Books by Gitta Sereny

The biography of Franz Stangl, commandant of the Treblinka extermination camp - a classic and utterly compelling study of evilOnly four men commanded Nazi extermination (as opposed to concentration) camps.

In December 1968 two girls who lived next door to each other - Mary, aged eleven, and Norma, thirteen - stood before a criminal court in Newcastle, accused of strangling two little boys;

A biography of Albert Speer, an important figure of the Nazi High Command. An architect and an intellectual, he was seen to be a humane man, but, as Minister for Armaments, how could he not have known about the concentration camps? This book examines such moral issues about Speer and the Nazis.

Gitta Sereny is one of the world's most respected journalists and historians. This book gathers together the best of her writing on Germany from over sixty years. It amounts to an extraordinary portrait of the country and its people, how they have come to terms with their Nazi past, both collectively and in specific instances - and how the burden of their guilt has altered the national identity. She writes about key individuals - Stangl, Speer - and the questions which their lives raise. Thepenetration and conviction of her writing throughout is startling and she constantly reminds us why it is important to consider the questions she addresses - war guilt, holocaust denial and the temptations of obedience.