S.S. Officer's Armchair

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Based on documents concealed for seventy years, this gripping investigation into the life of an S.S. officer during World War Two encapsulates the tragic experience of a generation of Europeans. Historian Daniel Lee learned about a remarkable discovery when an upholsterer in Amsterdam found a bundle of swastika-covered documents inside the cushion of an armchair he was repairing. These documents belonged to Dr. Robert Griesinger, a lawyer from Stuttgart who worked at the Reich's Ministry of Economics and Labor in Nazi-occupied Prague. Fascinated by how Griesinger's documents ended up hidden in a chair, Lee weaves detection with biography to tell an astonishing narrative of ambition and intimacy in the Third Reich. He uncovers Griesinger's American backstory, revealing family ties to nineteenth-century Louisiana. As Lee retraces the steps of this rank-and-file Nazi official, he chronicles what happened to Griesinger and his family after the war, bringing to light his role in Nazi crimes. When Lee discovers a connection between Griesinger and the murder of his own relatives in the Holocaust, he confronts complex questions about blame and responsibility. This enthralling detective story offers a window into the lives of Hitler's nameless followers and the mechanisms through which ordinary people participated in history's most extraordinary atrocity.