Der Sessel: Eine Spur in den Holocaust und die Geschichte eines ganz normalen Täters

by Daniel Lee, Lutz W. Wolff (Translator)

Ein rätselhafter Fund führt in eine dunkle Vergangenheit

Eine Studentin kauft in Prag einen alten Sessel – und entdeckt darin Jahrzehnte später persönliche Papiere eines Deutschen aus der NS-Zeit. Daniel Lee erfährt von der Geschichte und beginnt Wer war der Mann? Wie lebte er?Akribische Recherchen Der Vorbesitzer des Sessels war SS-Obersturmführer und nahm am brutalen deutschen Vernichtungskrieg in Russland teil, ab 1943 beaufsichtigte er die Rekrutierung und den Einsatz von Zwangsarbeitern in Prag. Sein Werdegang steht beispielhaft für die vielen »normalen« Menschen, die in der verbrecherischen Maschinerie des NS-Regimes dienten. Zugleich wird  dieses Erbe lastet mit traumatischen Spätfolgen auf den Nachkommen von Tätern und Opfern.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, World War II, Biography, Germany, Holocaust, Historical

378 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 16, 2020

Reviews

[Beata · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating yet terrifying journey through the dark times of the Third Reich prompted by a photograph and documents that travelled hidden in an armchair across Europe and were discovered by accident.
Mr Lee undertook a Herculean effort to learn the truth lying behind a surname of a German lawyer, Robert Griesinger, a member of the SS, whose name did not belong to the top Nazis but who belonged to 'ordinary Nazis' shaping the law and penning the documents that had dire consequences on those who were left on the margin of the society.
A well-written account that reads like fiction with insightful background to the story of an individual.
*A big thank-you to Daniel Lee, Random House UK, and NetGalley for arc in exchange for my honest review.*

[Ceecee · Rating 4 out of 5]

A chair sent to be reupholstered reveals a hidden cache of documents relating to SS Officer Robert Griesenger. These are passed on to historian Daniel Lee and this starts his exhaustive quest to uncover the life of an ‘ordinary Nazi’. Men like Griesenger are the nameless and frequently faceless bureaucratic backbone that enable the day to day functioning of the 3rd Reich. This book is a rare and therefore important insight into their lives and makes for fascinating reading as there is little attention elsewhere to low level SS. We get some sense of the man although inevitably there are gaps in knowledge where the author has made best guesses.

First of all, I’d like to congratulate Daniel Lee for his huge endeavour and undertaking in this well written book. He certainly goes the extra mile and travels extensively, asks a multitude of questions in order to seek answers. Some of the most fascinating sections are interviews with Griesenger’s daughter Jutta who was young when he died and knows little about him as her mother Gisela made talking about him taboo. She is seeking a father through the research whereas Lee is seeking something entirely different. Especially revealing is the story of Griesenger’s mother Wally which is probably where he acquires his right wing views and she ensures he has a traditional conservative upbringing.

So what of the man? Lee traces his family story, his education, university and career and how he becomes an SS officer. Its fair to say his career is not especially spectacular in rising though the ranks but we do get a snapshot view of how Nazi law is enacted in various regions by the ‘diligent’ work of officers like Griesenger. Particularly poignant is the personal angle for the author whose research of Griesenger’s war efforts leads him to Stavyshche in Ukraine where some of his ancestors perished which must have been a grim discovery. He learns of Griesenger’s fate at the end of the war which shows some discrepancies in the records though not of the outcome.

Overall, I found this book to be an extremely interesting read. The research is very impressive, I especially enjoyed the personal family elements, there are some superb photographs to look at so who know what he looks like, we can trace his career path in the 1930’s and the war and get some sense of the man. If you are interested in history and World War 2 in particular this rare insight may be of considerable interest.

With thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Random House UK/Vintage for the ARC for an honest review.

[Louise Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars rounded up to 4

9ne night ar a dinner party in Florence, historian Daniel Lee was told about a remarkable discovery. An upholsterer in Amsterdam had found a bundle of swastika covered documents inside a cushion of an armchair he was repairing. They belonged to Dr Robert Griesinger, a lawyer from Stuttgard, who joined the SS and worked at the Reichs Ministry of Economics and Labour in Occupied Prague during the war.

