TWELVE OF THEM: THE NAZIS WHO SERVED THE ALLIES AFTER WWII ***sold***

ERIC BRANCA

(Perrin, 432 pages, 2021)

Historian Eric Branca comes back with a gripping nonfiction book on lesser-known World War II criminals who escaped unharmed—entirely or partially—at the end of the Nuremberg trials. Setting aside the most-wanted war criminals like Göring, Barbie, or Mengele, he portrays twelve people who played their part in the war, including mass extermination and genocide, yet got away with their crimes. How did some of them evade the death penalty while others were cleared enough to be entitled to run for chancellor ?

Branca is willing to figure out how these men and women—either morally responsible leaders of the Third Reich or subordinates—managed to have their gruesome deeds forgotten and became high-ups in respected international organizations like the CIA or NATO. With painstaking background research, he unravels the mystery of their rise to power despite their repellent past.

The first defendant is Albert Speer, former Minister of Armaments and War Production in Nazi Germany. Branca breaks down Speer’s Machiavellian dialectic and the so-called remorseful speech he gave to the judges, revealing the evil twisted mastermind behind the historical passive figure of the architect. Then comes Otto Skorzeny—former SS death squad leader—who was recruited by various government intelligence agencies worldwide; Walter Schellenberg—RSHA director and Einsatzgrupppen creator; Reinhard Gehlen—head of the Federal Intelligence Service; Ernst Achenbach—diplomat and looter though EU MEP and president of the Bundestag Committee on Foreign Affairs; and Rudolf Diels—original Gestapo leader in 1933–34, who paved the way for Hitler’s dictatorship. Throughout the text, Branca reveals the defendants’ hypocrisy and their faked remorse.

The second set of damned souls comprises people who weren’t strategists or decision-makers but underlings who might not have been aware of the bigger Nazi plan. Kurt Georg Kiesinger helped Nazi propaganda to be aired and spread around, and yet was Chancellor of Germany from 1966 to 1969. Hjalmar Schacht, CEO of the Reichsbank, greased the wheels for Hitler to hold power over the financial and banking industries. Adolf Heusinger went from being the infantry supreme commander, who prepared the invasion of the Soviet Union—code-named Operation “Barbarossa”—to chairing NATO’s military committee. General Friedrich Paulus, the Red Army’s spokesperson, turned away from Hitler and served the Soviet Union. Professor Wernher von Braun, rocket specialist, was a friend of the Kennedys, even though he was planning to use the A10 rocket to wipe Washington, D.C., off the map years before that. The final person portrayed is Hanna Reitsch. As a patriotic Nazi pilot, she was dedicated to serving the regime and never felt remorse about anything she had done. At the end of the war, she tried to pull Hitler out of his bunker, but failed. She is the last person who saw him alive.

Although a mere historical account might have turned bland and mind-numbing, Branca makes the account lively by adding excerpts from the trial reports, such as dialogues between defendants, attorneys, and judges.

Eric Branca is a renowned historian and journalist who has published numerous books, including Les entretiens oubliés d’Hitler, 1923–1940 (2019, Perrin) and L’ami américain, Washington contre de Gaulle, 1940–1969 (2017, Perrin). He was awarded the Michel Anfrol prize for De Gaulle et les grands (2020, Perrin).