A review of Our Nazi: An American Suburb's Encounter with Evil, by Michael Soffer.
Michael Soffer's Our Nazi is a clear and accessible history of one case of a former Nazi SS officer and concentration camp guard who immigrated to the United States. Like a fair number of others, he assumed a quiet suburban life while hiding his past from his neighbors and the authorities. Our Nazi does a very good job of describing the wider context of Nazi hunting in the 1970s and '80s on the part of the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Special Investigations as well as other organizations. Our Nazi is also a courtroom drama conveyed with skillful storytelling.
The historical research is thorough, and it is also very personal. It includes the words and perspectives of many ordinary people, which for me makes it compelling reading. It depicts the conflict in the middle-class community of Oak Park, Illinois that results from the revelation that a well-known and well-liked neighbor and friend, Reinhold Kulle, has a dark Nazi past. The shock reverberates throughout the community and splits it into two factions. It illustrates very well how such community tensions can bring latent antisemitism to the surface and notes how this case followed a typical pattern in its public reaction: initial denial, then minimizing or normalizing the past behavior, followed by a call to let bygones be bygones that contrasts Christian forgiveness with Jewish vengeance.
Soffer rightly points out the intentional and unintentional distortions of record, and sometimes outright lies, of Kulle's defenders, without painting them all with a broad brush of bad intentions. However, he does a disservice to the anti-Kulle contingent by not taking a more critical view of their position and contentions, because their side—which is where Soffer's sympathies lie—is just not as comprehensible in his telling. I kept wanting more of an analytical framework through which to compare and contrast the ideas on both sides, rather than simply the documentation of righteous outrage that supposedly speaks for itself.
If understanding is the purpose, it would have been helpful to point out and discuss the pros and cons of both sides' arguments in a systematic way. For example, the question of whether Kulle was a Nazi or a former Nazi is fundamental to understanding the schism. Kulle's defenders, if they referred to his past, consistently called him a former Nazi. Kulle's adversaries called him a Nazi just as consistently. It is a basic difference in point of view that causes, or at least is a symptom of, a deep rift in the community. But Soffer doesn't point out this difference or analyze it in any way. The contrast remains implicit, when an explicit examination could have been illuminating.
Kulle's friends, neighbors, and colleagues did not see him as a Nazi; there was nothing in his behavior in the community that coincided with Nazi ideology. His adversaries seemed to believe once a Nazi, always a Nazi, and that anyone who had participated in the Holocaust was a current moral danger. A case might be made for that point of view, but Soffer doesn't make it and neither do his sources. To the Kulle adversaries, it was self-evident. It's not self-evident to me, however, and so I'm left sympathetic but unenlightened.
The bias of the book is evident in its subtitle: an American suburb's encounter with evil. Most people in Oak Park did not encounter evil in this case—Kulle was kind and supportive, a caring colleague, friend, and neighbor. He did a lot of good in his decades in Oak Park, which Soffer shows very clearly and fairly. There was no evidence that Kulle engaged in any persecution or other evil while he lived in Oak Park. To his adversaries, however, his presence in the community was experienced as the presence of evil. I don't understand this point of view, however much I would like to, and Soffer doesn't explain it. I'd like to know the logic behind their argument that the legal issues should be separated from the moral issues. What exactly do they mean by "moral" in this situation? And more specifically, why should past wrongs be weighed more heavily than right living in the present? At one point a Kulle adversary maintains that it is an issue of justice rather than vengeance. I want to know what the difference is in their eyes, so that I can understand the distinction and their ardor in pursuing justice. But neither term is defined, so again, I'm left sympathetic but unenlightened. For those who aren't sympathetic, antisemitic tropes often rush to fill in the explanation.
I have a deep interest in the Holocaust, though no personal connection to it. Although I think Our Nazi missed an opportunity to help explain the lasting impact of the past on Holocaust survivors and their descendants and relations, it did a good job of documenting that impact in Oak Park. I learned a lot from it, particularly regarding American perspectives on the Holocaust.
Thank you to NetGalley and the University of Chicago Press for providing access to an advance copy.