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Title:

Humanitarians at war : the Red Cross in the shadow of the Holocaust / Gerald Steinacher.

Author:

Steinacher, Gerald author.

ISBN:

9780198704935

Personal Author:

Steinacher, Gerald author.

Edition:

First Edition.

Physical Description:

xiv, 330 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Content Type:

text

Media Type (RDA):

unmediated

Carrier Type:

volume

Abstract:

How the International Committee of the Red Cross emerged triumphant from the dark days of World War II - to forge a new identity and a new role in the post-1945 world. The intriguing and remarkable story of one of the world's oldest, most prominent, and most revered aid institutions - and how it survived its ambiguous relationship with the Nazis. From the brink of dissolution in 1945 to the triumph of the Geneva Conventions in 1949, a tale encompassing the Nuremberg Trials, runaway Nazis, and furious battles with Communist critics on the eve of the Cold War. Torn between defending Swiss neutrality and battling Communist critics in the early Cold War, the Red Cross leadership in Geneva emerged from the world war with a new commitment to protecting civilians caught in the crossfire of conflict. Yet they did so while interfering with Allied de-nazification efforts in Germany and elsewhere, and coming to the defence of former Nazis at the Nuremberg Trials. Not least, they provided the tools for many of Hitler's former henchmen, notorious figures such as Joseph Mengele and Adolf Eichmann, to slip out of Europe and escape prosecution - behaviour which did little to silence those critics in the Allied powers who unfavourably compared the 'shabby' neutrality of the Swiss with the 'good neutrality' of the Swedes, their eager rivals for leadership in international humanitarian initiatives.

Corporate Subject:

International Committee of the Red Cross -- History -- 20th century.

Subject Term:

Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)

World War, 1939-1945 -- War work -- Red Cross.

Humanitarianism -- History -- 20th century.

Format:

Books

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Summary

The Geneva-based International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is one of the world's oldest, most prominent, and revered aid organizations. But at the end of World War II things could not have looked more different. Under fire for its failure to speak out against the Holocaust or to extend substantial assistance to Jews trapped in Nazi camps across Europe, the ICRC desperately needed to salvage its reputation in order to remain relevant in the post-war world. Indeed, the whole future of Switzerland's humanitarian flagship looked to hang in the balance at this time.Torn between defending Swiss neutrality and battling Communist critics in the early Cold War, the Red Cross leadership in Geneva emerged from the world war with a new commitment to protecting civilians caught in the crossfire of conflict. Yet they did so while interfering with Allied de-nazification efforts in Germany and elsewhere, and coming to the defence of former Nazis at the Nuremberg Trials. Not least, they provided the tools for many of Hitler's former henchmen, notorious figures such as Joseph Mengele and Adolf Eichmann, to slip out of Europe and escape prosecution - behaviour which did little to silence those critics in the Allied powers who unfavourably compared the "shabby" neutrality of the Swiss with the "good neutrality" of the Swedes, their eager rivals for leadership in international humanitarian initiatives. However, in spite of all this, by the end of the decade, the ICRC had emerged triumphant from its moment of existential crisis, navigating the new global order to reaffirm its leadership in world humanitarian affairs against the challenge of the Swedes, and playing a formative role in rewriting the rules of war in the Geneva Conventions of 1949. This uncompromising new history tells the remarkable and intriguing story of how the ICRC achieved this - successfully escaping the shadow of its ambiguous wartime record to forge a new role and a new identity in the post-1945 world.

Author Notes

Gerald Steinacher is an Associate Professor of History and the Hymen Rosenberg Professor of Judaic Studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He is the author of numerous publications on German and Italian twentieth-century history, most recently Nazis on the Run: How Hitler's Henchmen Fled Justice (2010), also published by Oxford University Press, which was awarded a National Jewish Book Award by the Jewish Book Council in 2011.

Reviews (2)

Kirkus Review

A history of the failure of the "neutral" guardians of humanity in a time of crisis and war.Steinacher (History and Judaic Studies/Univ. of Nebraska; Nazis on the Run: How Hitler's Henchmen Fled Justice, 2011, etc.) manages to be evenhanded in this study of the Swiss-based International Committee of the Red Cross and its mission and leaders during World War II. Upon its founding in 1863 by Swiss businessman Henri Dunant, who was horrified by the slaughter and treatment of the wounded on the battlefields of Italy, the ICRC joined the larger humanitarian movement galvanized by Florence Nightingale, Franz Lieber, and, later, Clara Barton, among others, to ameliorate conditions for the wounded and POWs. These efforts led to the first Geneva Convention (1864) and establishment of other red cross organizations, such as the American Red Cross. While they "drew heavily on the Judeo-Christian idea of caritas, the importance of performing works of mercy and charity," the movement spread beyond the Western world, emerging in Israel as the Red Star of David and in the Ottoman Empire as the Red Crescent. Steinacher focuses mostly on the ICRC's pro-German stance during World War II and its "silence on the Holocaust." The author reveals damaging research regarding the political ambitions and behind-the-scene machinations of ICRC vice president Carl J. Burckhardt, whose virulent anti-communism alienated the Soviet Union and whose anti-Semitic pronouncements outraged Jews. Steinacher cites the figure of 320,000 refugees admitted to Switzerland, "mostly made up of non-Jewish refugees." The German Red Cross was deeply Nazified, and thus the ICRC leadership "learned early on of Nazi plans to murder European Jews" yet did nothing. Moreover, the ICRC's emphasis on German POWs and its lax policy of issuing travel documents to escaping Nazis and collaborators earned the opprobrium of the world, paving the way for a showdown with the Swedish Red Cross at the 17th International Red Cross Conference in Stockholm in August 1948. A knowledgeable, stringent return to the record and scrutiny of "good neutrality." Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Library Journal Review

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has long been regarded as a humanitarian organization that has made significant contributions toward improving the human condition throughout the world-but that has not always been the case. In his riveting assessment of the ICRC and its actions during and after World War II, Steinacher (history, Hymen Rosenberg Professor of Judaic Studies, Univ. of Nebraska-Lincoln; Nazis on the Run) reveals a side of the organization that is less known. Of special concern to contemporary readers is Steinacher's account of the ICRC's decision to not assist Jewish concentration camp victims during the latter years of World War II because of Swiss political fears of German retribution with any departure they might make from Switzerland's neutral stance. After the war, the ICRC actively engaged in helping refugees escape war-torn Europe, unwittingly assisting former Nazis such as Joseph Mengele and Adolf Eichmann to flee to safety abroad. VERDICT An important book that, for the first time, greatly details how the ICRC operated, especially during and after World War II. This essential history is worthy of inclusion in most collections.-Ed Goedeken, Iowa State Univ. Lib., Ames © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

List of Illustrations	p. xi
Cast of Characters	p. xiii
Introduction	p. 1
1 The Birth of an Idea	p. 8
2 The Silence on the Holocaust	p. 25
3 Intervention and Opportunism	p. 49
4 The Red Cross in Crisis	p. 84
5 Between Nuremberg and Geneva	p. 112
6 The ICRC and Aid Politics in Ruins	p. 137
7 The Humanitarians and the Nazis	p. 161
8 A "Window of Opportunity	p. 190
9 Towards the Geneva Conventions	p. 211
Conclusion	p. 237
Acknowledgements	p. 245
Notes	p. 247
Selected Bibliography	p. 321
Index of Names	p. 327

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Summary

Author Notes

Reviews (2)

Kirkus Review

Library Journal Review

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