'Hitler’s Shadow' Shows How War Criminals Escaped Justice Within
days of the release of Hitler’s Shadow: Nazi War Criminals, U.S.
Intelligence, and the Cold War, hundreds of media outlets, from
the New York Times to the Jerusalem Post and CNBC, had run
stories on the 101-page report. Coauthored by AU’s Richard
Breitman, a history professor in the College of Arts and
Sciences, Hitler’s Shadow is based on newly declassified and
analyzed government documents. It is available online at the
National Archives Web site. Why has the report’s release caused
such a stir? “People regard Nazi Germany as one of the most
tragic episodes in history, certainly in modern history, and the
Nazis . . . have come to be seen as symbols of evil,” says
Breitman. “So the question is . . . can we get full and accurate
depictions of what happened in Nazi Germany and to Nazi
officials after 1945? And in that regard the release of what is
really millions of pages of new material is really important.”
Again and again, the report documents