This story is based on documents that were discovered concealed within a simple chair from seventy years ago. This is a well researched book. We learn of the German Reich before and during the WWII. The story is captivating. It's also well wrktten. I quite enjoyed the book.

I would like to thank #NetGalley, #RandomHouseUK #VintagePublishing and the author #DanielLee for my ARC in exchange for an honest review.

[8stitches 9lives · Rating 4 out of 5]

The SS Officer's Armchair: In Search of a Hidden Life is a true story based on documents discovered concealed within a simple chair for 70 years, this gripping investigation into the life of a single S.S. officer during World War Two encapsulates the tragic experience of a generation of Europeans. One night at a dinner party in Florence, historian Daniel Lee was told about a remarkable discovery. An upholsterer in Amsterdam had found a bundle of swastika-covered documents inside the cushion of an armchair he was repairing. They belonged to Dr. Robert Griesinger, a lawyer from Stuttgart, who joined the S.S. and worked at the Reich's Ministry of Economics and Labor in Nazi-occupied Prague during the war. An expert in the history of the Holocaust, Lee was fascinated to know more about this man - and how his most precious documents ended up hidden inside a chair, hundreds of miles from Prague and Stuttgart.

In The S.S. Officer's Armchair, Lee weaves detection with biography to tell an astonishing narrative of ambition and intimacy in the Third Reich. He uncovers Griesinger's American back-story - his father was born in New Orleans and the family had ties to the plantations and music halls of nineteenth century Louisiana. As Lee follows the footsteps of a rank and file Nazi official 70 years later, and chronicles what became of him and his family at the war's end, Griesinger's role in Nazi crimes comes into focus. When Lee stumbles on an unforeseen connection between Griesinger and the murder of his own relatives in the Holocaust, he must grapple with potent questions about blame, manipulation, and responsibility. The S.S. Officer's Armchair is an enthralling detective story and a reconsideration of daily life in the Third Reich. It provides a window into the lives of Hitler's millions of nameless followers and into the mechanisms through which ordinary people enacted history's most extraordinary atrocity.

This is a riveting, fascinating and extensively researched account of a seemingly ordinary family man who becomes a member of the SS. It paints a portrait of two sides of the same coin — a man, living against the backdrop of an upper-middle-class society, and a monster, sharing in the collective horrors of the Nazi party. Through information gleaned from accidentally discovered documents to the interviews Lee carried out of the officer's surviving relatives, we are given unprecedented access to the life, thoughts and behaviours of the officer and those around him at the time. A powerful, accessible and important Nazi history book which is exceptionally written and authentic from beginning to end. Highly recommended. Many thanks to Jonathan Cape for an ARC.

[Gabril · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sembra l’inizio di un romanzo: nell’imbottitura di una vecchia poltrona viene ritrovato un plico misterioso; sono documenti appartenuti a Robert Griesinger, burocrate nazista scomparso a Praga nel 1945, rimasti ben nascosti per circa sessant’anni.

Fortunosamente (e fortunatamente) arrivano nelle mani di Daniel Lee, storico della Seconda Guerra Mondiale, inglese, ebreo.
Da quel momento inizia la sua ricerca: del romanzo infatti c’è solo l’incipit, il resto è accurata ricostruzione storica. Attraverso i documenti, ma anche attraverso i testimoni alle porte dei quali l’autore andrà a bussare.

La biografia di Greisinger viene così ricostruita e noi ci troviamo difronte a un’eccezionale spaccato di microstoria che ci aiuta a comprendere meglio le origini e l’humus culturale di tutti coloro che non furono nazisti sadici e fanatici, ma utili e necessarie pedine di un sistema criminale in cui ciascuno svolgeva il proprio ruolo, pur rimanendo nella vita quotidiana un perfetto borghese di buona famiglia.

