Note: Thank you to NetGalley, University of Nebraska Press, and author Terrence C. Petty for the advanced reader copy of this book. This review will also be posted on NetGalley. What follows is my unbiased review of the book.

Growing up, both in school and at home I was always told that after World War II, the Germans did a great job reckoning with their past and it was something we could learn from in the United States. After reading Nazis at the Watercooler, I realize that was a lie. Both the new West German government and the United States were complicit in protecting war criminals.

The stories are detailed with evidence to back it up. In some cases, the information came to light after CIA files were declassified. The precursor to the CIA helped protect war criminals they thought would be helpful in spying on the new enemy, the Soviet Union. In one case, they financed a whole operation involving the employment of hundreds of former Nazis, thinking this would aid in the Cold War conflict. It was a waste of money.

You might ask about the Nuremberg Trials. That was reserved for the most heinous of the Nazi War Criminals. As the process dragged on, everyday Germans grew tired of the trials and there was a fear that continuing them would push the country more toward an alliance with the Soviets. However, once the trials stopped and so many former Nazis were hired in the new government, the Soviet Union and East Germany used this knowledge to strike at the credibility of the new government in West Germany.

Author Terrence Petty has organized information gleaned from other books, historical documents, and his own research to detail how many responsible for war crimes were given positions in the new West German government. Both the United States and West Germany glossed over the concept of background checks, allowing these men to write their own biographies of what they did during the war and accepting them at face value. Even when they were discovered, they were often transferred within the government to a less prominent role or allowed to retire.

There seems to have been an argument made at the time that many of these men were needed to run the new government. This also meant that those they had persecuted – and who had survived the war – were shut out of the new government.

I was very surprised by what I learned in Nazis at the Watercooler. This contrasted a lot of what I had been taught in school and learned over the years. Petty writes the stories somewhat chronologically, so it is easy to follow how these events shaped West Germany and the world following the war. It’s only near the end of the book that he discusses those who tried to press the issue and the obstacles they faced. While those Nazis in government who were discovered and tried in court received light or no sentences (2 years for being an accessory to the murder of thousands?) those who had been conscientious objectors during the war or who had really tried to protect those being persecuted were treated as outcasts all the way into the new millennium.

After reading this I think I need some light reading for a while. Nazis at the Watercooler is a good book. It’s well-researched and presents the topic in a cohesive and easy to comprehend manner. The problem is that it’s depressing to realize that the people who committed war crimes were protected by both the West German government and our own here in the United States, if it was perceived to be in our interests to do so. It’s a bitter pill to swallow with the current state of the United States. I do recommend reading it, though.