I am very grateful to UChicago Press and NetGalley for allowing me to access a digital copy before the book is published. Before I offer my honest review, I wonder what the intended audience is for this book. As someone with an academic background in German history, I skimmed through the first few chapters which outlined Reinhold Kulle’s life in Europe before emigration to America. My years spent in Chicago also allowed me to appreciate the Chicago vignettes of and references to different neighborhoods. My background and experience meant that before I picked up the book, I was already invested in the story, both as a historical-biographical account and one understood through a microhistory lens.

As much as this book is about a Nazi’s immigration to, integration in, and eventually, deportation from the United States, it is also inherently and intimately a story about American suburban life. The central theme I pondered throughout, to which the book provided an answer for, centers around empathy. How much empathy can we show Kulle? How, and if, can we distinguish individual agency from the grand scheme of inhumanity? And how much can criminal justice account for political violence? How to recognize and reconcile the definitiveness and volatility in the victim-perpetrator paradigm? By putting them on trial, are we actually “bringing Nazis to justice” or eliding the political accountability by focusing on the individual?

For the most part, I could extend radical empathy to Kulle and his longing for home, especially on his account that the Germany before and after the war made his definition and reminiscence of home difficult, and even impossible. I was hugely engrossed by Kulle’s testimony at the trial and his subsequent appearance at the school board meeting, which, upon hearing that his only regret was the fact that Germany did not win the war, my opinion of him cannot help but sway.

There are other works out there that discuss to what extent individual Nazis should be held accountable for the crimes of the Third Reich, but Our Nazi by Michael Soffer, at least what I found the most interesting, discusses Kulle’s life in Chicago, a place where he had established another life for many decades. In particular, the community reaction to the Kulle case illuminates all perspectives on the spectrum, from total forgiveness and acceptance to advocacy for complete ostracization and immediate deportation.

On a very personal level, Michael Soffer has inspired my confidence in a career as a high school history teacher, which has been his position at the Oak Park and River Forest High School for almost two decades. Besides, his acknowledgement section is just so sweet. It makes me so happy for him for publishing this work!

Our Nazi is the debut novel by high school history teacher, Michael Soffer. This is an extremely well-researched and detailed story of Reinhold Kulle, a revered custodian of Oak Park River Forest High School. Kulle was a member of the Nazi party and an SS guard at a slave labor camp in World War II, unbeknownst to his American community until near his retirement.

This story is well-told, but I got a little lost and disinterested in the details that didn't involve Kulle himself.