Guenter Lewy. Perpetrators: The World of the Holocaust Killers. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017. 208 pp. $29.95, cloth, ISBN 978-0-19-066113-7.
Reviewed by Mark Montesclaros
Published on H-War (November, 2017)
Commissioned by Margaret Sankey (Air University)
Over seventy years have passed since the lib‐ close contact with the victims. It is in the tradition eration of the notorious Nazi concentration and of earlier works, among them Christopher Brown‐ extermination camp at Auschwitz by the Russian ing’s Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 army in January 1945. Yet, even today, the Ger‐ and the Final Solution in Poland (1992), Daniel man state continues to convict and sentence for‐ Jonah Goldhagen’s Hitler’s Willing Executioners: mer SS guards who served at Auschwitz—a sym‐ Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust (1996), and bol of the Holocaust—despite the advanced age Saul Friedlander’s Nazi Germany and the Jews, and declining health of both perpetrators and wit‐ 1939-1945: The Years of Extermination (2007), the nesses. Has Germany always demonstrated the second of a two-part history. Each of these de‐ political will to try such perpetrators, decades af‐ scribes in graphic detail the nature of the perpe‐ ter the commission of the acts? What about the trators’ roles, and each draws its own conclusion uniformity of sentences imposed? In an insightful as to what motivated the killers. Lewy follows suit new work, Guenter Lewy examines these key in Perpetrators. questions as well as others, focusing specifcally The author brings several unique perspec‐ on the perpetrators—their crimes, their motiva‐ tives to his survey of Holocaust perpetrators. He tions, and justice received. His book, while a dif‐ witnessed Kristallnacht as a child and his father cult read, makes an important contribution to our survived a short internment at the notorious understanding of the Holocaust. Buchenwald concentration camp. For Lewy, “tak‐ As one can perhaps surmise by its title, Perpe‐ ing up the subject of why so many ordinary Ger‐ trators: The World of the Holocaust Killers is a mans participated in Nazi crimes was ... of more grim and unrelenting work, which, like most of its than theoretical interest. It illuminates a chapter predecessors, spares no detail in order to illumi‐ in my personal life that I cannot and should not nate the horrifc acts associated with facilitators forget” (p. ix). Lewy is passionate yet objective of the Holocaust at the ground level. The author throughout the book, despite the one-sided nature writes, “Much of the book, unfortunately, reads of his subject matter. Also unique is his source like a catalogue of horrors” (p. viii). Thus, the fo‐ material; the author relies heavily on evidence cus of Lewy’s book is on the killers themselves, as not previously available in the English language. opposed to bureaucrats or staf members who en‐ Most important here are the German court trial abled the Holocaust from a distance, avoiding records of many of the Nazi functionaries and H-Net Reviews perpetrators, particularly those that focus on a very personal, ground-level view of what tran‐ crimes committed during the years 1939-45. Of spired. Accounts of participants, victims, and eye‐ course, the German legal system continues to try witnesses regarding the mass killings, crimes perpetrators, as mentioned above, so the author against women and children (as well as infants), also references those trial transcripts. In addition, and medical experimentation are particularly Lewy includes other non-English-language devastating, harrowing to read, and difcult to sources, such as letters from German soldiers as‐ imagine. The author includes accounts of well- signed in the East to their families back home; di‐ known as well as obscure perpetrators, whether aries; and eyewitness accounts, previously un‐ members of the SS, the Wehrmacht, or other na‐ tapped, from Jewish survivors of the Holocaust. tional contingents who willingly participated in Collectively, Lewy’s sources and personal insight the mass murder of Jews. Collectively, the ac‐ add depth and value to the growing literature fo‐ counts encapsulate the horrors of the perpetrator cusing specifcally on the Holocaust perpetrator world and are perhaps necessary to gain an un‐ perspective. derstanding of the magnitude of the crimes com‐ Perpetrators is organized clearly and logical‐ mitted on behalf of the Nazi state. They also help ly. Following an introduction that contains a use‐ to put into context the extent of justice doled out ful survey of the literature to set the context, to the perpetrators once put on trial. Lewy divides the book into seven chapters. The This leads to perhaps the book’s greatest con‐ frst four analyze categories of killers: concentra‐ tribution: Lewy’s insights on “fawed justice.” The tion camp guards, members of the mobile task author shows us that in many cases justice was ei‐ force death squads (Einsatzgruppen), and those ther not served or served unevenly at best. As an who served in death camps—those designed example, Lewy shows that through the year 2005, specifcally to kill rather than “concentrate” Jews (West) German authorities had brought charges and other persons deemed unworthy of life by the against 16,704 alleged perpetrators, from an esti‐ Third Reich. Chapter 5 provides valuable insight mated population of well over 100,000 potential on what options were available for those who killers in the organizations most involved. Of chose not to participate in the killings, and how these, only 981 were accused of ofenses involving the chain of command dealt with them. In the killing, and of that small number only 182 re‐ penultimate chapter, the longest and perhaps ceived the maximum sentence—life imprison‐ most useful, Lewy efectively describes the inade‐ ment—under German law (pp. 88-89). (Note that quacies of postwar judicial systems that resulted Germany abolished the death