The S.S. Officer’s Armchair: Uncovering The Hidden Life Of A Nazi, by Daniel Lee

This book, though not extremely long due to the paucity of its content, is several different small books in one. One book is the account of how an armchair of an S.S. officer in Bohemia during World War II was sold and transported eventually to the Netherlands and found to contain the personal papers of the officer in question, a middle-ranking German bureaucrat who had thus far managed to fly under the radar regarding the history of the German regime during World War II, in which he was a middling figure of fairly ordinary abilities and ambition. This is, as one might imagine, the most interesting part of this book. Part of the book is a discussion of the conspiracy of silence that is faced by Germans, like the family of the book’s subject, that keeps them from dealing with the honest truth, with a discussion of the author’s own background (partly Jewish) that intersects with that of his subject, which introduces some dangerous subjectivity to the proceedings, and deals with the author trying to defend his historical research of Nazis to Jewish relatives who don’t understand, seeking the reader’s sympathy. By and large, this book works best as a historical mystery and works worst when the author brings himself into focus, but contemporary writers are all about exposing themselves shamelessly for their readers’ admiration, so we get more of that sort of thing than is necessary or desirable.

This book, of about 250 pages or so, begins with a list of illustrations and maps, a discussion of the people involved in the story, as well as a somewhat lengthy introduction to the material and the author’s approach to it. The main aspect of the book then begins with a discussion of its subject as a “real” Nazi (1). This is followed by a discussion of the way that racism traveled from the American South to influence Nazi Germany, a somewhat dubious view advanced by the author (2). This is followed by a discussion of the author meeting the daughters of the book’s subject (3). This is followed by an examination of the generation in which the subject grew up, shattered by World War I (4). After that the author talks about the experience of Weimer Germany and the nationalist politics practiced by the subject’s family and himself personally (5), as well as by his joining the SS (6) and becoming a part of that “family.” The author then discusses the subject’s experience as an academic (7), while then discussing his role as a soldier on the Western and Eastern fronts of the war before getting injured (8). The author then examines the experience of the subject as an official in occupied Bohemia and Moravia (9). This is followed by more discussion of shadowy people who sought to interact with the subject’s surviving relatives (10), as well as a discussion of the troubles of the postwar life of the subject’s widow and daughters (11). The book closes with an epilogue, notes, archives consulted, acknowledgements, and an index.

One of the unfortunate aspects of this book, and one that there really isn’t much of an answer for, is the way that this book does not quite do what it sets out to do in terms of exposing an ordinary Nazi to the disapproval of the reader. The S.S. officer in question, one lawyer named Dr. Robert Griesinger, is missing too much information to become more than a shadowy figure in this book about him. Too much information has been destroyed, too much about his motivations and thoughts and feelings remain unclear, too much has to be guessed or assumed (in a manner that is not likely to be remotely fair-minded of sympathetic given the hatred and negativity that is associated with the S.S. as a whole, as well as with descendants of American slaveowning aristocrats). Where human sympathies are likely to be lacking, our interpretation of the interior life of people is likely to be unsympathetic, and therefore biased in not providing the reader with a genuine understanding of how such a person was able to be seen as a good person within the confines of their own place and time, as the subject surely was given the general approval that he seems to have gained from those around him. And when the author discusses the ultimate fate of this German functionary to have sought to hide out and make it home, to lay low and find a way to survive, his death to disease and his burial in a mass grave of dead Germans in Czechia should be viewed with sympathy, for surely as a human being he ought to have been treated with some dignity. If we cannot spare a bit of dignity for those we hate, how much do we deserve for ourselves?