Telford Taylor

In meeting the most vital need of the times, the Nuremberg record is an indispensable tool. -Telford Taylor, 1949

(Source: Belle Mayer Zeck Papers, 1933-2002. Post Nuremberg Material, Speeches: Box 12, Folder 11, Taylor, Telford 1949)

Education and Service in the U.S. Federal Government

Telford Taylor was born in Schenectady, New York in 1908. In 1928, he graduated from Williams College and joined their faculty serving as an instructor in history and government until 1929. He attended Harvard Law School where he became editor of the Law Review in 1931 and earned his degree in 1932. Following this, Taylor clerked for Augustus Hand, U.S. Circuit Judge in New York. His career in the federal government rose rapidly under the Roosevelt Administration where he joined the Department of Justice as an Assistant Solicitor (1933-1934); Agriculture Adjustment Administration, Senior Attorney (1934-1935); U.S. Senate Interstate Commerce Committee, Associate Counsel (1935-1939); Department of Justice, Special Assistant to the Attorney General (1939-1940); and Federal Communications Commission, General Counsel (1940-1942). It was in Taylor’s role as Special Assistant that he worked for Attorney General Robert H. Jackson who later hand-picked him as Associate Counsel for the International Military Tribunal. He assumed this role on June 1, 1945.

U.S. Military Service

With the rank of Major in 1942, Telford Taylor undertook an assignment as Chief of the Military Intelligence Service, Special Branch at Bletchley Park, where he analyzed German military and diplomatic intelligence for the remainder of the war. This wartime intelligence work aided Taylor’s eventual handling of the voluminous German documents which would be used as evidence for the prosecution of top-ranking Nazis in the International Military Tribunal. He earned a Distinguished Service Medal for his work with the Military Intelligence Service.

Taylor held the rank of lieutenant colonel from 1943 and through the International Military Tribunal in 1945. Prior to assuming duty as Chief of Counsel for War Crimes in 1946, he was promoted to the rank of Brigadier General.

Taylor’s Role in Nuremberg

Telford Taylor had roles at both the International Military Tribunal (IMT) and the Nuremberg Military Tribunals (NMT) and thus acquired a unique and sustained view of the Trials. In 1945, he was appointed as Associate Trial Counsel in the IMT by Justice Robert H. Jackson, Chief of Counsel for Prosecution of Axis Criminality. Taylor succeeded Justice Jackson in October of 1946 and became Chief of Counsel for War Crimes at Nuremberg, leading the U.S. prosecution team in the Nuremberg Military Tribunals 1-12. In the spring of 1946 he was joined in Nuremberg by his wife, Mary Walker Taylor, who worked in the Evidence Division of the OCCWC as a researcher. Post-Nuremberg, she studied law at Columbia University and later worked as an attorney with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

International Military Tribunal (IMT)

Col. Telford Taylor received orders to report to Nuremberg in the summer of 1945. His abilities as a trial attorney were not fully established or well known by fellow members of the legal staff of the IMT. By the time he presented his part of the case against the High Command of the German Armed Forces and the General Staff before the IMT in the winter of 1946, his reputation became solidified. Fellow American prosecutor, Drexel A. Sprecher described the moment as:

…within hours of his presentation, there was widespread talk that he had excelled over all other American prosecutors as an eloquent advocate and that clearly he was a lawyer of scholarly proportions.

(Source: Drexel A. Sprecher reflecting on Telford Taylor’s first presentation before the International Military Tribunal. Drexel A. Sprecher. Research Materials for Inside the Nuremburg Trial: A Prosecutor’s Comprehensive Account, 1945-2000. Military. Box 21, Folder 5, Harvard Law School Library)

Nuremberg Military Tribunals (NMT)

Well before the IMT concluded its operations, Telford Taylor was recommended by Justice Robert H. Jackson for the position of Chief of Counsel for War Crimes of the Subsequent Proceedings Division, Nuremberg Military Tribunals (1946-1949). His official assignment as Chief Counsel and Prosecutor was announced on October 24, 1946 by command of Gen. Joseph T. McNarney, U.S. Forces European Theater (USFET) in General Orders Number 301. The Office of Chief of Counsel for War Crimes was assigned, administratively, to the Office of Military Government for Germany, United States (OMGUS). Telford Taylor reported to the Deputy Military Governor of the American Zone of Occupation in Germany (AMZON), whereas Justice Robert H. Jackson reported directly to Pres. Truman. Taylor assumed his duties under the Military Governor Gen. Lucius Clay who served in this capacity from 1946-1949, the years during which the Nuremberg Military Tribunals, variously referred to as the Subsequent Nuremberg Trials or the Subsequent Proceedings, were administered. Gen. Clay extolled the lasting importance of the Trials in public and private statements. German Evangelical leader, Bishop Theophile Wurm, was an outspoken critic of the Trials and surreptitiously provided aid to fugitive Nazis. In responding to the Bishop’s public vitriol, Gen. Clay stated:

I can assure you that it is our hope that the work of this court will prove a deterrent to the rise of aggression everywhere and thus a lasting contribution to peace.

