Seymour Peyser

Though the defendants at Nuremberg were presumed to be guilty, the prosecutors went to great lengths to collect evidence to leave no doubt in the minds of either the judges or the public as to their crimes. This process was a massive undertaking that ultimately unearthed thousands of documents. Though the litigators are always the more glamorous attorneys in a trial, it is often the lawyers working behind the scenes to prepare the case that determine the outcome. Seymour Peyser was one of the lawyers responsible for preparing documents at Nuremberg. Among his jobs were to collect affidavits from the German police, judiciary, and press declaring the impact of Nazism on their lives and establishing the German chain of command to help prove who was responsible for actions taken during the war. In this excerpt from an interview...