“The Nazis Next Door” by Eric Lichtblau – Welcoming the Enemy

As much as we would like for wars to end when the conquered surrender and peace treaties are signed, the truth is that the spirit of conflict floats over the people for months, if not for years after.

This was true for World War II as well; though the Nazi government may have been vanquished, it left a lot of living Nazis behind, people who had committed atrocities and seeking to start anew... a chance they got in America.

Eric Lichtblau has decided to write an entire book about the subject, which he titled The Nazis Next Door. From A to Z, this book is dedicated to the covert immigration that happened after WWII ended, when countless Nazis made their way to America in hopes of starting a new and quiet life, on a clean slate, free from all the atrocities and war crimes they committed.

Needless to say, there are many who managed to slip in through the cracks, passing themselves off as European refugees... after all, there were more than enough of those around to blend in successfully. However, there are some other Nazis who received a bit of help in getting across the pond... help from the United States government itself.

Rather than trying them like they deserved it, the government saw fit to use those people as assets, researchers and spies. And so, countless terrible criminals were offered forgiveness and allowed to live freely in exchange for their services, something that went on for many years.

It is only later that private investigators and prosecutors began to unravel the thread, identifying those hidden Nazis and making it a goal to have them answer for their crimes.

The first things which becomes apparent when reading this book is the fact that Lichtblau really did do all the research that could have been expected of him. He uses countless reports, interviews and unclassified documents to not only trace the lives of these men from the end of the war until their eventual ends, but also to attempt and explain the morality behind giving real-life monsters a second chance.

Lichtblau seeks to show the actions of the government during that time period in the proper context, and so he focuses on a number of important events that happened in the Post-WWII years. He looks into how they were used to shape American history, with an example being the German scientist eventually making the Moon Landing possible in the 1960s.

He explores McCarthy's fear-mongering years, as well as Hoover's construction of his FBI empire. In the end, he ties all the threads together, making for a highly-complex and yet very understandable volume that explains many of the choices made by the government in that time period.

Without condemning or condoning, this book shows how and why thins happened, sparing absolutely no details. As a matter of fact, there are so many important details and connections that the book makes for a rather heavy read, one that often opens your eyes to rather unpleasant information... which also means that the knowledge contained within is rather priceless.

All in all, I definitely recommend this book to not only those who want to learn about the post-WWII Nazi immigration to America, but also the ones out there who are seeking a better understanding of the American government's actions during those years.

If you aren't afraid of heavy reads, you'll definitely get a lot out of this book.

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Favorite quote: "Project Paperclip, the secret program that brought some sixteen hundred German scientists to the United States after the war."

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Eric Lichtblau Eric Lichtblau is a journalist and author from the United States who reports for The New York Times. In 2002 he joined as a correspondent covering the Justice Department and has authored two books so far: Bush's Law and The Nazis Next Door, both works of non-fiction.