The SS Officer's Armchair

This was an exceptionally well researched and fascinating book about an ordinary German lawyer's part in the Second World War. Ordinary apart from the fact that he was a member of the SS.

Through pure serendipity historian Daniel Lee fonds a treasure trove of material stuffed and sewn into the cushion of an old armchair.

Lee determines to follow the scent and uncover the life of this previously unknown lawyer and through sheer dogged persistence he finally unravels the clues - and what a story he discovers.

The mystery and enigma of the life of a certain Dr Robert Griesinger from Stuttgart is gradually revealed.

His life, his family background, a bizarre connection to America from his ancestors and the life he led and what he actually did in the war and the mystery of his actual death in 1945.

The stories of ordinary men reveal so much about the inner workings of the SS and Third Reich and the monsters who ran it and Lee has done a masterly job of crossing the t's and dotting the i's.

This is an original, readable and important book that merits reading by all serious students of the war.

This  was a reference book with a difference. It told of an amazing story and the author had great skill in pulling the reader into the story. The book gives a very detailed view of German life during the war and the author must have spent an extremely long time researching this book as the detailed information is excellent. Daniel Lee is definitely an historical detective of note.

Who would have thought that an old armchair could have had such a tale to tell. The book certainly providing me with a lot of information that I was unaware of about the second world war and about the SS and Gestapo.

If you are into historical non-fiction then I would definitely get hold of a copy of this book. It also contains a detailed index and the referencing is excellent.

Such a good book. It tells the story of an SS officer and his family and gives us facts about the war and the effects on so many peoples lives.
It was an enlightening book and the author gathered so much history and information from many family members and others who knew of them. It felt to have been done with compassion and consideration towards their feelings however, as it can’t always be an easy subject to discuss. 
The part which I found most moving and sad was the possible  discovery of the grave of this SS officer,  buried unmarked with dozens of other unknown people. So very sad and speaks of the absolute futility of war.  Even so, a very good read about an amazing discovery within a chair.

I have to admit being interested in this book only because of the title. Reupholsters apparently often find furniture to have documents stashed within the cushions, and so it was with Robert Griesinger's chair.
It started with a chance encounter at a dinner party, when historian Daniel Lee met Veronika whose mother had been gjven documents found in her chair. The documents would proved that its previous owner was a middle ranking SS officer. 
Meticulously researched this book, as the author states, shows that it is possible to trace the life of one of those ordinary nameless and faceless Nazis whose role in war and genocide seems to have vanished from the historical record.
Griesinger and his colleagues  had the responsibility to ensure there was enough beer bottles for the troops and punishing individuals for not recycling, timing soldiers trips to brothels (10 minutes apparently), to impounding business from their rightful owners. All the while working in a building with a torture chamber in its basement.
Paced like a detective novel, this book shows that the German killing machine needed thousands of anonymous acquiescent bureaucrats.

For me this was an important book. I have family who have lived through this period but who can't bring themselves to talk about so this filled in so many gaps and understandings for me. The story, the real life story, is a researcher into the Second World War is approached by a women who's mother has found some documents. The documents had been stashed in the cushion of a chair that she'd bought decades before in Prague. She sent if for repair but when trying to collect it she is shocked that the repairer refuses to touch it - he won't work on anything that to do with teh Nazis. The daughter asks for help in finding out about the papers. So begins years of researching archives and interviewing people and visiting places where the man named in the documents had been. The book relates his fascinating journey and the conclusions are sobering. I repeat, an important book.

Thanks to Random House and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

In ‘The SS Officer’s Armchair’ Daniel Lee brings alive, in vivid fashion, the ‘banality of evil’ that was the everyday bureaucratic killing machine of Nazi Germany. This book is a triumph of meticulous research and dogged research and more importantly, is broadly accessible to all those with an interest in the dark days of 1933-1945. It begins with an armchair and the accidental discovery of concealed documents belonging to a Dr Robert Greisinger, Nazi lawyer in the occupied territory of what is now the Czech Republic. It would be tempting to say that Greisinger was no ordinary Nazi, but that was precisely what he was. The sobering truth, as Lee demonstrates, was that Greisinger, tangentially linked to the ‘Final Solution to the Jewish Question’, was no aberration. Mass killing was the preserve of the typical ‘men in suits’, like Greisinger as well as the infamous killing squads of the East, when the conflict ominously entered Soviet territory. The Holocaust, when reduced it to its bare bones, was a bureaucratic puzzle to solve, free of the abstractions of humanity. The sad fact, as Lee conclusively demonstrates, was that many in Nazi Germany colluded in the mass murder of Jews and other so-called ‘undesirables’. What is perhaps more frightening is how solving the logistical problem of exterminating  a whole race of people was reduced to a competitive sport, where bureaucratic functionaries, like Greisinger, used mass murder as a Trojan Horse for ever greater advancement in the Nazi hierarchy. Daniel Lee, in Dr Robert Greisinger, puts a human face to this casual - often unconscious evil but he also reminds us, that in another time, another place, that face could be our neighbour, our friend - more chillingly, perhaps our own.

As a history teacher I enjoyed this book. There were new insights and I certainly learned new things about a period which I already know quite a lot about. The author handled a horrifying subject in a sensitive and thoughtful way without glossing over events and actions that should never be forgotten. He managed to make this  poignant, intriguing and informative - no small task! I would recommend this book, yes to those who are interested in in this period of history but also to anyone as what Lee tells us is something that everyone should know and remember so that we understand how human decency can be eroded by propaganda and tyranny.