It's here! Browse the 2024 Penguin Christmas gift guide
A Passing Fury

A Passing Fury

Searching for Justice at the End of World War II

Summary

A Daily Telegraph Book of the Year
Shortlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction 2017

After the Second World War, the Nuremberg Tribunal became a symbol of justice in the face of tyranny, aggression and atrocity. But it was only a fragment of retribution as, with their Allies, the British embarked on the largest programme of war crimes investigations and trials in history.

This book exposes the deeper truth of this endeavour, moving from the scripted trial of Goering, Hess and von Ribbentrop to the makeshift courtrooms where the SS officers, guards and executioners were prosecuted. It tells the story of the investigators, lawyers and perpetrators and asks the question: was justice done?

Reviews

  • [An] earnest, unsettling book… Williams is a thoughtful, lucid writer, with a lawyer’s appetite for detailA Passing Fury is heartfelt, moving and often powerfully written.
    Dominic Sandbrook, Sunday Times

About the author

A. T. Williams

A. T. Williams won the George Orwell Prize for Political Writing in 2013 for his book A Very British Killing: The Death of Baha Mousa. He lives in Warwickshire.
Learn More

Sign up to the Penguin Newsletter

For the latest books, recommendations, author interviews and more