Customer Reviews

Nuremberg: The Reckoning

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I thought this book was quite good, well-plotted, with characters to whom life happens, that is, characters who move the story forward without hugely contrived events. The things that happen to them seem like things that could happen, life wrapping itself around them unpredictably.

The main character is Sebastian Reinhard, a well Americanized kid, who grows up and goes to Germany in the military, where he discovers some shocking family secrets--including a father who could stand up to help an individual, his friend, but who could not summon the strength to help a race, or at least, to refuse to be part of the brutal genocide despite his views. History brutalizes him; he feels compels to help one of the German prisoners, only to discover that he has been lied to again. It is excellent characterization, and good, complex storytelling.

The historical actors--Goering, Speer, Robert Jackson, others--are convincingly presented, the moral problems well handled, the complex problems of trying to be good against evil in a world which is both so overwhelmingly corrupt and so banal is well-done.

Not to criticize anyone else's views too much, but I read one review on this page that seemed to be of a different novel than the one I read so quickly and enjoyed so much.

The book doesn't tell us new things about Nuremberg, or the Germans, but it personalizes the problems in a thoroughly convincing way. You could imagine yourself dealing with them, perhaps better, perhaps worse, than the participants in this story.

I strongly recommend this book.

Buckley does his usual nice job of putting everything together
and giving us a cast of characters that are lively and entertaining.
At first glance, this seems like it will be a mystery or novel
with the Nuremberg trials after WWII the backdrop. But the author gives us so much background for the war crimes trials,
and so much personal detail about some of the defendants and
their feelings, it developes into an overview of the war crimes
trials, with the story in the background.
But the author does such a nice job of mixing the real-life characters with those of the fictional story, it turns into a
very entertaining and engaging book. This would be a first-class place to start for anyone interesting in delving into what
happened at the end of WWII, and how the Four Powers turned to
this tribunal to handle significant questions about how to treat
surviving Nazi leaders.

Plus, of course, we can follow a nice story about a German-American family and how their young son, in the US Army, fits
into all the international politics of the time.

A very engrossing book and one most of us will find it difficult
to put down.

Buckley tackles the dicey subject of the Nuremburg trials in what proves to be a pretty good book. Conservative readers will appreciate some of the troubling ambiguities he discovers in what tends otherwise to be seen as one of humanity's finer moral hours - most obviously, that the Russians, who sat in judgment, were guilty of almost all the same crimes as the Germans, and the other allies were guilty of some of them. That international law was more or less invented for the trial, and the defendants tried ex post facto, is another problem. It might have been more honest to do as Churchill wanted, and just to shoot them, which history would most likely have excused the victors for doing after the worst war in history. Documenting the Nazis' crimes, though, had its own value, not only in the courtroom of Nuremburg, but the courtroom of history.

The plot revolves around Axel, a German engineer who marries an American woman of German background, bringing her back to Germany in the 1920s where they have a son. On the eve of the war, Axel carefully and quietly plots a trip to the United States, purportedly to take their son to an American school, but actually to flee Germany. At the last minute, Axel is forced by the Gestapo to stay behind with no explanation to his family, who are allowed to leave. Soon they hear no more from him.

His son turns 18 in time to get drafted in the U.S. near the war's end, and his German-language ability brings him to Nuremburg as a translator. Sebastian - a bit like Buckley's Blackford Oakes, cool and dignified beyond his years - gains the trust of trial prosecutors led by Robert Jackson, assigned specifically to a fictional but plausible defendant who ran a concentration camp. Meanwhile, Axel's fate unfolds, as does the fateful history of Annabelle's German-born mother, and how they all tie together in the war's terrible maelstrom, coming together at Nuremburg to put Sebastian in a terrible dilemma. Buckley does a great job incorporating the politicking and backroom deliberations before and during the trial, as well as the Germany-in-ruins backdrop.

William Buckley has made his living with words (is there anyone alive with a greater vocabulary?). Some of his scholarly works are, indeed, scholarly and rest on their own merits.

With his fiction, however, he takes the famous Buckley I'm-an-Ivy-Leaguer-and-you-are-not approach. Even his Blackie Oakes adventures have that tongue-in-cheek appearance. It's almost as if he condescends to the rest of us mortals when he publishes his fiction.

That said, however, it is rather difficult to dismiss his attempts at "common fiction" in "Nuremberg: A Reckoning." Told, basically, from the point of view of Sebastian Rheinhardt, whom we meet as a 13-year-old in l939 about to be spirited away to the safety of America in a time when critical signs were showing the imminent Nazi stranglehold on Europe, the book looks at the war from different perspectives, least of all a German-emigre part Jewish. Sebastian and his mother are permitted to leave The Fatherland, but his father is not. What happens from this point on is a critical issue in the plot development. "Nuremberg: A Reckoning" perhaps should read "the Reckonings," as Buckley uses wide-vision here.

