Giveaway & Book Review: The Eternal Nazi by Nicholas Kulish & Souad Mekhennet

About:
The Eternal Nazi: From Mauthausen to Cairo, the Relentless Pursuit of SS Doctor Aribert Heim by Nicholas Kulish & Souad Mekhennet is a non-fiction book detailing the trials and tribulations of Nazi hunters following an elusive criminal. While the book does not reveal anything new about the era, it does make a fascinating read.

The pub­lisher is giv­ing away one copy of this book to two (2) winners –to enter fill out the Raf­fle­copt­ter form at the end of the post.

• 320 pages
• Publisher: Doubleday
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385532431

My rating for The Eternal Nazi  – 4

Buy this book in paper or elec­tronic format*

More Rec­om­mended World War II books on Man of la BookStore

Thoughts:
The Eternal Nazi: From Mauthausen to Cairo, the Relentless Pursuit of SS Doctor Aribert Heim by Nicholas Kulish & Souad Mekhennet is a tale of police procedural, in an era before computers and databases, of those hunting the worst humans this world had to offer.

I first heard of Aribert Heim several years ago, I read an article about him in the weekend newspaper. What struck me most about the murders was the Heim took time to mentally torment his victims before killing them with is preferred method – a shot of gasoline to the heart.

The book focuses on two men, Heim and Wehrmach veteran, Alfred Aedtner. Heim is trying to avoid capture while Aedtner works with other Nazi hunters to try and bring him to justice.

One of the disconcerting things to read about in this book was the attitude towards war criminals after the war, not only by the German people (many who refused to help, and those who did were ostracized), but also by the world governments who chose to turn a blind eye to mass murderers in order to achieve some small cold-war victory.

The book accounts for mistakes, oversights and just plain bad luck in trying to capture Heim. The pursuers were close on his heels for a while, and Heim was sweating till his last day.

Ironically, Heim’s 30 year exile, being away from family, friends and country, was probably a much harsher punishment than he would have received if he would have simply surrendered to authorities. Heim was careful to cover his tracks and his crimes, after the war years were full with confusion and doubt and he has been already cleared once by US authorities.

This is a fascinating book, written in clear style with short, easy to comprehend chapters.  The book did provide an insight on how war criminals were able to avoid persecution.

Buy this book in paper or elec­tronic format*

More Rec­om­mended World War II books on Man of la BookStore

Give­away

• Give­away ends: March 25, 2014

• US/Canada Ship­ping Addresses Only

• No PO Boxes

• Win­ners will have 24 hours to write back with their address, oth­er­wise an alter­nate win­ner will be picked

Congratulations: Name as email, name as email

Zohar — Man of la Book
Dis­claimer: I got this book for free.
*Ama­zon links point to an affil­i­ate account