Hitler’s Crimes: A Public Indictment Against the Greatest Criminal in History. Paris, 1945 – First edition

Les crimes d'Hitler, mise en accusation publique du plus grand criminel de l'histoire – "Hitler’s Crimes: A Public Indictment Against the Greatest Criminal in History – The Trial of Hitler and Nazism" by Georges Imbert, Les Éditions de Paris, Paris, 1945 – First edition. In French.

An important publication released toward the end of World War II, in Adolf Hitler’s final days. The author documents Adolf Hitler’s crimes as evidentiary material intended to serve in his conviction, at a time when there was still a reasonable chance he would be captured alive and brought to trial. As stated in the introduction: "As I write these lines, Hitler’s Reich, which claimed dominion over the world, is collapsing on all fronts, and its total defeat is now only a matter of days. After Hitler’s defeat, his trial will begin. The man responsible will have to answer to international justice and receive a just punishment for all his crimes. Therefore, this book comes at precisely the right time. In my view, this is the most severe indictment against this criminal, who, in deliberate violation of all the rules of international law and human conscience, did not hesitate to drench Europe and the world in blood and tyranny in order to realize his mad dream of universal domination...".

Imbert portrays Hitler as the greatest criminal in human history, not only due to the scale of the killing and destruction, but primarily because of the method and intent—a conscious plan to annihilate, oppress, and humiliate entire nations. He describes how Hitler turned an ideology of hatred into a system of government that produced racist laws, concentration camps, state terror, total war, and unprecedented acts of extermination against Jews, Roma, homosexuals, and political opponents, fully aware of the magnitude of the crimes he was committing even in the early days of the Nazi Party’s rule, when he was directly responsible for the murder of thousands within the Nazi Party itself during political purges. For instance, Imbert quotes Hitler himself, who once told Rauschning: “They (his political enemies in Germany) think I am the devil incarnate. That’s perfectly all right.” Imbert emphasizes Hitler’s personal responsibility - not as a result of forced historical circumstances, but as someone who initiated, encouraged, managed, and executed the crimes: from turning Germany into a dictatorship, to invading European countries and eradicating the culture and national identity of conquered peoples, and ultimately the industrialized extermination of the Jewish people. The book presents documents, speeches, private conversations, laws, and many quotes from Hitler himself as evidence proving that these horrific crimes were not the result of wartime anarchy (as defeated Germany tried to claim at the war’s end), but of a premeditated and meticulously planned system down to the smallest detail. After the Nazi occupation of France, the author was placed under strict surveillance once the Nazis discovered that he was responsible for anti-Hitler propaganda activity. By that time, he had already managed to write part of the manuscript, which he successfully hid, knowing that if it were found, it would cost him his life. During the war years, he managed to escape his pursuers and continue writing, while repeatedly being exposed to the poisonous Nazi propaganda that had flooded occupied France for five consecutive years. For his part, he devoted himself to writing and exposing the truth, determined to publish it the moment circumstances allowed.

VIII, 305 pages. Wear to spine. Good condition.