Hitler's First Victims
And One Man's Race for Justice
Published on 5. February 2015
Book
Hardback
288 pages
978-1-84792-327-1 (ISBN)
Description
Hitler's First Victims is a fast-paced narrative reconstruction of six dramatic weeks in 1933 that tells the astonishing true story of one man's race 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 - a barbed wire cage in an industrial wasteland, the men's corpses dumped in an ammunition shed, precision gunshot wounds to their heads, all of them Jews - convinced him that something was terribly wrong.
Hitler had been appointed Chancellor only six weeks previously. Soon the Nazis would have a stranglehold on the entire judicial system. Hitler's First Victims is the story of Hartinger's race to expose the Nazi regime's murderous nature before it was too late. It is the story of a man willing to sacrifice everything in his pursuit of justice, just as the doors to justice were closing.
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 - a barbed wire cage in an industrial wasteland, the men's corpses dumped in an ammunition shed, precision gunshot wounds to their heads, all of them Jews - convinced him that something was terribly wrong.
Hitler had been appointed Chancellor only six weeks previously. Soon the Nazis would have a stranglehold on the entire judicial system. Hitler's First Victims is the story of Hartinger's race to expose the Nazi regime's murderous nature before it was too late. It is the story of a man willing to sacrifice everything in his pursuit of justice, just as the doors to justice were closing.
Reviews / Votes
"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 Waeckerle, 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 * "Forensic, unflinching and utterly compelling ... the story of the first killings at Dachau has scarcely been more urgent" * Glasgow Sunday Herald * "An extraordinary, gripping and edifying story told extraordinarily well. I read it with a sense of amazement at the capacity of one good man to stand tall in the face of evil" -- Richard Bernstein, author of Dictatorship of Virtue "Amazing ... This is history come alive in your hands" -- Robert Littell, author of The Company "Horrifying and heartbreaking ... By recounting such striking heroism, he allows us at least to ponder whether, had more good Germans come forward, it all might just have been stopped" -- David Margolick, author of Beyond Glory "Inspiring ... In the gathering shadow of the Holocaust, Josef Hartinger's dogged decency may redeem the German race" -- Geoffrey Robertson QC, author of Crimes Against Humanity "All the more startling and important for bringing to life an episode so little known" -- Raymond Bonner, author of Anatomy of Injustice "Finely researched and deeply disturbing" -- Alan Riding, author of And the Show Went On "Gripping, revelatory account" * Bookseller * "Absorbing" -- Nicholas Shakespeare * Daily Telegraph *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Vintage Publishing
Target group
Professional and scholarly
College/higher education
Illustrations
2 x8pp b/w
Dimensions
Height: 222 mm
Width: 144 mm
Thickness: 29 mm
Weight
495 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-84792-327-1 (9781847923271)
Copyright in bibliographic data is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or its licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
02/2015
1st Edition
Vintage Digital
€10.99
Available for download
Person
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.