cover image Long Knives and Short Memories

Long Knives and Short Memories

Jack Fishman. Eagle Publishing Corporation., $22.5 (0pp) ISBN 978-0-931933-42-4

Although the seven members of Hitler's inner circle sentenced in 1945 at Nuremberg to Berlin's Spandau Prison had been among the world's most powerful figures, they and their individual crimes were too soon forgotten, argues British political journalist Fishman. Drawing on research including direct contacts with the prisoners and their families, he depicts the ""Hitler gang,'' among them Albert Speer, Admiral Karl Doenitz and Deputy Fuhrer Rudolf Hess, the last survivor, and reviews their careers, behavior in prison, relations to each other and attitudes toward Hitler and the past, adding his own unrelenting appraisal of each. Engrossing also are disclosures about internal and external political, legal and medical battles waged over the prisoners by the custodial nations, exacerbated by the Cold War and Berlin blockade. Photos. (April)