The Prosecutor

One Man's Battle to Bring Nazis to Justice

De: Jack Fairweather

Narrado por: David Rintoul

The “gripping” (The New York Times) true story of a Jewish lawyer who returned to Germany after World War II to prosecute war crimes, only to find himself pitted against a nation determined to bury the past—from the #1 Sunday Times bestselling author of The Volunteer.

“Compulsively readable . . . with liberal democracies once more imperiled and indifference to the Holocaust stupefyingly widespread, The Prosecutor could hardly be more timely.”—Financial Times

At the end of the Nuremberg trial in 1946, some of the greatest war criminals in history were sentenced to death, but hundreds of thousands of Nazi murderers and collaborators remained at large. The Allies were ready to overlook their pasts as the Cold War began, and the horrors of the Holocaust were in danger of being forgotten.

In The Prosecutor, Jack Fairweather brings to life the remarkable story of Fritz Bauer, a gay, Jewish judge from Stuttgart who survived the Nazis and made it his mission to force his countrymen to confront their complicity in the genocide. In this deeply researched book, Fairweather draws on unpublished family papers, newly declassified German records, and exclusive interviews to immerse readers in the shadowy, unfamiliar world of postwar West Germany where those who implemented genocide run the country, the CIA is funding Hitler’s former spy-ring in the east, and Nazi-era anti-gay laws are strictly enforced. But once Bauer landed on the trail of Adolf Eichmann, he wouldn’t be intimidated. His journey took him deep into the dark heart of West Germany, where his fight for justice would set him against his own government and a network of former Nazis and spies bent on silencing him.

In a time when the history of the Holocaust is taken for granted, The Prosecutor reveals the courtroom battles that were fought to establish its legacy and the personal cost of speaking out. The result is a searing portrait of a nation emerging from the ruins of fascism and one man’s courage in forcing his people—and the world—to face the truth.

Story

Liked historical plots and biographies of Nazi and German soldiers and the different locations of events

Incredible

An absolutely incredible story and an important one at this time in global politics and history, that the recognition of the crimes that happened during WWII were not initially recognized by a wide swath of people.

The lengths that the prosecutors had to go to; that they had to be underhanded so as not to alert authorities who would tip off people in question; that the desire to "move on", "forget the past", and "don't confront what happened between 1933-1945" was a position that went to the highest levels in the West German government; the story of an abduction in Argentina by Mossad agents. It is a gripping story.

Well told, well paced, excellently narrated.

Forced Homosexuality into Story

Tried to hard to make homosexuality a large part of the story that it took away and spoiled my opinion of the book.