Nuremberg appears in the book’s biographical notes as the site of war-crimes convictions against senior Nazi figures. Its significance here rests on the sharply different endings recorded there: Hermann Göring was sentenced to death but took his own life before the execution, while Joachim von Ribbentrop became the first of the condemned Nazis to be hanged.

Convictions at Nuremberg

Hermann Göring, identified as the founder and first head of the Gestapo and a creator of the German air force, was convicted at Nuremberg for war crimes and sentenced to death. The notes place the sentence within the collapse of his standing: after Adolf Hitler had named him successor in 1940, Hitler dismissed him near the end of the war.

Joachim von Ribbentrop, Adolf Hitler’s foreign-affairs minister from 1938 to 1945, was also found guilty of war crimes at Nuremberg. His entry connects the city’s proceedings to the Nazi regime’s foreign policy, noting that he had signed the 1939 non-aggression pact with the Soviet foreign minister, including a secret agreement to partition Poland.

Different endings

The notes distinguish the two men by what followed their convictions. Göring committed suicide two hours before his scheduled execution. On October 16, 1946, Ribbentrop was hanged, becoming the first of the condemned Nazis to be executed. These separate outcomes give Nuremberg’s brief appearance a concrete historical weight: conviction there led, in these accounts, to both an execution carried out and one evaded by suicide.