Come dichiara Daniel Lee in una intervista al Manifesto:

“Ho sempre trovato sorprendente che nonostante l’enorme numero di persone che furono coinvolte negli orrori del nazismo, la maggior parte di noi conosce solo le vicende di pochi individui perlopiù appartenenti alla cerchia ristretta di Hitler. Invece credo che per capire davvero cosa rappresentò il Terzo Reich si debbano esaminare le traiettorie dei tanti «nazisti ordinari» di cui si è persa in seguito ogni traccia. Le cui vicende, come illustra il caso di Griesinger, gettano nuova luce sui diversi fattori che resero possibile l’ascesa del nazismo, il consenso di cui ha goduto e come tutto ciò si sia riverberato a lungo società tedesca. Dopo la guerra, il trauma del Terzo Reich fu avvolto da un silenzio opprimente che divenne abituale per diverse generazioni. La maggior parte dei genitori nascose anche ai figli il sostegno che aveva espresso al regime hitleriano e questo condizionò a lungo, e in parte almeno condiziona ancora oggi, le abitudini mentali di questi ultimi e la loro capacità di misurarsi con la propria storia e quella del loro Paese.”

Questo libro, senza dubbio, contribuisce proprio a illuminare le ragioni e le radici della “banalità del male”.

https://ilmanifesto.it/lorrore-nascos...

[Louise Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars rounded up to 4

One night at a dinner party in Florence, historian Daniel Lee was told about a remarkable discovery. An upholsterer in Amsterdam had found a bundle of swastika covered documents inside a cushion of an armchair he was repairing. They belonged Dr Robert Griesinger, a lawyer from Stuttgard, who joined the SS and worked ar the Reichs Ministry of Economics and Labour in Occupied Prague during the war.

The story isnbased on documents that were discovered concealed within a simple chair for seventy years. This is a well researched book. We learn of the Ger,am Reichbefore and during WWII. The story is captivating . It's also well written.. i quite enjoyed thisbook.

I would like to thank #NetGalley, #RandomHouseUK #VintagePublishing and the author #DanielLee for my ARC in exchange for an honest review.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Historian Daniel Lee is at a dinner party in Florence when he first hears of the mystery of the armchair. One of the guests tells of an armchair which was sent to be reupholstered in Amsterdam, when a stash of documents were found inside, covered in swastikas. Later, he finds it was quite common for such papers to be hidden inside furniture and when he visits Prague, where the owner of the armchair spent much of the war. However, he is intrigued by the story and begins to investigate who owned that chair and, through their story, tells that of a typical SS Officer during the war. Not one of the High Command, just a low ranking official, but one who wore the insignia of the infamous SS.

It emerges that the chair once belonged to SS Officer Robert Griesenger, a lawyer from Stuttgard, wh worked at the Reichs Ministry of Economics and Labour in Occupied Prague. Daniel Lee has to confront the banality of Griesenger as he also comes to realise that there are links between Griesenger and his own, Jewish family history. A man whose over-protective mother adored him, whose two daughters can barely remember him, but are, of course, intrigued by the father they never knew. A man who was not a high-achiever, but who, like many, used membership of the SS to increase their own importance - until, of course, the end of the war, when everything crashed around him and his family. An interesting glimpse into history and into the painstaking research that Daniel Lee carried out to discover the owner of a piece of unremarkable furniture, which led him on a fascinating journey to recreate the history of the individual who owned it.

[Morgan · Rating 5 out of 5]

The documents found in “The S.S. Officer’s Armchair” came to light by accident 70 years after the war.

This is the kind of book that gives credence to the saying ‘truth is stranger than fiction’ – if anyone had used this plot for a fiction novel it would have been debunked as rubbish.

Robert Griesinger is a Nazi SS officer – He, at first appears to be simply an ambitious but innocuous Nazi officer. He is basically an ordinary man working behind a desk in an office.

However:
“Griesinger’s work at the Gestapo rendered him a significant link in the chain of the Nazi police state.” (P.126)
“Throughout his two and a half years at the Hotel Silber (location of Hitler’s Gestapo secret police agency in Stuttgart) Griesinger epitomized the desktop perpetrator (Schreibtischäter) who continued his work unfazed by its consequences.” (P.132)

While the author has had to engage in some amount of speculation it appears to have come from an educated and knowledgeable place. His research has taken him far and wide.

