ABOUT THIS BOOK

The first book to lay bare the life of a Nazi camp guard who settled in a Chicago suburb and to explore how his community and others responded to discoveries of Nazis in their midst.

Reinhold Kulle seemed like the perfect school employee. But in 1982, as his retirement neared, his long-concealed secret came to light. The chief custodian at Oak Park and River Forest High School outside Chicago had been a Nazi, a member of the SS, and a guard at a brutal slave labor camp during World War II.

Similar revelations stunned communities across the country. Hundreds of Reinhold Kulles were gradually discovered: men who had patrolled concentration camps, selected Jews for execution, and participated in mass shootings—and who were now living ordinary suburban lives. As the Office of Special Investigations raced to uncover Hitler’s men in the United States, neighbors had to reconcile horrific accusations with the helpful, kind, and soft-spoken neighbors they thought they knew. Though Nazis loomed in the American consciousness as evil epitomized, in Oak Park—a Chicago suburb renowned for its liberalism—people rose to defend Reinhold Kulle, a war criminal.

Drawing on archival research and insider interviews, Oak Park and River Forest High School teacher Michael Soffer digs into his community’s tumultuous response to the Kulle affair. He explores the uncomfortable truths of how and why onetime Nazis found allies in American communities after their gruesome pasts were uncovered.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Michael Soffer is a history teacher at Lake Forest High School. During his tenure at Oak Park and River Forest High School, he taught Holocaust studies in a classroom that former Nazi camp guard Reinhold Kulle used to clean. His writing has appeared in publications such as the Forward, Chicago Jewish History, and the Times of Israel. This is his first book.

REVIEWS

“An important work of history that is both deeply researched and beautifully written. Soffer illuminates an overlooked yet remarkable story of an American community’s reckoning with justice in the wake of the Holocaust. He has achieved what the best history writers aim to do: shaping our view of the present by opening eyes to a new view of the past.”

— Jonathan Eig, author of King: A Life

“A chilling account of how someone with an evil past can hide in plain sight, and the lengths to which those who would expose him went to get a well-justified reckoning. Our Nazi reads like a novel, but is in fact a fine piece of scholarship that combines the history of the Holocaust, American policy, and life in suburbia in the postwar period.”

— Hasia Diner, emerita, New York University

“Our Nazi raises profound moral questions about justice, forgiveness, and Holocaust memory. Soffer deftly weaves together multiple story lines in this well-researched and riveting account.”

— Daniel Greene, Northwestern University

"A Nazi prison camp guard hid in plain sight in America for nearly three decades after winning the trust of a suburban town whose residents adored him for his ‘kind acts’. . . . But the revelation of his Nazi past nearly 30 years later split the town with many coming to his defense and saying he was the victim of a ‘persecution’."

— Daily Mail

“A powerful mix of scholarship and memoir; [Soffer’s] research is meticulous and his storytelling matter-of-fact. . . . This book will linger for a long time in readers’ minds.”

— Jewish Book Council

"How could a former Nazi come to the United States after the war and comfortably settle in Chicagoland? . . . [Soffer] being naturally inquisitive, incredibly smart, and someone looking to bring real world issues into his classroom wanted to dig deeper. . . . He discovered this story went far deeper than he could have imagined."

— WGN Radio

"It is an important important read, especially in our time of rising anti semitism in America and around the world. It tells, in very well researched prose and in beautiful writing, the story of what happened in Oak Park, Illinois when it was discovered that a long-time school custodian had in fact been a Nazi guard."

— A Mighty Blaze

"[Soffer's] history book provides an exciting opportunity for readers to understand the depths of how impactful the event of the Holocaust was even after it was over."

— The Forest Scout

"Reinhold Kulle and his family departed on the MS Italia from Cuxhaven, Germany, destined for a new life in America. But as [Soffer] reveals in Our Nazi, Kulle carried a dark secret. Throughout World War II, Kulle had not only been a member of the Nazi’s Waffen-SS, but had worked at Gross-Rosen concentration camp where 40,000 Jews died."

— New York Post

“A carefully researched account. . . . The value of Soffer’s book lies in its narrow focus on this situation and the effect it had on the people of a progressive American suburb.”

— Wall Street Journal

"... Soffer uncovers a fascinating local story with national implications for how we remember the past and deal with its painful resonances in the present."

— Reader

"Soffer’s book opens a window on a rarely investigated dynamic: What happens when “big history”—and it doesn’t come any bigger than the Holocaust—collides with local community?"

— Current Pub

"Soffer provides an excellent summary of the history of the Office of Special Investigations, its establishment, and the obstacles that it faced to pursue the cases in the United States. Of particular interest are the author’s descriptions of the OSI lawyers, such as Bruce Einhorn and Eli Rosenbaum, for whom the Kulle case was Rosenbaum’s first at OSI, and later for many years became its director. Soffer also describes in great detail the local personalities on both sides of the debate about Kulle and how to decide his fate. What was of particular interest was the tireless efforts of some of the Jewish women residents of Oak Park who never gave up their pursuit to achieve justice despite the pressure they faced from their colleagues and neighbors. Leah Marcus, Rima Lunin Schultz, and Rae Lynne Toporoff helped make history, and they deserve the mention that Michael Soffer gave them."

— The Jerusalem Post

"In 1981, the US Office of Special Investigations (OSI) revealed that Reinhold Kulle, then a custodian at the high school in Oak Park, Illinois, had been a member of the SS and a guard at the Gross Rosen concentration camp. Having lied
about these things on his immigration application in 1957, Kulle – one of an estimated 10,000 former Nazis, European fascists, and collaborators who managed to enter the US – settled in Oak Park and worked at the school for the next 27 years. Our Nazi explores the intertwined stories of the local responses to the revelation and the OSI’s legal proceedings against him. . . . While we have important studies of high-visibility cases (Adolf Eichmann, Wernher von Braun, John Demjanjuk) and the institutions and escape routes that allowed so many war criminals to evade justice, less work has been done on cases like Kulle’s. . . . OSI investigations ultimately led to the denaturalization and/or deportation of over 100 former Nazis, and Soffer’s account should inspire similar research on the places where they had found safe haven."

— Society for U.S. Intellectual History

"An essential work. Through his own reporting and access to previously unavailable sources, Soffer uncovers a fascinating local story with national implications for how we remember the past and deal with its painful resonances in the present."

— Chicago Reader

"There comes a time when you have to reconsider your thoughts about someone when you learn what they've done in the past."

— Joe Donlon, Edie Kasten, CBS Chicago

TABLE OF CONTENTS

REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE

If you are a student who cannot use this book in printed form, BiblioVault may be able to supply you with an electronic file for alternative access.

Please have the accessibility coordinator at your school fill out this form.

It can take 2-3 weeks for requests to be filled.