According to journalist and author William L. Shirer, it was unclear to the attendees why he was charged. Shirer remarked that "no-one in the courtroom, including Fritzsche, seemed to know why he was there – he was too small a fry – unless it were as a ghost for Goebbels".[8] Alexander Hardy, an Associate Counsel for the Prosecution at the Nuremberg Trials, argued that Fritzsche was much more important than he appeared.