This is a fascinating read and the most surprising take away for me was, not only the author’s connection to the story, but to find a family connection between a Nazi SS Officer and New Orleans, Louisiana.

[Katie.dorny · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a really interesting deep dive into the life and ramifications of a lessor Nazi that wasn’t part of Hitler’s inner circle.

[Korcan Derinsu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Daniel Lee, bir tanıdığı vesilesiyle, bir koltuğa saklanmış bazı belgelere ulaşıyor. Buradan yola çıkarak da düşük rütbeli bir Nazi subayı olan Griesenger’in varlığından haberdar oluyor ve hikaye başlıyor. Griesenger bilinen ünlü Nazilerden biri değil belki ama binlerce kişinin ölümüne öyle ya da böyle etki etmiş birisi. Üstelik savaştan sonra da ne adı ne sanı hiçbir yerde geçmiyor. Başka bir deyişle kötülüğün sıradanlığı kadar görünmezliğine de iyi bir örnek oluyor. Yazar da buradan yola çıkışla, ailesinin kökünde Musevilik olan bu “sıradan” adama dair derin bir incelemeye giriyor. Griesenger’in babası Adolf, New Orleans doğumlu bir adam ve ırkçılığın üst düzeyde yaşandığı Louisiana’da hayatını geçirmiş; yani ırk için birilerinin öldürmeye çok aşina. Aynı şekilde bir hukukçu olan Griesenger’in, ırk ayrımına vurgu yapan Amerikan yasalarından da öyle ya da böyle etkilenmiş olduğunu görüyoruz. Başka bir deyişle Nazizm’in izini sıradan bir adam üzerinden süren yazar çok ilginç yerlere varıyor ve bunun sadece Almanlara has olmadığını, kökünü Amerika’dan aldığını (hatta Güney Afrika’da bulunmuş ve anavatana dönen Alman subaylarla büyüdüğünü) söylüyor. Doğrusu önceden hiç böyle bir bağ olabileceğini düşünmemiştim. Özetlemek gerekirse, sıradan bir hayat (Nazi) üzerinden ırkçılığa/ayrımcılığa dair yeni pencereler açan, güzel bir okuma oldu. Yazarın çok iyi bir hikaye anlatıcısı olduğunu da söylemem gerek.

[Maine Colonial · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received a digital publisher's advance review copy, via Netgalley.

Daniel Lee, a historian of World War II, was contacted when a woman discovered many decades-old documents in a chair she was having reupholstered. The documents were all marked with swastikas and seemingly belonged to a Robert Griesinger, who had lived in Prague during the war. The woman had bought the chair at a second-hand shop in Prague almost 25 years after the war and didn’t discover the document cache until decades later.

Lee was intrigued and discovered that Griesinger was a lawyer who belonged to the SS, was in active military service until wounded in 1941, and then was sent to work a desk job in Prague. Lee also learned that his two daughters were still alive. They were only five and eight years old at the war’s end, though, and had little to contribute to Lee’s understanding of Griesinger. Lee decided that he wanted to find out all he could about Griesinger, the kind of low-level functionary you rarely read about.

Lee’s research is exhaustive, and he compiles a great deal of detailed information about Griesinger’s family, youth, academic career, career with the SS, and the societal influences he grew up with. His descriptions of the social and fraternal aspects of the SS, are illuminating. He is unable to get much information at all about Griesinger’s personal views on politics and the Nazis’ murderous racial policies, but it is clear that Griesinger was aware of the Nazis’ brutality and that he was involved in the abuse of Czech citizens.

Lee finds, to his shock, that during Griesinger’s short time in active service with the Wehrmacht, he was in a unit that, together with one of the Nazis’ infamous Einsatzgruppen, went through the shtetl where Lee’s Jewish relatives lived. They didn’t survive their encounter with the Nazis. Lee wasn’t able to find any evidence that Griesinger was involved in any of the civilian killing squad’s actions, but it was not uncommon for the Wehrmacht to at least coordinate with Einsatzgruppen.

