THE S.S. OFFICER'S ARMCHAIR

A midlevel Nazi bureaucrat comes to life thanks to an unexpected discovery.

In 2011, a woman took an old armchair for reupholstering, and she discovered that, sewn inside a cushion, was a bundle of Nazi-era documents from a lawyer named Robert Griesinger. British historian Lee determined to learn more, and the result is a fascinating true-life detective story, as the author engagingly chronicles his searches in archives and interviews with elderly survivors. Five years of research revealed that Griesinger was born in 1906 in a family wealthy enough to escape most of the privations of World War I. Along with many Germans of his age, Griesinger hated the Treaty of Versailles and, like his family, was politically conservative. He attended university, where he acquired a circle of like-minded, fiercely nationalistic friends. Without distinguishing himself, he chose a career in the law and joined the Ministry of Interior in 1933 under new chancellor Adolf Hitler. This ministry dealt with the police, so Griesinger worked with the Gestapo, a group he eventually joined. Although working in buildings where vicious interrogation and torture took place, his duties were administrative; Lee turns up no evidence that he participated or that he disapproved. Called up in 1939, he served until wounded in 1941 and then returned to civilian duties, acquiring a plum position in Prague in 1943. Even as the Red Army approached, officials stayed on the job, so Griesinger was caught in the May 5, 1945 Czech uprising, which inflicted brutal revenge on the remaining Germans. He died in September, possibly of disease. Perhaps because few personal writings survive, Griesinger’s character remains a mystery, but Lee succeeds in documenting the life of a Nazi civil servant who, like many in his generation, showed little interest in Hitler before he took power or objection to him afterward.

An illuminating biography and more evidence for the “banality of evil.”