Story of Nuremberg Trials told in compelling new radio drama series

Natalie Dormer, Freddie Fox, Ed Stoppard and Alex Kingston are set to feature in a compelling new radio drama from Jonathan Myerson about the Nuremberg Trials.

Nuremberg follows the race to track down and capture war criminals, the struggle to establish the trial itself, the horrific evidence – and finally the monumental sentencing. 

The eight-part drama begins as Nazi commanders are arrested and held in a former luxury but now stripped-out Luxembourg hotel. The accused await trial, on suicide watch and at risk of reprisals. 

The series tracks how the trial was pulled together; wrestling the legal systems of Britain, America, France and Russia – and how, stretched between the desires of Truman, Churchill and Stalin it almost collapsed altogether.

Listeners will hear the tension of court proceedings as prosecutors scale an overwhelming mountain of evidence. Seized from retreating Nazis, the Navy Archive alone comprised of 485 tonnes of paper. 

Testimonies detail the convenient ‘amnesia’ of onetime Deputy Führer,
 Rudolf Hess, the self-adoring grandiosity of Nazi power figure Hermann Goering and the tactical repentance from architect Albert Speer. 

But, most importantly of all, it marked the first ever hearing of harrowing evidence of the Holocaust, with the trial effectively inventing the word ‘genocide’ to describe crimes inflicted upon Jews, Roma and other minorities. 

The drama airs from 27 August, ahead of the 75th anniversary of the Nuremberg Trials, which is marked in November, on BBC Radio 4 and BBC Sounds