Lee speculates quite a bit in the book, though with some basis, but his attempts at amateur psychology are not persuasive. Without evidence, he states as fact that Robert Griesinger “inherited an ease with brutally racist attitudes and practices” from his father and grandmother because they had lived in New Orleans (before returning to Germany) and would have been familiar with slavery and Reconstruction-era white supremacist violence. He also makes a strained connection between the armchair of the title and “the antebellum furniture of his youth.” The book would be improved if Lee excised these bits and stuck to history.

Ultimately, what this book reveals about Griesinger is what history shows about pretty much every Nazi I’ve ever read about, including each of those in Hitler’s inner circle: A greedy and envious man whose ambitions outstripped his abilities. He latched on to Nazism because it fed his delusion that his lack of success was the fault of the current system and the “other,” and the party would give him an opportunity to rise. So Griesinger ended up a petty functionary in a brutal kakistocracy and was apparently perfectly happy with that, right up until the bill came due.

Though I’ve read a lot of WW2 history, it’s not often you get such a close-up look at what it was like for an ordinary middle-class man to become a part of the Nazi regime and to be a mid-level desk perpetrator. Lee makes it dishearteningly easy to see how Griesinger—and many others—chose that path, with no apparent qualms of conscience.

[Chris Butler · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author, an excellent researcher and historian, painstakingly traces the life of a heretofore unknown German Nazi officer following the mysterious discovery of his passport and other official SS documents that had been concealed in the seat cushion of an arm chair.
While Robert Griesinger, the SS officer in question, may not have physically been involved in the killing of Jews, his power as a lawyer in the Wermacht had far reaching and devastating consequences that destroyed families for generations, some being completely wiped from history.
This book demonstrated to me, once again and resoundingly, that failing to act in the midst of immorality is itself immorality and renders you guilty.
“After the war the Allies and most Germans held the Nazi state and it’s leaders, together with the Gestapo and the SS, responsible for the atrocities carried out between 1933 and 1945. Despite his significance in the lives of a number of the regime’s victims, Griesinger remained, simply, a nameless and faceless bureaucrat. This book shows that it is possible to trace the life of one of those ordinary Nazis whose role in war and genocide seems to have vanished from the historical record. Returning texture and agency to one such perpetrator affords Griesinger the opportunity to stand in for thousands of anonymous ordinary Nazis whose widespread culpability wreaked havoc on so many lives....”

[Andrew H · Rating 5 out of 5]

A model of historical writing. Following the discovery of concealed Nazi documents in a chair, Lee begins to investigate and piece together a portrait of an "ordinary Nazi", one of the many who disappeared from view as Nuremberg cast a long shadow. Lee combines a deep understanding of trends in the Third Reich with a balanced analysis of Robert Greisinger. He demonstrates with great skill how the general and specific work together. Most intriguing is his study of Greisinger's Black roots, how a history rooted in the slave trade was metamorphosed into Nazi ideology. Lee convincingly demonstrates how European racism was transported from the Southern States of America and how it filtered, in the case of Greisinger, through his imposing mother. An absorbing book from start to finish.

[Susan Paxton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Daniel Lee lucked into a very interesting historical find - a cache of personal documents belonging to a German SS lawyer found neatly sewn into the cushion of an armchair. His curiosity roused, Lee set off in search of Dr. Robert Griesinger.

Lee found out that searching for the dead is not easy, or straightforward. Some people didn't want to talk. Some did, but knew little or assumed too much. Griesinger's daughters were interested in learning more about the father that one remembered, the other didn't, but the family had fractured over inheritance issues. I understand and sympathize - I'm researching an airman from that time and am running into many of the same issues.

That said, the book is deeply flawed. Lee's search is interesting in itself, as are the people he encounters and the places he visits. But overall he is far too consumed with trying, in a pathetically desperate way, to prove that Griesinger, who was a lawyer and a paper pusher in the German occupation administration in Prague, was involved in crimes against humanity. Mind you, it's possible he was (and he certainly would have known plenty) - but there's zero proof in the material Lee was able to gather. All through the book are references to what Griesinger "may have been" doing or thinking - and it becomes grating as Lee more and more obviously is shoving his book in the direction of a conclusion he never reaches. As a professor with a doctorate in history, he ought to know better, although his shock at finding a letter Griesinger signed with a Heil Hitler! suggests his knowledge of Nazi Germany is pretty thin.

