Before Germany was engulfed by Nazi dictatorship, it was a constitutional republic. And just before Dachau Concentration Camp became a site of Nazi genocide, it was a state detention center for political prisoners, subject to police authority and due process. The camp began its irrevocable transformation from one to the other following the execution of four Jewish detainees in the spring of 1933. Timothy W. Ryback's gripping and poignant historical narrative focuses on those first victims of the Holocaust and the investigation that followed, as Josef Hartinger sought to expose these earliest cases of state-condoned atrocity. Although his efforts were only a temporary roadblock to the Nazis, Ryback makes clear that Hartinger struck a lasting blow for justice. The forensic evidence and testimony gathered by Hartinger provided crucial evidence in the postwar trials. Hitler's First Victims exposes the chaos and fragility of the Nazis' early grip on power and dramatically suggests how different history could have been had other Germans followed Hartinger's example of personal courage in that time of collective human failure.
Download and start listening now!
“Mr. Ryback’s important book shows how even such a small, stubborn, apparently futile determination to adhere to the rule of law can, with fortune on its side, help see final justice done. It is fitting acknowledgment of a forgotten German or (as Hartinger might have preferred) Bavarian hero.”
— Wall Street Journal
“Fascinating…Has all the makings of a legal thriller.”
— Boston Globe“Fascinating, disturbing…Ryback’s book is a decades-overdue recognition.”
— BooklistA chilling, lawyerly study with laserlike focus.
— KirkusBe the first to write a review about this audiobook!
Timothy W. Ryback is the author of Hitler’s Private Library, which was named to the Washington Post Book World Best Nonfiction list in 2008, and The Last Survivor: Legacies of Dachau, a New York Times Notable Book. He has written for Atlantic, the New Yorker, the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times. He lives and works in Paris.
Derek Perkins is a professional narrator and voice actor. He has earned numerous AudioFile Earphones Awards and the prestigious Audie Award for Best Narration, as well as numerous Society of Voice Arts nominations. AudioFile magazine named him a Best Voice consecutively in 2014, 2015, and 2016. Augmented by a knowledge of three foreign languages and a facility with accents, he has narrated numerous titles in a wide range of fiction and nonfiction genres.