Table of Contents - PDF
Book description:
The book showcases the Krakow trials of German war criminals that took place before the Supreme National Tribunal. Its aim is to address whether fair trials could have been conducted in a country where a fierce struggle for communist takeover simultaneously developed, and if these trials were relatively free from the influence of the new authorities pressure. The text provides a description of the situation surrounding the trials at the time, the backgrounds of the participating parties, and the challenging post-war conditions of their activities, in addition to the legal dilemmas experienced by Polish lawyers. It also features profiles of the German defendants, the conditions in which they were incarcerated, and their conduct during the trials. The book highlights the undeniable accomplishment of Polish lawyers in portraying the German occupation as a systematically executed strategy to eradicate the Polish people, rather than a series of isolated, yet numerous, offenses. Such a stance remains pertinent and desirable in the context of modern debates on genocide within the Polish historical narrative.