Reception: 4:30 p.m. – 5:30 p.m. CT | Event: 5:30 p.m. – 6:30 p.m. CT

This event is free and open to the public. Register today to join us in person or to view the event online.

Join us in conversation with Tim Townsend, whose book Mission at Nuremberg: An American Army Chaplain and the Trial of the Nazis examines the questions of faith, forgiveness, and humanity that arose when US Army Chaplain Henry Gerecke was tasked with ministering to the 21 Nazis leaders awaiting trial at Nuremberg.

A reception from 4:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. will precede the event, and Townsend will sign copies of his book following the presentation. Preorder your signed copy from the Museum Store.

For additional information, please email Connie Gentry, Conference and Programs Manager, at connie.gentry@nationalww2museum.org.

About Mission at Nuremberg

Lutheran minister Henry Gerecke was 50 years old when he enlisted as a US Army chaplain during World War II. As two of his three sons faced danger and death on the battlefield, Gerecke tended to the battered bodies and souls of wounded and dying GIs outside London. At the war’s end, when other soldiers were coming home, Gerecke was recruited for the most difficult engagement of his life: ministering to the 21 Nazis leaders awaiting trial at Nuremberg. Based on scrupulous research and first-hand accounts, including interviews with still-living participants, Mission at Nuremberg takes us inside the Nuremberg Palace of Justice, into the cells of the accused and the courtroom where they faced their crimes. As the drama leading to the court’s final judgments unfolds, Tim Townsend brings to life the developing relationship between Gerecke and Hermann Göring, Albert Speer, Wilhelm Keitel, Joachim von Ribbentrop, and other imprisoned Nazis as they awaited trial. Powerful and harrowing, Mission at Nuremberg offers a fresh look at one most horrifying times in human history, probing difficult spiritual and ethical issues that continue to hold meaning, forcing us to confront the ultimate moral question: Are some men so evil they are beyond redemption?

About the Author

Tim Townsend, formerly the religion reporter at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, holds master’s degrees from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and Yale Divinity School. He has written for The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and Rolling Stone, among other publications. In 2005, 2011 and 2013, he was named Religion Reporter of the Year by the Religion Newswriters Association, the highest honor on the “God beat” at American newspapers.