Customer Reviews

The Nuremberg SS-Einsatzgruppen Trial, 1945-1958: Atrocity, Law, and History

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The author, Hilary Earl, has written a masterful tome on the banality of evil. The book is incredibly well-researched with lots of excellent tables and charts which help explain how these leaders of Einsatzgruppen units during WW2 came to be mass murderers under color of authority.

The scariest thing about these men is that, when you look at them up close and read their biographies, you realize that they are for the most part ordinary people, not monsters. Just your average guy-next-door with a family who goes to church and also happens to execute innocent thousands of civilians for a living.

The book could have used a selection of photos of the Einsatzgruppen at 'work', of which there are many existing. These atrocity photos might have made it crystal-clear what these men were really about.

I highly recommend this well-written, absolutely riveting, well-researched and mesmerizing book.

As far as I know, this book is the only detailed description in print of the trial of the leaders of the Einsatzgruppen who murdered around a million Soviet noncombatants during World War II. For this reason--that there is a lack of competing histories--this book is worth a read. And it certainly is the work of a competent historian who apparently did an awful lot of archival work.

Nevertheless, as my rating signifies, my feelings about the book are mixed. It was the author's dissertation at the University of Toronto, and it betrays some evidence of greenness on her part. There are lots of errors in punctuation and word choice, and it seems as if Cambridge University Press didn't have anyone proofread it carefully (and they certainly didn't put much care into the production of the paperback edition, which looks like a cheap, faded-out photocopy in places). At times, I felt that the exposition was lacking in seriousness and sophistication and that the author was insufficiently detached, too opinionated, bordering on glib. Other times, there was too much assertion and not enough presentation of facts that would allow the reader to draw the same conclusions him/herself. I wish there had been more analysis of how these mass murders could possibly have come about and less attention paid to the colorful life of the presiding judge. His escapades may make for a good yarn, but that's not the sort of thing most people buy books like this for.

This is an excellent work of non-fiction. I will not go into a long expansive review of the book. The book is very detailed and well researched. I will say, as a previous review stated, that this is the only work that covers the trial of these individuals and their crimes in such exhaustive detail. Of particular fascination was the Group Leader that asked to be relieved of duty. If you are interested in the concept of the duality of a person's nature (i.e., understanding how people could commit these murders and still be considered human), than this is a book worth reading.

I began reading this work of literature in an effort to better understand the Einsatzgruppen trial of the subsequent Nuremburg Trials -one of the most important murder trials in history and one of the fundamental events that have helped to shape our contemporary view of international law. As the title of this review suggests, Ms. Earl's work did not live up to expectations and at some points made me question a number of things, my queries follow: 1. Did the scholars who gave this book a positive review (as prominently highlighted on the back cover) even read the thing? 2. How could the esteemed Cambridge University Press print a work that not only contained numerous glaring typos, but also contained a seemingly interminable river of authorial speculation and assumption? (I guess nobody read it over there either) 3. Did the University of Toronto really award Ms. Earl a Ph.D. for this? It looks like they may have some of the same relaxed standards that Cambridge University Press does.

However, I believe in giving every work its fair assessment- and to be fair, Ms. Earl appears to have done a considerable amount of research into this topic. Unfortunately, the author's numerous assumptions and convoluted sense of academic superiority pervade this work and lead me to question the validity of how this project was conceived, planned and executed.

I am not one to give lengthy reviews on the internet, however, this work truly warranted one. This book totally sucks... and $90.00 for the hardcover... give me a break, that may be the most criminal thing since the Holocaust.