(Source: Letter from Gen. Lucius Clay, U.S. Military Governor of Occupied Germany to Bishop Theophil Wurm, ca. 1947. Columbia University Libraries. Telford Taylor papers, 1918-1998. Series V: Nuremberg Military Trials, Sub-Series V.1.4: NMT-OCCWC-Various Divisions, 1945-1949. NMT-Correspondence)

Telford Taylor understood that the success of the Subsequent Nuremberg Trials, and their attendant legacy, would depend on the quality of his legal and administrative staff. Fewer than ten American lawyers who served at the International Military Tribunal were willing to commit and remain in Nuremberg for the next phase of proceedings. Taylor engaged in staff recruitment activity prior to accepting the position of Chief of Counsel and prior to the conclusion of the International Military Tribunal. In early 1946, recruitment work took him stateside in search of talented lawyers and interrogators. During this time, the U.S. Senate approved his promotion to the rank of Brigadier General. Walter H. Rapp, a talented, German-born, U.S. Army interrogator and intelligence officer who had roles at the IMT and later in the Subsequent Nuremberg Trials, presented Taylor with his new military stars and insignia at the Pentagon. Taylor had conditioned his acceptance of his role as Chief Counsel of the Subsequent Nuremberg Trials on his promotion to Brigadier General, a military rank which aligned with the prestige and weight of his impending leadership duties. Cavalry Col. Burton C. Andrus, Commandant of the Nuremberg Prison, and other battle-tested military officers in the Nuremberg Enclave reportedly did not feel that Taylor had earned the rank of Brigadier General and were initially disgruntled by his ascension in rank.

In 1946, Pres. Truman amended Executive Order No. 9547 which provided the authority for the U.S. to prepare and prosecute “atrocities and war crimes against the leaders of the European Axis powers and their principal agents and accessories.” The amended directive, Executive Order 9679, vested authority in the International Military Tribunal Chief of Counsel Robert H. Jackson, to designate a Deputy Chief of Counsel to prepare the prosecution of charges of atrocities and war crimes committed by individuals other than those indicted in the interallied proceedings (IMT). The administrative authority for the Nuremberg Military Tribunals (NMT) and the Office of Chief of Counsel for War Crimes (OCCWC) was transferred to the Office of Military Government, United States (OMGUS) in General Orders No. 301, issued by C. R. Huebner on October 24, 1946 by command of Gen. McNarney. The final section of General Order No. 301 announces the appointment of Brig. Gen. Telford Taylor as Chief of Counsel for War Crimes.

Leading the OCCWC and equipping its complex operations required a high degree of legal and administrative acumen. The Subsequent Trials were administered from within a newly forged and rapidly staffed organization built amidst the rubble of the war ravaged city of Nuremberg- no small feat. The U.S. Army provided billeting, messing, transportation, and Trial security, but the responsibility for assembling an able staff largely fell to Telford Taylor, with some recruitment assistance from the War Department. At its peak, the OCCWC staff under Telford Taylor reached over 1,746 members in October of 1947. This number reflected American, Allied, and indigenous workers performing a range of tasks from cafeteria work in the basement of the Palace of Justice to executive trial counsel and judges. The project of Nuremberg was vast and complex.

As the Trials neared their conclusion, Telford Taylor departed Nuremberg for temporary duty in Washington, D.C. at the War Department from the fall of 1948 to February of 1949. Drexel A. Sprecher, who worked as one of the NMT lead prosecutors and served with the Office of Strategic Services during the war, became Acting Deputy Director of the OCCWC during this period. Among Telford Taylor’s War Department activities were the development of a document disposal plan for the placement and preservation of Trial records at various institutions as well as the drafting of the Final Report to Secretary of the Army on the Nuernberg War Crimes Trials Under Control Council Law No. 10. He returned to Nuremberg in February 1949 to be present for the rendering of the final judgement in the High Command Trial (NMT 12).

(Source: Columbia University Libraries. Telford Taylor papers, 1918-1998. Series V: Nuremberg Military Trials, Sub-Series V.1.4: NMT-OCCWC-Various Divisions, 1945-1949. NMT-OCCWC: Administrative Division-Administrative Diagrams and Histories, 1945-1948. Box 27; Drexel A. Sprecher. Research Materials for Inside the Nuremburg Trial: A Prosecutor’s Comprehensive Account, 1945-2000. OCCWC – Personnel (Pros & Defense Counsel, Members of Tribunals). Box 23, Folder 8, Harvard Law School Library.)

For better or worse, Nuremberg is a fait accompli (accomplished fact). Rather than debate endlessly whether the Trials should or should not have been held, we must now seek to grasp the practical significance of Nuremberg today and in time to come.

(Source: Telford Taylor, writing as Chief of Counsel for War Crimes in Nuremberg Trials, Synthesis and Projection. Published in the Information Bulletin: Magazine of U.S. Military Government in Germany. Issue #162, 1949).

