Customer Reviews

Prosecuting Nazi War Criminals

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This book is very well written, and approaches the technical legal and difficult moral nuances to prosecuting war criminals decades after their deeds were completed.

If you're a student or enthusiast of the law and its processes, or enjoy spending time contemplating moral complexities a la Camus, you'll love this book. If you're interested in the subject matter in general, it will be a difficult read, but a worthy one. If you're looking for details on particular cases - get yourself a copy of Quiet Neighbors, The Outraged Conscience or The Nazi Hunters.

Alan S. Rosenbaum's book is on the need to continue prosecuting former Nazi war criminals. Unfortunately Rosenbaum does not even give an estimate of how many Nazi's are still expected to be alive. This having said, it could have been interesting if Rosenbaum had been able to stick to an interesting focus point such as how Nazi war criminals have been persecuted in the past, or how to establish judicial guilt for perpetrators who personally never touched a fellow man, but are responsible for giving orders to kill. Unfortunately, Rosenbaum wants to combine different focus points which makes this an unbalanced book. He gives us an overview of the Holocaust which is not necessary, for anyone who is interested in these questions will have basic knowledge of the Holocaust. The second chapter is devoted to Nuremberg in which Rosenbaum manages to say not one original word. His description of the aftermath of the Third Reich touches on interesting philosophical questions, but remains superficial. His chapter on law in Nazi Germany is interesting but again remains superficial. The next chapter on Nazi fugitives never exceeds the level of popular journalism of Nazis on the run and secret organisations coming to their aid. The real problem in this book is that Rosenbaum has no sense of historical perspective. He pays no attention to the specific historical circumstances but opts for rather simplistic moral outrage about what happened. In his a-historical moral pamphlet he does not seem to understand that Germany now (or in 1993 year of publication) is not the same as Germany in 1933. He even goes so far as to demand six steps of Nazi denouncement in Germany or else he holds the German people collectively responsible for the Holocaust, even the current generation. There is no other country in the world that has put more effort in Vergangenheitsbewaeltigung than Germany. Rosenbaum seems not to have read a book about Germany written after 1960. He also mixes up moral guilt and judicial guilt. A book on either of these topics would have been valuable, but instead he uses both terms which just makes it more confusing.

All in all this is a disappointing book. All of the topics are better covered in other books. There are many books that come to mind, but for a good introduction to Nuremberg check Michael Marrus. For more information on the problem of trying the Holocaust in war crimes trials see Donald Bloxham's Genocide on Trial or Lawrence Douglas' The memory of Judgement. A good book on Germany and the Holocaust is Jeffrey Herf's Divided memory: the Nazi past in the two Germanys. For an introduction on moral guilt check Jaspers' The question of guilt. If you can read German there are many more, for instance by Norbert Frei.