[Georgia Wood · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having been supervised by Dr Lee while undertaking my History MA this year, this book had long been on my list. I cannot overstate what an incredible piece of work this is. Daniel was able to weave analysis of his own methodology seamlessly into this incredible account. This book not only tells the story of Griesinger’s life, but that of the Nazi functionary and lesser discussed aspects of the Reich. His discussion of post civil-war racism, the role of social connections and how ambition shaped the life of Griesinger astounded me. If you are even vaguely considering reading this book, don’t hesitate.

[Snidely · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars, rounded to 2.

The unusual information that came to the author that turned out to be the unexpected tip of an unexpected iceberg was the most interesting thing I learned in reading the book. The title is a teaser concerning what the author learned about to start the project. It's all explained at the beginning. The underlying story the book tells is okay, not more or less. I was quite disappointed with it, to be honest. I don't recommend it.

There must be times when non-fiction authors do preliminary research to pursue an idea that may have potential for a book, only to realize that the material found is less interesting or less substantial than they had hoped to find. So that the project gets abandoned and they look for something else to write about. Research and preliminary investigations leading to a dry hole, so to speak. I guess the author thought what he found could be pulled together to make for a compelling read but I didn't find that to be the case. Interestingly, the material on the main character seems to have not been enough to produce enough pages for a complete book so a lot of coverage is given at the end to other members of the family, including his children. Filler, so to speak. None of it added, in my opinion, to the main story that was the subject of the book.

[Panda Incognito · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is stellar research, but the nature of the story is rather dull. This book is a huge contribution to academic history about Nazi Germany, but it is not a suspenseful or gripping read, and it took me a while to get through this. I would only recommend it to other people who are equally or more interested in WWII history.

[Gary Evins · Rating 2 out of 5]

Is not about the hidden documents in the chair.

[Giovanna Walker · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another lockdown read. Interesting. To hear about an 'ordinary' SS officer, not a big wig, one involved in civil service, but who also saw service. A huge amount of research, and Lee has come up with many documents - surprising the number really. Yes there is a lot of conjecture on the character of the SS officer, his thoughts and feelings. Also interesting to read of his family that were left behind the loyalties, feuds, and in some cases those who refused to participate. Lee delved a little into to his history, just the right amount, and I appreciated the photos of the SS officer and family.

[Ionia · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an intriguing story and a very well-researched non-fiction book pertaining to an "ordinary Nazi." I liked Christopher Browning's "Ordinary Men," so when I saw this book I was immediately interested in it, as it tells the story of one such man.

Watching the story unfold from the documents discovered inside the chair to the end results after much travelling and many different visits to archives, family members, and other resources, the author tells quite the story about the life of the main character. It was exciting to see history come to life in such a way that someone who was not a major player in the Nazi party could still be traced and details that even the immediate family didn't know come to light.

This is not a dry and boring historical account, but rather one that leaves the reader curious to know further details about this man and others like him. It has also made me wonder how many other documents have been lost to the years because they were hidden in such a place and then tossed away when they were discovered. I was happy that the author took the time to explore this discovery further and share his results in this book.

This is the kind of book that anyone interested in this period of history will want to read. I highly recommend it.

This review is based on a complimentary copy from the publisher, provided through NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

#NetGalley

[Judefire33 · Rating 4 out of 5]

I saw this book and read the premise and was so intruiged I had to buy it!

I’ve always had a bit of an interest in WW2 and especially from the German point of view, no idea why, this book was a great read and kept my attention all the way through.

The story was so well researched by Daniel Lee, he went to extraordinary lengths to find out how a chair was found in the Czech Republic, to have a hoard of Nazi documents sewn into the seat, and how for 70 plus years they were only discovered when it was taken to an upholsterers!