sentence in 1949; in “fawed justice” for the perpetrators as a whole relatively few German courts administered that (p. 87). (It is one of Lewy’s central arguments and penalty prior to that time. By comparison, the Al‐ provides the title for this review.) The fnal chap‐ lied military tribunals in the western zones of oc‐ ter provides the author’s conclusions as to what cupation executed a far greater number of con‐ motivated “ordinary people” to kill, essentially victed perpetrators—approximately 6,500—be‐ adding to the conversation established over time fore 1949.) by Browning and Goldhagen, among many others. Lewy posits a number of reasons for this The strengths of Perpetrators are the added seemingly dismal record. Among them were the depth and breadth the book brings to Holocaust difculty in fnding and trying defendants in the discussions. While descriptions of the atrocities chaos of the immediate postwar period, the ebb are familiar to specialists, Lewy’s use of court and fow of German public opinion that favored records includes eyewitness accounts that convey perpetrators during much of the Cold War, and
2 H-Net Reviews the political-military climate of the Cold War it‐ perpetrators, a monocausal explanation does suf‐ self. Another reason is the difering legal stan‐ fce.”[1] Lewy contends that there is no single ex‐ dards between the Allied military tribunal system planation for why perpetrators killed, nor was and the German civil system; the Allies employed there any single murderous prototype. He recites a “common design” framework in which defen‐ a litany of potential reasons, then discounts them dants could be charged based on membership in a one by one as singular causes. The author does particular killing organization or assignment at a agree, however, with a number of Browning’s so‐ death camp, regardless of their specifc role in the cial constructs that existed within such organiza‐ machinery of killing. Most useful are Lewy’s in‐ tions as the Reserve Police Battalion 101, which sights into the inner workings of the German made it easier for killers to kill, although he court system, with the ebb and fow of judicial would argue that anti-Semitism played a larger rulings, legislative changes, and reaction to public role in perpetrator motivation than Browning ar‐ opinion. Lewy characterizes the postwar German gues in Ordinary Men. (Browning focuses primar‐ judiciary as “tainted” (p. 116). For example, many ily on structural reasons, such as the Nazi indoc‐ postwar judges were members of the Nazi Party, trination policy regarding the Jews,[2] rather than and the state retained many of them despite the any latent anti-Semitism on the part of ordinary Allies’ systematic denazifcation program. Hence, Germans, as more critical in motivating perpetra‐ those who escaped justice themselves were sitting tors.) Lewy’s argument is thus nuanced and based in judgment of others. As a result, many judges on multiple infuences, none of which is pre-de‐ were sympathetic with defendants, resulting in terministic: “None of these factors creates causali‐ inconsistent or reduced sentences. Of course, ty or dictates a person’s behavior.... There re‐ complicating all of this was the political-military mains an element of personal agency” (p. 136). atmosphere within Germany, especially with the Some may question the book’s length; it is onset of the Cold War. The Allies, in need of West only 136 pages, excluding notes and index. Per‐ Germany as a bulwark against the Soviet Union, haps it could have been published as a chapter or ceased the aggressive pursuit of war criminals, journal article, or made longer with additional also resulting in commutations or reduced sen‐ depth, evidence, and insight provided by Lewy’s tences. In the decades since, with generational excellent source material. Regardless, the author changes and shifts in German attitudes, the Ger‐ makes a valuable contribution by providing detail man state today continues to convict Holocaust on the perpetrators and by ofering his views on killers with marked determination. However, as what motivated the killers. His embellishment of Lewy notes, the opportunity for future trials is each chapter with specifc court case evidence rapidly diminishing with the passage of time. and/or testimony is particularly noteworthy. Finally, the author adds his personal take on Due to its specialized nature, Perpetrators what motivated the perpetrators to kill so many will be of most interest to students of the Holo‐ innocents, particularly women, children, and in‐ caust and perhaps not as much to the general fants. Indeed, by simply mentioning the term “or‐ reader, who may turn to diferent sources for a dinary men,” Lewy enters the intellectual fray broader portrayal—one focusing beyond the with the other authors previously mentioned. world of the killers themselves. Nevertheless, the Lewy, like others before him, argues that “there book represents the most recent scholarship on was no typical perpetrator” (p. 45). He disagrees these critical topics, and readers will beneft from with Goldhagen’s thesis regarding eliminationist Lewy’s valuable insights on how the German jus‐ anti-Semitism: “With regard to the motivational tice system dealt with perpetrators, a subject still cause of the Holocaust, for the vast majority of
3 H-Net Reviews relevant seventy-two years after the liberation of Auschwitz and the end of World War II. Notes [1]. Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holo‐ caust (New York: Knopf, 1996), 379. [2]. Christopher Browning, Ordinary Men: Re‐ serve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland (New York: Harper Perennial, 1992), 184.
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Citation: Mark Montesclaros. Review of Lewy, Guenter. Perpetrators: The World of the Holocaust Killers. H-War, H-Net Reviews. November, 2017.
URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=50477
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