ‘Final Solution’ of the Jewish question. Lord Russell’s text examines such infamous crimes as the execution of 10,000 prisoners per day at Auschwitz; the massacre at Lidice; the destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto; the death of 4,000,000 Soviet prisoners of war in German hands; the lynching of Allied airmen; the Malmedy massacre; and presents damning evidence against individual German officers and the merciless regime which oversaw their evil activities.