Hitler's First Victims: And One Man's Race for Justice

Description

Forensically researched and grippingly told, the astonishing attempt by a German prosecutor to expose the Nazis as murderers on the eve of the Holocaust. At 9am on 13 April 1933 deputy prosecutor Josef Hartinger received a telephone call summoning him to the newly established concentration camp of Dachau, where four prisoners had been shot. The SS guards claimed the men had been trying to escape. But what Hartinger found convinced him that something was terribly wrong. Hitler had been appointed Chancellor only ten weeks previously but the Nazi party was rapidly infiltrating every level of state power. In the weeks that followed, Hartinger was repeatedly called back to Dachau, where with every new corpse the gruesome reality of the camp became clearer. Hitler's First Victims is both the story of Hartinger's race to expose the Nazi regime's murderous nature before it was too late and the story of a man willing to sacrifice everything in his pursuit of justice, just as the doors to justice were closing.

Timothy W. Ryback is the co-founder of the Institute for Historical Justice and Reconciliation at Leiden University in The Netherlands. His previous books include the highly acclaimed Hitler's Private Library- The Books that Shaped his Life, which has been translated into more than twenty languages and was described by Ian Kershaw as 'elegantly written, meticulously researched, fascinating', and The Last Survivor- Legacies of Dachau, which was a New York Times Notable Book for 2000. He has been involved with several institutions dealing with international affairs and served as a lecturer in History and Literature at Harvard University. He has also written for the Atlantic, the New Yorker and the New York Times. He and his wife reside in Paris.

Frighteningly compelling ... the feel and pace of a court-room thriller. As it approaches its climax, you almost believe this dogged, decent man is going to win through ... superbly researched and tautly written -- Dominic Sandbrook * Daily Mail Book of the Week * Tremendous ... Ryback's tenacity as forensic researcher and huge storytelling flair make this a compelling page-turner * Independent * Gripping - and thoroughly chilling ... The haunting question at the heart of this book is this: if there had been a few more like Hartinger ... was there any way the Nazi terror might have been averted? ... a fascinating reconstruction * Telegraph * The genius of the book is to present Ryback's thorough research as a kind of duel between Hartinger and Wackerle, adopting some of the conventions of modern crime drama ... few [Germans] have been held up as war heroes. Ryback's brilliant book makes a powerful case for honouring Hartinger, an honest man in dishonest times -- Roger Boyes * The Times * Gripping ... anyone who thinks that Nazism came to power legally and without violence needs to read this account * Guardian *