Books: It Just Happened

FRAGEBOGEN (525 pp.) — Ernst von Salomon—Doubleday ($6).

The biggest bestseller in postwar Germany is a well-written but viciously anti-American autobiography of a convicted murderer. The book: Fragebogen (The Questionnaire). The author: Ernst von Salomon, veteran of the roughneck Free Corps, which terrorized Germany after World War I and provided a recruitment pool for the Nazi SA and SS. The book has sold more than 250,000 copies in West Germany (the U.S. equivalent of about 750,000 copies). Published in Britain last April, it shocked reviewers of all political shades. American readers will also be shocked—and probably fascinated.

Passionately Passive. In 1922 Ernst von...

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