In 1946 Rebecca West arrives at the world’s first ever war-crimes trial where she is witness to a young US lawyer who faces one of the most difficult cross examinations of his life – because although Hjalmar Schacht may not have been a mass murderer, he was the economist who made the Third Reich work. In a world where wars are waged, dictators overthrown and justice meted out, nothing is simple when idealism clashes with political reality.

Rebecca West, journalist, novelist and critic, was described by Kenneth Tynan in 1954 as the “the best journalist alive”, and is perhaps best known for her book about the Nuremberg trials – The Meaning of Treason.