Last Member Of U.S. Nuremberg Trials Team Dies

Alma Soller McLay, a secretary by training, was 25 when she was asked to serve as documentarian for the Nuremberg trials, the world’s first international criminal tribunal, which prosecuted 24 ranking Nazi officials for war crimes, conspiracy, and crimes against humanity. McLay was a part of the 18-person team selected by then-U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson. The trials took place from 1945 to 1946, resulting in twelve death sentence convictions. One Nazi, Herman Goering, committed suicide and another was reportedly killed while trying to escape. The rest were hanged. McLay was sent back to Washington to immediately begin compiling the official U.S. record of the trials, a four-year task that produced a 12-volume collection that gave many Americans their first look at the extent of atrocities committed by the Nazis under Adolf Hitler. McLay died in Torrence, Calif. at the age of 97.