Description
Temporarily out of stock
Title: SS Officer’s Armchair, The: In Search of a Hidden Life
Author: LEE DANIEL
Format: PAPERBACK
Publication date: 03/08/2021
Imprint: VINTAGE
Price: $20.00
Publishing status: Active
It began with an armchair. It began with the surprise discovery of a stash of personal
documents covered in swastikas sewn into its cushion. The SS Officer’s Armchair is the
story of what happened next, as Daniel Lee follows the trail of cold calls, documents,
coincidences and family secrets, to uncover the life of one Dr Robert Griesinger from
Stuttgart. Who was he? What had his life been – and how had it ended?Lee reveals the
strange life of a man whose ambition propelled him to become part of the Nazi machinery
of terror. He discovers his unexpected ancestral roots, untold stories of SS life and family
fragmentation. As Lee delves deeper, Griesinger’s responsibility as an active participant in
Nazi crimes becomes clearer. Dr Robert Griesinger’s name is not infamous. But to
understand the inner workings of the Third Reich, we need to know not just its leaders, but
the ordinary Nazis who made up its ranks. Revealing how Griesinger’s choices reverberate
into present-day Germany, and among descendants of perpetrators, Lee raises potent
questions about blame, manipulation and responsibility. A historical detective story and a
gripping account of one historian’s hunt for answers, The SS Officer’s Armchair is at once a
unique addition to our understanding of Nazi Germany and a chilling reminder of how such
regimes are made not by monsters, but by ordinary people.
ISBN: 9781784706654
Pages: 320