I found it even more amazing that Daniel Lee is a Jew, so writing and trying to find out about the life of a former SS Officer was brave move and not without objection from his own community!

The book is as I’ve said, so well researched, I learnt a lot and I think Daniel Lee has managed to write a book describing the almost “normal” life of a man trying to live a life, with a family as a Nazi during WW2 and the effect this had on his relatives which still has an impact even today.

I found it a engrossing read, there are lots of research notes and photographs to help the reader navigate thru a pretty normal life, in terrible times. I do feel as a society we must learn from the past, and this means having the intelligence to read all accounts of peoples lives, weather they be deemed good or bad.

I shall be looking out for any other novels by Daniel Lee, a 4 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ read from me.

[Greville Waterman · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an exceptionally well researched and fascinating book about an ordinary German lawyer's part in the Second World War. Ordinary apart from the fact that he was a member of the SS.

Through pure serendipity historian Daniel Lee fonds a treasure trove of material stuffed and sewn into the cushion of an old armchair.

Lee determines to follow the scent and uncover the life of this previously unknown lawyer and through sheer dogged persistence he finally unravels the clues - and what a story he discovers.

The mystery and enigma of the life of a certain Dr Robert Griesinger from Stuttgart is gradually revealed.

His life, his family background, a bizarre connection to America from his ancestors and the life he led and what he actually did in the war and the mystery of his actual death in 1945.

The stories of ordinary men reveal so much about the inner workings of the SS and Third Reich and the monsters who ran it and Lee has done a masterly job of crossing the t's and dotting the i's.

This is an original, readable and important book that merits reading by all serious students of the war.

[Sandy · Rating 2 out of 5]

The beginning and ending were very interesting but the middle was filled with just too much speculation to make it worthwhile.

[D.B. John · Rating 5 out of 5]

The gripping piece of historical detective was work triggered by the chance discovery of the career documents of one Dr Robert Griesinger inside the upholstery of an armchair, where they'd lain concealed for 70 years. Who was he?
Historian Daniel Lee's masterly use of archive materials and some delicately handled interviews of surviving family members has slowly succeeded in piecing together the life of a very ordinary Nazi, living an ordinary life in extraordinary times. Lee did have a few tremendous strokes of luck, however, particularly in finding Griesinger's mother's surviving diary, devoted to her son.
Griesinger, from a normal middle class family that shared the common nationalist sentiments and grievances that followed WWI, became a very average student, but he had ambitions for a career and to be family man. He joined the SS, to enhance his social standing and career prospects, though his commitment to it seemed minimal. The only friction he encountered with the regime was the grotesque demands it made upon of his bride-to-be, who was subjected to gynacological examinations, proof of ancestry, and photographic record that she was a worthy SS bride. His eventual job, in the Reich economics ministry in occupied Prague, was the pinnacle of his career, but this was in its way an ordinary desk job in the Third Reich, when the unthinkable was normal: Griesinger was responsible for moving tens of thousands Czech civilians around occupied Europe to work in forced labour camps. He himself visited forced labour camps. In a way he's a stand-in for the many thousands of low-level German bureaucrats whose lives went unrecorded and unremembered (Griesinger's wife remarried and never mentioned him again), but who played an integral part in the functioning of the Third Reich and the Holocaust. What is haunting about the man is that he IS so unremarkable, he's also decent, a kind father, and yet carried out his duties without qualm or regret. Little research has been done into the ordinary lives of people like Griesinger. This sheds more light on what it like to live in the Third Reich that many histories that are larger in scope. Highly recommended.

[Stevedutch · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an interesting account of the research carried out by the author, Daniel Lee, an academic historian, following a chance chat, at a party, with a doctoral student, during which she relates a curious incident that followed her purchase of an old armchair. She tells him how, following the discovery of a sheaf of documents stuffed into its seat, an outraged Dutch furniture repairer refused to carry out some minor restoration work. The reason being; the papers belonged to a Nazi SS officer. Lee, whose specialist period is the Second World War, is intrigued. When asked if the documents might be of interest, he jumps at the opportunity.

