The gripping narrative of one of the last Nazi criminal trials in Germany--that of Bruno Dey, a 93-year-old former concentration camp guard charged with aiding the murder of more than 5,000 people--and a larger exploration of Germany's reckoning with the Holocaust, from silence to memory to today's rising tide of fascism and antisemitism. Bruno Dey's trial formed part of an extraordinary series of Holocaust cases brought by German prosecutors in recent years in a belated attempt to deliver justice to the victims and reverse decades of judicial neglect. It also surfaced at a pivotal moment for Germany and its thinking about the Holocaust. The Nazi genocide continues to occupy a crucial space in German public life, but many of the country's long-held certainties and convictions around the Holocaust are starting to fray. This reflects in part the passage of time, and the fact that the last surviving witnesses--victims and perpetrators alike--are rapidly fading away. But it's also the result of profound changes in German politics and society. The far-right has made electoral gains and&nbsp;is openly challenging the country's historic commitment to Holocaust remembrance. At the same&nbsp;time, there is a small but vociferous group of intellectuals on the left who question Germany's memory culture from&nbsp;a different angle, asking what political lessons the country should draw from the Holocaust today. &nbsp;What does it mean for the country's new Muslim citizens from Syria&nbsp;and Afghanistan, many of whom arrived with their own traumas, to be expected to assume the nation's guilt?&nbsp; Final Verdict investigates questions that touch on German history, politics, and memory culture, and on the author's own family history.&nbsp;Buck&nbsp;revisits the silence that surrounds his own family's experiences and conduct during the Nazi period. In the face of rising anti-Semitism in Germany, the United States, and globally, Final Verdict examines the case for Holocaust justice in the twenty-first century--and the lessons that Germany's struggle with its Nazi past holds for the world today.

Final Verdict: The Holocaust on Trial in the 21st Century

History

Buck, Tobias

World

Hachette Books

After the Fall: Crisis, Recovery and the Making of a New Spain

Tobias Buck arrived in Madrid in December 2012, in time to celebrate the bleakest Christmas the city had seen in a generation. Capital and country were reeling from a series of economic shocks that had brought Spain to the brink of ruin. The housing boom had dramatically turned to bust, a large chunk of the nation's banking system was in state hands, businesses were closing across the country, debt was spiralling out of control and unemployment levels had reached a record high. AFTER THE FALL presents a rich and vivid portrait of contemporary Spain at a critical moment in the country's history. The book tells the story of Spain's long boom and sudden bust, the brutal economic crisis that followed, and the political and social aftershocks that reverberate to this day. It explores the origins of the separatist movement in Catalonia, and its bitter clash with the Spanish government that culminated in a failed secession referendum and a divisive declaration of independence. It looks at the legacy of the Civil War and Franco dictatorship, and the continuing struggle over historical memory in Spain today. Based on five years of reporting and hundreds of interviews, AFTER THE FALL takes the reader from the offices of power in Madrid and Barcelona to the villages of the Basque country, still haunted by the memory of political violence, and to the towns of Andalusia, where an entire generation has seen its economic hopes shattered. It describes how the country has been changed by the experience of migration, and why - after decades at the margins - the far-right eventually made a return to Spanish politics. For all the problems and challenges facing Spain today, we see that amid the ruins of the crisis, the search for a new Spanish model is already underway.

Europe

Weidenfeld&Nicolson

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Buck, Tobias. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Buck, Tobias