My Father, the Good Nazi

A man struggles to accept his father’s criminal past:

“The more I pushed, the more Horst insisted on varnished truth. Wächter was a father. He saved Jews. He had responsibilities to others. He followed orders and an oath (to Hitler). He had to provide for the family. He was an idealist. He was honourable. He believed the system could be improved. In a court these arguments would be hopeless. Yet Horst maintained that Wächter was ‘very much against the criminal system’ even if hard put to offer any convincing examples.”