They appear to include genuine evidence of the SS officer’s identity, which sets Lee off on a search for the man’s history. The resulting book provides, insights into both, the bureaucratic minutia of the Nazi state, and how the process of historical research, considering the difficulty in obtaining bone-fide primary and secondary sources, proceeds. But part of its fascination lies in discovering, potentially, how an ordinary German, albeit, with SS rank, fitted into the bureaucratic machinery responsible for implementing Heidrich’s ‘Final Solution: what makes a seemingly everyday family man, at home, participate in a system of mass murder, at work?

Of course, there is much conjecture. His surviving children were very young during the war, so how much weight can be given to their recollections? Nevertheless, it is an intriguing and well-written story, providing important insights into what, when and how much was known by ‘ordinary’ Germans, and the desensitizing reality of life in the Third Reich.

[Cia Mcalarney · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating exploration of the life and death of an "ordinary Nazi"

[Mark Skeplorn · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazing book and a story well told, couldn’t put it down,

[Riz · Rating 5 out of 5]

A few years ago, some identification documents of a pretty unknown SS Officer, Dr. Robert Griesinger were found inside the seat of a chair in Amsterdam. When the author, Daniel Lee got to know about this small stash of documents, this piqued his interest and he went on a mission to rebuild Griesinger's life by sifting through archives, conducting interviews etc.
A tremendous job, nevertheless!

[Miss R · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thanks to Random House and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

In ‘The SS Officer’s Armchair’ Daniel Lee brings alive, in vivid fashion, the ‘banality of evil’ that was the everyday bureaucratic killing machine of Nazi Germany. This book is a triumph of meticulous research and dogged research and more importantly, is broadly accessible to all those with an interest in the dark days of 1933-1945. It begins with an armchair and the accidental discovery of concealed documents belonging to a Dr Robert Greisinger, Nazi lawyer in the occupied territory of what is now the Czech Republic. It would be tempting to say that Greisinger was no ordinary Nazi, but that was precisely what he was. The sobering truth, as Lee demonstrates, was that Greisinger, tangentially linked to the ‘Final Solution to the Jewish Question’, was no aberration. Mass killing was the preserve of the typical ‘men in suits’, like Greisinger as well as the infamous killing squads of the East, when the conflict ominously entered Soviet territory. The Holocaust, when reduced it to its bare bones, was a bureaucratic puzzle to solve, free of the abstractions of humanity. The sad fact, as Lee conclusively demonstrates, was that many in Nazi Germany collided in the mass murder of Jews and other so-called ‘undesirables’. What is perhaps more frightening is how solving the logistical problem of exterminating a whole race of people was reduced to a competitive sport, where bureaucratic functionaries, like Greisinger, used mass murder as a Trojan Horse for ever greater advancement in the Nazi hierarchy. Daniel Lee, in Dr Robert Greisinger, puts a human face to this casual - often unconscious evil but he also reminds us, that in another time, another place, that face could be our neighbour, our friend - more chillingly, perhaps our own.

[Sarah Hudson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a really interesting non-fiction read. It follows the journey of a WW2 historian as he attempts to trace the life of Robert Greisinger; a low-level Nazi and member of the SS, whose documents were recently found inside the cushion of an armchair when it was sent to be reupholstered.

The research is meticulous and the lives of the people in the book, including Greisinger, his family, colleagues and neighbours, are captured in painstaking detail. It made a vast and far-reaching topic very personal, and the author has real skill in tracking the impact that the Nazi regime had for families like Greisinger’s as well as his Jewish next door neighbours’. He may have been a small cog in an enormous wheel, but it is undeniable that the role of Greisinger and other “ordinary Nazis” like him amounted to one of the worst atrocities in human history.

There are no big twists or revelations, but that seems fitting for a man who was a low-level member of the Nazi regime. What I found most fascinating was the very fact that his home life and even work life were seemingly so “ordinary”, even mundane, despite the fact that his daily actions contributed to mass genocide. This book is an important and heartbreaking reminder of the reach that the Nazi regime had, not just for people at the time, but also for the generations that followed. A truly fascinating read.

My thanks to the author, NetGalley, and the publisher for the arc to review.