Interrogations: Inside the Minds of the Nazi Elite Book

Interrogations: The Nazi Elite in Allied Hands, 1945 is the latest book from Richard Overy, the acclaimed author of The Battle. Interrogations is a massive account of those senior Nazis who were captured and interrogated by the Allies through the grim days of the European war's aftermath. Overy first considers the general issues, such as "Strategies of Denial" and "Final Retribution" before going on to produce what are essentially transcripts of some of the most memorable and chilling of the interrogations. Not all Allied leaders wanted to go through with the due process of interrogation, trial and punishment. Churchill, above all, pressed strongly for the prompt shooting of any senior Nazis within six hours of positive identification. "Shot to death" was his precise phase, just in case his meaning was still unclear. The Americans agreed, the Attorney General calling for "what we in Texas call 'law west of the Pecos'--fast justice". By one of those fine ironies, it was the Soviet Union that insisted on proper trial over such lynch law. The resulting interrogations provide such things as weird close-ups of the Fuhrer's personal life from his doctor, Karl Brandt. Hitler chose to remain a bachelor, we are told, so that "there was always the chance that any out of the millions of German women might possibly attain the high distinction of being at Hitler's side". They provide plenty of instances of doublethink and denial, as with Robert Ley, one minute babbling self-justifyingly that "Christ himself was anti-Semitic" and the next, "I never persecuted, tortured or imprisoned a single Jew." Finally, inevitably, one gets the Final Solution. Two old comrades chuckle over the "incredible things at Auschwitz" that they witnessed. At last one of them concludes, "The only really good thing about the whole affair is that a few million Jews no longer exist." The interrogations are fascinating, horrifying, sometimes depressing. But what they never suggest is any sense of regret or remorse on the part of the detainees. Not once in 500 pages. Instead, it confirms what we had already learned from the writings of Albert Speer and Hannah Arendt: in the latter's own phrase, from Eichmann in Jerusalem, we are faced again with "the banality of evil".--Christopher HartRead More