A peculiar crusade

"In the wake of World War II, 74 members of the Nazi SS were accused of a war crime - soon to be known as the Malmedy Massacre - in which a large number of American prisoners of war were murdered during the Battle of the Bulge. All of the German defendants were found guilty and over half were sentenced to death.". "Yet none was executed and, a decade later, all had been released from prison. This outcome resulted primarily from the dogged efforts of Willis M. Everett, Jr., a prominent Atlanta attorney who jeopardized his status as a member of the social elite to defend with great zeal and commitment the accused Germans. Everett's motives were mixed, combining a heroic commitment to justice with sympathy for the German people in their defeat, a humiliation with which he, a Southerner raised in a culture suffused in the mythology of a lost war, readily identified. Partially fueled by an anti-Semitism that viewed the undeniable flaws in the Malmedy investigation as signs of Jewish vengefulness, Everett was moreover deeply impressed by the major German defendant in the trial, a former adjutant to Heinrich Himmler. Their bizarre relationship forms an intriguing component of this compelling narrative." "James Weingartner, who has penned the standard work on the Malmedy Massacre, here offers fresh insights into one of the most controversial episodes of World War II and in the process casts new light on the often convoluted politics of war crimes justice."--BOOK JACKET.