About this item
The shocking story of how America became one of the world's safest postwar havens for Nazis Thousands of Nazis - from concentration camp guards to high-level officers in the Third Reich - came to the United States after World War II and quietly settled into new lives. They had little trouble getting in. With scant scrutiny, many gained entry on their own as self-styled war "refugees," their pasts easily disguised and their war crimes soon forgotten. But some had help and protection from the U.S. government. The CIA, the FBI, and the military all put Hitler's minions to work as spies, intelligence assets, and leading scientists and engineers, whitewashing their histories. For the first time, once-secret government records and interviews tell the full story not only of the Nazi scientists brought to America, but of the German spies and con men who followed them and lived for decades as ordinary citizens. Only years after their arrival did private sleuths and government prosecutors begin trying to identify the hidden Nazis. But even then, American intelligence agencies secretly worked to protect a number of their prized spies from exposure. Today, a few Nazis still remain on our soil. Investigative reporter Eric Lichtblau, relying on a trove of newly discovered documents and scores of interviews with participants in this little-known chapter of postwar history, tells the shocking and shameful story of how America became a safe haven for Hitler's men.
About the Author
ERIC LICHTBLAU is a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and the best-selling author of "The Nazis Next Door: How America Became a Safe Haven for Hitler's Men," and "Bush's Law: The Remaking of American Justice." Lichtblau was a Washington reporter for the New York Times for fifteen years from 2002-2017 and for the Los Angeles Times for fifteen years before that. He has also written during his career for the New Yorker, TIME, and other publications, reporting extensively on national security, terrorism, law enforcement, civil rights, political corruption, war crimes, and other issues. He earned a Pulitzer Prize in 2006 for stories revealing the existence of a secret NSA wiretapping program approved after the Sept. 11 attacks, and a second Pulitzer in 2017 as part of a team investigating links between the Trump administration and Russia in the 2016 campaign. He has been a frequent guest on NPR, MSNBC, C-SPAN, and other networks, as well as a speaker at many universities and institutions. His latest book, Return to the Reich: A Holocaust Refugee's Secret Mission to Defeat the Nazis, will be released in October 2019 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Co. He lives outside Washington, D.C.
