The Blog of Death

Lord Shawcross

Lord Hartley William Shawcross of Friston, a chief prosecutor in the Nuremberg trials, died July 6. He was 101.

Shawcross generated a reputation for meticulous prosecution when he tried William Joyce for high treason and John George Haigh for the murder of Olive Durand-Deacon. As the chief prosecutor for the United Kingdom at the Nuremberg war crimes trial in 1945, Shawcross helped to convict a dozen Nazis, who received prison and death sentences. These convictions were achieved despite Shawcross's objections to capital punishment.

After Nuremberg, Shawcross was knighted. He worked as attorney general until 1951, spent four years as the principle British delegate to the United Nations and served several years in Parliament. Shawcross later became the Chancellor of Sussex University, and earned honorary degrees from nine universities in U.S. and the U.K. His autobiography, "Life Sentence," was published in 1995.