In Hitler's Shadow : An Israeli's Journey Inside Germany's Neo-Nazi Movement (History and Politics) [Hardcover]

Yaron Svoray (Author), Nick Taylor (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1, 1995 | Series: History and Politics

A journalist's account of how he infiltrated a neo-Nazi group under cover of a fictitious right-wing organisation and how using hidden cameras and microphones he revealed a highly organized group who are unrepentant about Germany's past and wish to put Nazism into its future.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Israeli journalist and ex-detective Svoray pulled off a stunning investigative coup by penetrating Germany's neo-Nazi movement in 1992-93, and this extraordinary report, coauthored by Taylor (Sins of the Father), makes urgent reading. Posing first as an Austrian journalist, and later as a neo-Nazi sympathizer promising to funnel U.S. funds to German ultra-rightists, Svoray met several of Germany's leading neo-Nazis and toured a clandestine skinhead training camp. With assistance from the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, he exposed close links among various German neo-Nazi groups, as well as their ties to U.S. and European neo-fascists. Svoray documented many of his encounters using hidden cameras and microphones, and this chilling expose is the basis for an HBO feature to air in 1995. His mission, unveiled to news media in mid-1993, forced the German government to acknowledge the threat posed by anti-Semitic, racist, hate-mongering neo-Nazi groups. Author tour.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Journalist Svoray, who served in the Israeli Army and on the Tel Aviv detective force, describes himself as "a large man with a natural sense of self-confidence, a gift for talk, and a curiosity that sometimes outweighed prudence." Still, it must have take extraordinary courage for Svoray, the son of Jews who had fled Hitler's Europe, to infiltrate Germany's neo-Nazi movement and detail their political intentions. Svoray stumbled upon his initial neo-Nazi contact by accident. Backed by the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, he posed as a right-wing Australian journalist living in the United States who had the contacts to help fund the movement. Using the third person, he here recounts his experiences in colorful, you-are-there prose that brings home just how sleazy as well as frightening these fanatics are. Some readers might initially find the cloak-and-dagger tone a little offputting, but Svoray ultimately delivers a solid, highly readable account of an organized group that Germany has been trying to write off as a few malcontents.
Barbara Hoffert, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 275 pages
• Publisher: Constable (December 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0094741700
• ISBN-13: 978-0094741706
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,231,585 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Informative, entertaining...and embellished?, August 15, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: In Hitler's Shadow : An Israeli's Journey Inside Germany's Neo-Nazi Movement (History and Politics) (Hardcover)

Svoray's and Taylor's account of the former's investigation in reunified Germany is fast-paced and at points breathtaking, shocking. Svoray certainly uncovers some interesting and repulsive goings-on in the neo-Nazi milieu, and puts himself in considerable danger to do it. The book often seems almost like a movie, with Svoray as the lead.

In fact, not far into the book, the reader may get the impression that, just as in a movie, reality often yields to fiction. Is it plausible, for example, that the head of a trans-Europe smuggling operation would drive alone for five hours through Switzerland and southern Germany to present--personally--an exotic and illegal collection of recording devices and firearms to a complete stranger...all this for a few hundred dollars, and with no prior assurances as to the identity of the buyer? But this is just the beginning of a long row of incomprehensibly stupid acts of blind trust by various Europeans who should have a lot to hide.

Even if much of the cloak-and-dagger stuff is made up, the results of Svoray's investigation ring true: he finds a divided but potentially dangerous neo-Nazi movement in Germany with numbers greater than the German government would like to admit. It is the responsibility of German government and society to stop these fascists, and until they do, watchdog organizations from outside must remain ever vigilant.

However, Svoray goes too far in his criticism of "ordinary Germans." While some Germans may indeed have greater affinity to the far-right's positions than they let on, there are in fact more than a few German people who despise their country's past and who eschew the ideology of Nazism in all its forms, past and present. I cannot think of a single German who is portrayed positively in Svoray's book, though. It goes without saying that the neo-Nazis should be portrayed as they are: vile, ignorant, and repulsive. But no one gets good marks. A student named Stefan, an anti-fascist, serves as Svoray's translator for a while. When the two attend a neo-Nazi celebration, Svoray describes Stefan as unwilling to leave; the insinuation being that Stefan has begun to enjoy the company and ideas of Nazis after just a few hours among them. Towards the end of the book, Svoray and several other Americans have a meeting with the German authorities. The Americans are seated facing a window, squinting and blinking in the bright light...as if the Germans had intentionally reproduced a Gestapo interrogation scene. In short, Germany comes across as a hell-hole populated by people who are usually rude and always Nazi, covertly or overtly.

Svoray and Taylor present us with an interesting book. One only wishes they had aimed for a bit more objectivity.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating (and dangerous) journey into German Neo-Nazism, October 8, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: In Hitler's Shadow: An Israeli's Amazing Journey Inside Germany's Neo-Nazi Movement (Hardcover)

The author of the book, a Jew and former Israeli paratrooper, took the unbelievable plunge into the world of German neo-Nazism. Far from being dead after the collapse of the Third Reich, Nazism is still alive in the fatherland and is yearning for a come-back. This book chronicles the unbelievable journey Svoray took into the heart of the modern Nazi movement. Yaron Svoray deserves a medal for bravery because of the extremely dangerous assignment he undertook. Because of his courage, the world has been given an urgent warning about the viper that sits curled under its table.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Absolutely frightening..., July 8, 2003

By 

Britt Gillette "www.brittgillette.com" (Chesapeake, VA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: In Hitler's Shadow: An Israeli's Amazing Journey Inside Germany's Neo-Nazi Movement (Hardcover)

For those who believe that the Nazi atrocities and the rise of Hitler are impossible in our time, "In Hitler's Shadow" summons a monumental wake-up call. The book follows the true story of Yaron Svoray, a former paratrooper in the Israeli Defense Force and detective in Israel's Central Police Command.

While on a personal hunt for hidden World War II treasure in Germany in September 1992, he stumbles across a neo-Nazi contact who introduces him to an old SS officer who served at Buchenwald concentration camp. Returning home, Svoray decides to go uncover as a journalist and explore the German underground of National Socialism. What he found will profoundly disturb you, and Svoray has taped conversations and pictures to back up his story. Posing as a right-wing journalist from America, Svoray infiltrates the darkest depths of the modern Nazi Party, proving that the Nazis never went away, they simply moved underground. Along the way, he befriends a number of committed Nazis, some of them members of the European Parliament, some of them office holders in city governments, and all of them with their eyes on the Reichstag and the Chancellorship of Germany.

This book will mesmerize you because it reads like a spy-thriller, yet it's a true story with no names changed! All those who cherish freedom and loathe bigotry and racism need to read this book. It will remind us all of the personal role we must play in making sure that the horrors of the Holocaust are "never again"...

Britt Gillette...