Taking this setting--and particularly the Nuremberg trials--is a daunting task; indeed, not one to be taken lightly. And Buckley doesn't take it lightly. Knowing full well that Nuremburg (and the Nazis) have been written by so many and in so many ways, Buckley sets about to present his take on this entire picture. It's his personal spin on the subject and via the fiction genre.
His scholarly background shows through in the sensitivities he portrays, in the description of the landscape (such as it is in 1945) and atmosphere in the immediate aftermaths of the war. And he certainly reflects what Nuremberg was like in l945 and of the frustration of the entire trial. Buckley in his inimical style is at times bitchy and poignant. Never one to suffer fools lightly, he doesn't here, feeding us tidbits of titillating information about various judges trying the case. Too, it's clear that his personal animosity towards things Soviet shows up here, but perhaps justifiably so, as history seems to have revealed.

Young Sebastian, however, finds himself in the sort of dilemma that Stephan Crane presented in "Red Badge of Courage," although Sebby is not in a conflict within himself over his courage. One can see the reflection of Buckley in Sebastian (examples of sharp wit and energetic thought processes), yet the narrative and plot development don't become author self-centered. Buckley's attitude is that you can accept or not, but the story's still there. C'est tout, c'est fini.

Buckley's "take" on various segments of our society (his society) is more than just "interesting" (his "Elvis in the Morning" illustrates this perfectly!). Buckley seems to feel that he has a right (and he does) to make commentary (fictional or otherwise) on any subject. His talents are well known.

In "Nuremberg" he spares us from much of the customary horrors of any work relating to the Holocaust, as terrifying and unacceptable as it was. Still, that said, this work holds up well and to those who really know Nuremberg in the post war years, he's done a credible job. ...

Fact or fiction, Buckley is an intellectual tour de force. Those who are critical of this book (many) need to understand that Buckley's non-fiction is much different that his fiction, and his Blackie Oakes novels are a lot different than this book or "Spytime", which are historical fiction. If you do not like this book, (or "Spytime"), perhaps it's the historical fiction genre you actually do not appreciate. By its very nature, historical fiction is supposed to be generally, not specifically or literally, true. This book has strong character development, an interesting and believable string of events and relationships, and a decent ending. It is an eminently readable "story" about an important event in world history.

Buckley's Blackford Oaks novels were always quie riveting, particularly as he used historical personalities as major players in his plots (JFK, Khrushchev, Castro). In "Nuremberg," he uses them only in side roles (Jackson, Biddle, Goering, Speer) and instead creates his own war criminal as the central villain. This already lessens the interest.

Second, the two German-American servicemen (Rheinhardt and Allbright) don't ring true. WWII era US Army soldiers wanting to drink sherry? Very strange. And considering Allbright's heritage and what the Nazis did to his family, one would think he would hardly be so diffident or that he would want to help Sebby in his "act of mercy."

Other characters just seem superfluous. What is really the point of the chapters involving Sebby's Grand Canyon supervisor or even the German girl friend. Neither contributes to the story line or the outcome. These secondary characters and their subplots in the novel were tepid and unnecessary.

I'm afraid Buckley has lost his touch in mixing history with fiction. Too bad -- the Nuremberg trial presents a fascinating backdrop for developing a thoughtful page-turner -- something Buckley failed to do.

I'm a World War II buff as my father was in World War II with three battle stars in France and Germany. This was my first novel by WFB and it won't be my last. I thought it was a great novel and I wonder if the author was just trying to bring across one idea as to how Goering got a cyanide pill? The one destined for Gen. Armedeus. That was my take on the book. As you read the book and try to visualize being there it makes for great reading. He covered such a small portion of the trials as they were enormous in scope. For me I'd highly recommend the book.

Reckoning is not Buckley's best (I liked Elvis in the morning much more), but as a quasi history buff, I always enjoy reading about what transpired both before and after WWII, especially in Europe. As a classical music lover, I very much enjoyed Buckley's use of classical music (and some mentions of some of my favorites--Mahler mostly) to engage me as a reader (so add a half star to that--amazon doesn't let me).

Otherwise it's pretty predictable, what will/does happen, but there's always something to "learn" from reading anything Buckley (so long as you can ignore some of the obvious antagonism toward the Soviets) and that is always a plus for this reader. And, quite frankly, he was once again (as in "Elvis") amazingly fair regarding alternative political views to his own.

I have been reading Buckley's thrillers for years and even have an autographed copy of "Brothers No More." I much preferred the Blackford Oakes series to his latest efforts, and this book is certainly among the worst of the newer stuff. The novel is a plodding bore, and when it doesn't plod, it drags. The legal arguments are arcane and not deeply explored, and I suspect they are of interest only to history and law buffs. The author sets up a barely intriguing love triangle, then abruptly drops it with hardly an explanation. There is neither action nor suspense. I don't know why Buckley wasted his time here; don't waste your money.

...instead this is a story of personal tribulations and struggles raising interesting questions; the most interesting of which being centered around the importance of choosing how we meet our end. I think the the previous reviewers missed the point of the novel, and were instead expecting a courtroom thriller. While I can concede some to some of the points raised in nit-picking the novel to death, the ulimate score a book receives should be based, in my opinion, on the total enjoyment derived from reading it. Buckley weaves a complicated tale seamlessly together to create a book which I could not bring myself to stop reading. So: a courtroom thriller...nope; an engaging, intellect-provoking tale...you bet!!!