Books: The Guilt of the Lambs

In Germany, the writing that followed the nightmare of World War II was not a literature. It was a record of unassimilated shock. In books and trials, the horrors of the past were convulsively laid bare and the guilt placed upon major Nazis and lesser savages like "Hangman" Heydrich and Ilse Koch. But as the handful of notorious Nazis was again and again brought to public account, it became easier and easier for the rest of the Germans to think of themselves as innocent victims—lambs who had been set upon and held in thrall...

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