At the conclusion of the Trials in 1949, Taylor acknowledged public fatigue with the administration of the Trials but foresaw their enduring legacy, commenting:

So few people will regret that the Nuremberg Trials have ended, and will find it easy to forget them entirely. And yet I venture to predict that as time goes on we will all hear more about Nuremberg rather than less, and that in a very real sense the conclusion of the Trials marks the beginning, and not the end, of Nuremberg as a force in politics, law, and morals.

(Source: Telford Taylor, writing as Chief of Counsel for War Crimes in Nuremberg Trials, Synthesis and Projection. Published in the Information Bulletin: Magazine of U.S. Military Government in Germany. Issue #162, 1949).

Telford Taylor anticipated the post-Nuremberg period with prescience. He recognized that one of the most valuable byproducts of the Trials was the incontrovertible documentary evidence of Nazi war crimes. The Trial documents, including abundant Nazi memoranda, decrees, and military orders, are a critical source for the study of the darkest period in human history. He also saw the official Trial record as a timeless warning against authoritarianism and potential re-Nazification of the German people. The German (erstwhile American) denazification courts in the Occupation Zone also had access to the Trial records while the NMT was in session. They were used collaboratively for evidentiary purposes.

In a Washington Post article published on November 17, 1949, Telford Taylor stressed the importance of publishing and widely circulating the Nuremberg Trials records in Germany as “ammunition” in the battle against Nazi resurgence. He also emphasized the utility of the Trial records in aiding the U.S. Army occupation forces in their mission of democracy building in Germany.

Yet another purpose of the Trial record was to adopt it as a primary resource for students of international law and universal human rights. Telford Taylor and Fred Niebergall, Chief of Document Control Branch in the OCCWC, worked assiduously to develop a document disposal plan in which appropriate repositories throughout the continental U.S. were selected to preserve, house, curate and provide access to the Trial records. The document books from the 12 Nuremberg Military Tribunals yielded over 185,000 legal-size mimeographed pages. The Trial transcript pages exceed 134,000. The U.S. Library of Congress holds a complete set of Trial documents and transcripts. Harvard Law School received the most near-complete set of English language transcripts and documents in 1949. Eight other American institutions and the United Nations (NY Headquarters) received incomplete sets of Trial records: University of California (Berkeley), University of Washington Law School, U.S. Military Academy at West Point, University of North Dakota, New York Public Library, Hoover Institution Library and Archives (Stanford), North Western University, and Duke University.

Long after the Trials concluded and throughout the remainder of his life, Telford Taylor continued to speak about the impact of the Tribunals on international law and human rights. He gave interviews and continued to respond to questions from private citizens as evidenced in correspondence in the archives of Columbia University. From about 1949-1958, actions by the American High Commissioner for Occupied Germany, John J. McCloy, and his successors, resulted in sentencing reductions and parole for over 90 former Nuremberg convicts. Both Telford Taylor and Ben Ferencz, Einsatzgruppen Trial prosecutor (NMT 9), were very vocal during the clemency review period and expressed their opposition to leniency in light of the irrefutable evidence and the largely unrepentant attitudes of the convicted Nazis.

Following Nuremberg, Telford Taylor worked in the private sector at the Madison Avenue law firm of of Paul, Reiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison. He became a full professor at Columbia Law School in 1962 and remained on the faculty until 1994. He also became a visiting professor at Harvard Law School (1977-1978) and Yale Law School.

Publications and Lectures

• Nuremberg: Synthesis and Projection. Address delivered in Paris, 27 April 1949. Source: Zeck, Belle Mayer. Papers, 1933-2002. Post Nuremberg Material, Speeches: Box 12, Folder 11, Taylor, Telford 1949.
• Taylor, T. (1952). Sword and swastika; generals and Nazis in the Third Reich. Simon and Schuster.
• Taylor, T. (1958). The march of conquest; the German victories in Western Europe, 1940. Simon and Schuster.
• Taylor, T. (1992). The anatomy of the Nuremberg trials : a personal memoir (1st ed.). Knopf.
• Taylor, T. (1979). Munich : the price of peace (1st ed.). Doubleday.
• Taylor, T. (1967). The breaking wave; the Second World War in the summer of 1940. Simon and Schuster.
• Taylor, T. (1970). Guilt, responsibility and the Third Reich. Heffer.
• Taylor, T. (1970). Nuremberg and Vietnam: an American tragedy. Quadrangle Books; distributed by Random House.

Archives

Telford Taylor’s personal and professional papers (136.75 linear feet) are held in the Rare Book and Manuscript section of Columbia University Libraries.

The Harvard Law School Library, Historical & Special Collections contains The Drexel A. Sprecher Research Materials for Inside the Nuremburg Trial: A Prosecutor’s Comprehensive Account. This collection contains some correspondence between Drexel A. Sprecher and Telford Taylor, as well as numerous recollections of their duties and interactions at the NMT.