The S.S. Officer's Armchair

Uncovering the Hidden Life of a Nazi

By: Daniel Lee

Narrated by: Alex Wyndham

Length: 8 hrs and 32 mins

Publisher's Summary

Based on documents discovered concealed within a simple chair for 70 years, this gripping investigation into the life of a single S.S. officer during World War Two encapsulates the tragic experience of a generation of Europeans

One night at a dinner party in Florence, historian Daniel Lee was told about a remarkable discovery. An upholsterer in Amsterdam had found a bundle of swastika-covered documents inside the cushion of an armchair he was repairing. They belonged to Dr. Robert Griesinger, a lawyer from Stuttgart, who joined the S.S. and worked at the Reich's Ministry of Economics and Labor in Nazi-occupied Prague during the war. An expert in the history of the Holocaust, Lee was fascinated to know more about this man - and how his most precious documents ended up hidden inside a chair, hundreds of miles from Prague and Stuttgart.

In The S.S. Officer's Armchair, Lee weaves detection with biography to tell an astonishing narrative of ambition and intimacy in the Third Reich. He uncovers Griesinger's American back-story - his father was born in New Orleans and the family had ties to the plantations and music halls of nineteenth century Louisiana. As Lee follows the footsteps of a rank and file Nazi official 70 years later, and chronicles what became of him and his family at the war's end, Griesinger's role in Nazi crimes comes into focus. When Lee stumbles on an unforeseen connection between Griesinger and the murder of his own relatives in the Holocaust, he must grapple with potent questions about blame, manipulation, and responsibility.

The S.S. Officer's Armchair is an enthralling detective story and a reconsideration of daily life in the Third Reich. It provides a window into the lives of Hitler's millions of nameless followers and into the mechanisms through which ordinary people enacted history's most extraordinary atrocity.
 

©2020 Daniel Lee (P)2020 Hachette Audio

Critic Reviews

"In Daniel Lee's The S.S. Officer's Armchair, the story of an utterly obscure and 'ordinary' S.S. officer, recovered through extraordinary research, is embedded in the illuminating context of upper-middle-class German society and family life in the first half of the twentieth century. The result is a fascinating combination of social history, family drama, and ingenious detective work." (Christopher R. Browning, Frank Porter Graham professor of history emeritus, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and author of Ordinary Men)

"Beautiful and gripping, it unfolds like a detective story as an obscured past emerges into the light." (Hadley Freeman, author of House of Glass: The Story and Secrets of a Twentieth-Century Jewish Family)

"Many of the most horrific acts against humanity during the Holocaust were carried out by the untold thousands of low-level, virtually-unknown civil servants, who facilitated the worst deeds of the Nazi enterprise without ever getting their own hands dirty. In this brilliantly researched story of one such 'ordinary Nazi,' Daniel Lee illuminates the whole." (Martha Weinman Lear, author of Heartsounds and Where Did I Leave My Glasses?)

good book; strange voice...

the story is very interesting and clearly well researched. however, the narrator's voice (especially when he attempted women's voices) was just strange.

What a mystery solved!

The author does a masterful job of sleuthing the origins and identity of the person to whom the papers belonged. Who would imagine that such papers would years later be found under upholstery? Griesinger seemed an "ordinary German" who was opportunistic in joining the S.S. I learned that those who served as he did didn't wear the uniform every day like those who were in combat so perhaps it was easier for them to be more ordinary. Though it would seem Griesinger wasn't involved in the Holocaust the author demonstrates how such people could be considered "desk murders" by their ability to issues order. This is a must read for those who like this genre.

Speculation followed by speculation

At the beginning of this book, the author tells you he’s a ‘WW2 historian’ - yet as the book went along, I thought, this is the dumbest and most clueless ‘historian’ I’ve ever read. Then later in the book he released why - he’s just another entitled millennial, the type that can go and waste years writing a book that is nearly all just speculation.

I will say at some points the book is interesting - mainly when he’s covering things that actually happened and not just speculating. But the vast majority of the book is simpleton takes on history followed by speculation.

Also I don’t know if I’ve ever read an author that makes so many uneducated and sweeping statements. The guy claims to be a ‘WW2 historian’, yet didn’t know the basics about how people lived - that not ever SS member was out curb stomping people? If the author got that false title of ‘WW2 historian’ from a university, he should get his money back, in full. Memorizing a few dates and locations doesn’t make you a historian- and when this millennial looks back, he’s not only going to appreciate this review, he’s going to agree with it.

Well Researched and Easy Listening

This book is chock full of details about WW II that are fascinating. I thought I had read it all!
It is not a rehash of Nazi persecution but instead a fascinating deep dive into one man’s story. His place in history is horrifically problematic, but the author does a great job of placing this “desk murderer” in time and place.

Review

Outstanding Brings to life a poorly assessed part of the nazi “success” in “subverting” a culture and “torturing” so many .
How ordinary this officer who wanted to move up the ladder of success appeared
The key is the culture was not subverted but the nazi setup was built on the culture of his parent and friends to step on Jews and Slavs and Gypsies and other in the most gruesome way They deserved each other They deserve to be in Dante’s hell— which layer is debatable
What a great story teller thanks

An important message, not entirely compelling

A moderately interesting account which works to belie the notion of the guiltless functionary, working in the evil machine. Both historically and in these times, it's important to keep all cogs accountable for their roles, and rip away any plausible deniability. However, I'm not sure the scope of this particular story could expand beyond a serialized magazine expose. Stretching to an 8 hour book seemed a bit much.

Fascinating story

Daniel takes you on an exciting journey to investigate the owner of the armchair's contents.

Fascinating!

History as presented in this book of an ordinary overlooked member of SS, reminds us of the evil pervasive in all facets of the Nazi war efforts. Wish there were more historical records of the “ordinary” soldiers to get a broader perspective on how this evil happened and could happen again.

People Make Choices That Have Repercussions

A very interesting and well read story about the life of a man that chose a career and a political party in Germany between the end of World War I and prior to the beginning of World War II. I found the details about this man’s family, friends ,professional contacts ,and the decisions he made while interacting with them illustrative of his personality. Not all evil people look like monsters.

This book leave me wanting more

In my view this book should be required reading for anyone interested in the history of the History of Nazi Germany. Well we all know about Hitler and his inner circle this is the first book that I found that examines the life of a low level SS officer without men such as Robert Griesinger the subject of the Book the Nazi state could not have existed without the willing participation of a large number of people, cogs in the machine as it wereHopefully more scholarship will be done on every day life and the third Rike