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Podcast: NBN Book of the Day
Episode: Terrence C. Petty, "Nazis at the Watercooler: War Criminals in Postwar German Government Agencies" (U Nebraska Press, 2023)
Description: After World War II, when a new German democracy was born in the western region of the vanquished Third Reich, tens of thousands of civil servants were hired to work for newly formed government agencies to get the new republic quickly on its feet. But there was an enormous flaw in the plan: no serious vetting system was put in place to keep war criminals out of government positions.As discussed in Nazis at the Watercooler: War Criminals in Postwar German Government Agencies (University of Nebraska Press, 2024) by Terrence Petty, ex-Nazis—people who had been involved in mass...