| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 107.4

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 107.4 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Canada and the United States

Peter Maguire. Law and War: An American Story. New York: Columbia University Press. 2000. Pp. xii, 446. $30.00.

When he was twelve, Peter Maguire learned that in 1948 his great-grandfather had served as a judge on a war crimes tribunal in Nuremberg, Germany. This discovery sparked his curiosity, motivating him to undertake research that produced, first, an undergraduate thesis on the case his great-grandfather had tried and, eventually, this book. It is an impressive work, passionate and enjoyable to read. Maguire might have written a better one, however, had he stuck more closely to the subject that first excited him The further he wanders from the topic of how the United States dealt with German war criminals after World War II, the less coherent and convincing his book becomes. 1

It is an outstanding treatment of that subject. Maguire's research, especially into the trials that followed the famous prosecution of the major German war criminals before the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg, is impressive. So is his thorough investigation of the diplomatic maneuvering that by 1958 had liberated all of the Germans imprisoned by the United States for war crimes. He provides informative accounts of little-known trials, such as the one in which his great-grandfather participated, and also offers a persuasive explanation for the lenient treatment that so many war criminals received. The reductions in sentence, early parole, and clemency from which they benefited resulted, Maguire demonstrates, from cynical American moves, intended to cater to German public opinion and enlist a rearmed West Germany in the Cold War against the Soviet Union. . . .

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