The Good German :: essays research papers

"The Good German", by Joseph Kanon can be categorized by placement in avariety of genres, Thriller, Mystery, Historical Fiction, do it Story, and more.The work is certainly wholly of these, however I believe much more important is thestudy of twelve years of human behavior, presented within the mise en scene of eventsprimarily following the close of The European phase of World War Two. I dontknow that any other conflict has generated more literature than the cardinalsymbolized by the swastika, the word Holocaust, and the unprecedented CrimesAgainst Humanity Trials at Nuremberg. Superficially, the evil of the war isroutinely placed with great ease. Even at this level it is hard to contract issue withplacing the blame on a man, the party he created, and the nation that joined thatparty, served in the SS, and made the crimes that took place possible. Whathappened when the fighting stopped, when the shooting war with The bloc ended,and the Cold War with The Soviet Union be gan? The latter had really begun priorto the first one ending.The shades of colourize that dominated the conduct of The Allies immediatelyfollowing the end of hostilities, and the repercussions that would follow fordecades, is brilliantly set side by side with conduct during the war. Mr. Kanonnever minimizes any of the horror that took place he questions no(prenominal) of theatrocities that were committed. He does bring post-war reality to his tale thatcannot be said to match the actions of The Third Reich he does howeverabsolutely portray conduct on all sides, which traditional history would rathermarginalize. Nothing is ever as simple as it seems, and while there were episodesof good versus evil, and events that were black and white, inconvenient shades ofgray were everywhere.Without exception all of the players in this book are guilty of some form ofaberrant behavior, which outside of the circumstance of war would never bequestioned as wrong. However when placed within the con text of World WarTwo, which was unique for the range and intensity of the evil it spread, do thejudgments and answers remain so clear?A person is put on trial at wars end for collaborating with The Nazi SS let us saythe person facilitated the capture of Jews for transportation to death camps. The instrument panel would probably not spend a great deal of time deliberating this example.Same example with a bit more detail, the person is a Jew who was effrontery theoption of pointing out other Jews in exchange for their life and the lives of their