Greenhill, 2002, £ 18.95, ISBN 1-85367-498-2, 259 pgs., hardback

This reprint of a 1954 book by the British Deputy Judge Advocate General who helped prosecute Nazi war criminals offers anecdote after anecdote of Nazi atrocities before and during WWII. It is a disturbing book of ruthlessness pulled form the prosecutorial files, and most definitely not light reading.

Seven chapters summarize the pervasiveness of the Nazi system. The first chapter offers an overview of the various organizations (Gestapo, Einsatzgruppen, etc) that carried out wholesale murder, Chapter 2 describes prisoners of war, 3 notes U-boat attacks, 4 covers civilian murders in occupied territory, 5 concerns slave labor, 6 covers concentration camps, and 7 examines the Jewish 'Final Solution.'

If you ever had any questions about why we fought WWII, this book provides about 12 million reasons--the approximate death toll according to the author. The crimes certainly do not dim after 60 years.

It is of course, single-faceted-no mentions of Soviet pre-war purges, gulags, or post-war purges. No mentions of US submarines neglecting to pick up Japanese survivors or British subs ignoring Italian survivors. If you want to quibble, fine, but against the backdrop of systematic executions of segments of populations, the Nazis outshone all others.

Wars are fought over ideals and resources. You'll get enough of Nazi ideals in this book to become ill. And that's the best reason to reprint and re-read this book.

See also: The Knights of Bushido: A Short History of Japanese War Crimes