[applause] thank you, first, to left bank for having me. Its, obviously, a great bookstore, and i spent a lot of time at left bank when i lived here, so thank you very much for hosting this event. I also want to just thank, first and foremost, my colleagues from the post dispatch who are here and who are my friends and have supported me for a long time when i wrote this book, for the six years that i wrote in this book and for the last two weeks since its publication. Appropriately, because theyre journalists, theyre all in the back drinking [laughter] thank you, guys. And thank you, also, to the sort of celebrity in the audience. This is a book about henry ger reck key and his son, colonel hank gerecke came up to be here tonight. Hes in the front, and i hope hes going to say a few words in a little bit. [applause] hank was my collaborator in every way on this book. I spent a lot of time at his kitchen table, he and his wife millie, learning about his father and his mother and their upbringing in st. Louis. So for those two reasons, this is a very meaningful and special night for me. So thank you both, collectively and individually. Okay. Were good. So friday, june 14th, 1946, was day 155 of the trial of the major war criminals. More commonly now referred to simply as the nuremberg trials. Toe no one in courtroom though no one in courtroom 600 knew it yet, the trial was about halfway over. On day 155 franz von poppen, hitlers former chancellor, was on the witness stand. As he testified, the propaganda chief a sublieutenant of Joseph Goebbels wrote a letter which the former heeder of the hitler youth leader of the Hitler Youth Movement then translated into establish. It was addressed to mrs. Alma gerecke of 3204 halladay avenue in south st. Louis. Holding nazi leaders accountable for world war ii was an experiment. At the time there was no legal precedent for framing criminal charges against the perpetrators of a war of aggression. As early as 1944 allied leaders were hashing out the best way to punish people whose criminal activities were so horrendous that laws barring them didnt technically exist. Nuremberg was an improvisation. Never before had the International Community held a states major leaders accused and convicted them of conspiring to commit crimes against humanity. The trial of the major war criminals was, in the words of one of its american prosecutors, quote a benchmark in International Law and the lode star of thought and debate on the great moral and legal questions of war and peace, end quote. Existing within the larger nuremberg improvisation was another that has never been told in full. It is a historical asterisk to what was called the trial of the century. It was an experiment in how good confronts radical evil. And at its center was a farm kid from missouri. Those organizing the nuremberg trials knew that if they were going to try some of the worlds most notorious criminals for war crimes, they also had to follow the geneva conventions. Article 16 of the conventions regulations regards the treatment of prisoners of war and states that prisoners of war are permitted, quote complete freedom in the performance of their religious duties, including attendance at the services of their faith. Ministers of religion who are prisoners of war, whatever may be their denomination, shall be allowed freely to minister to their coreligionists. But nuremberg was not the average p. O. W. Camp. The world was watching as hitlers deputies answered for the holocaust. The allies didnt trust chaplains to do the job, so they brought in two of their own instead. Chaplain henry gerry key of st. Louis and kaplan oconnor of oxford, new york. Chaplain. For the first time in history, u. S. Army chaplains would minister to the enemy. And the enemy included some of the 20th centurys most infamous names. Herman goering, hitlers number two, commander of germanys air force, the luftwaffe, and the force behind the third reichs final solution. Albert spear, hitlers architect and the armaments minister. To mine granite used in germanys granite plants. The field marshal and second only to hitler in germanys military hire ary. The reichs labor minister in charge of what one historian called, quote, the greatest roundup of slaves in history. And hans frank, hitlers personal lawyer and eventually the governor general of to polander where he earned pick names such as slayer of the poles and the butcher of cra cow. On that friday in june, 1947, von poppen testified in courtroom 600. When he finished, all 21 of the nazi prisoners, including the catholics and those who had refused any spiritual counsel, signed it. It read in part your husband, pastor gerecke, has been taking religious care of the undersigned defendants during the nuremberg trial. He has been doing so for more than half a year. We now have heard, dear mrs. Gerry key, that you wish to see him back home after his absence of several years. Because we also have wives and children, we understand this wish of yours very well. Our dear chaplain gerecke is necessary for us not only as a minister, but also as the author rely thoroughly good man he is. Surely we need not describe him as such to his own wife, we simply have come to love him. In the fall of 2007, i was writing a story for the newspaper right down the street, the st. Louis postdispatch, where i discovered the religion beat. The story was about operation barnabus, a program that the Lutheran ChurchMissouri Senate had recently begun to help chaplains who were returning from iraq and afghanistan more smoothly reentering their congregations back home. But i needed some color for the story. So i went to Concordia SeminaryHistorical Institute happened to have an exhibition on the history of the American Military chaplaincy at the time. Under one of those pieces of glass was a letter to alma gerecke from the nazis. I read that word love just pof the signatures above the signatures of the perpetrators of the genocide, and i thought, ah, that could be a story. [laughter] i found gerecke easeleddest son, hank eldest son, hank gerecke, in cape gerardo, and he told me the story of his father and mother. And six years later, here we are. Hank and his younger brother corky were already in uniform in 1943 when their father raised his hand and said hed like to be a war chaplain. The first part of gereckes career had been spent pastoring a church in south st. Louis. Then during the depression he had been a missionary with the st. Lutheran city mission. St. Louis lutheran city mission, ministering no those on the streets, in hospitals and in city jails. Now he wanted to do his part for the war effort. He was 50 years old. The army assigned gerecke to the 98th General Hospital which in 1944 landed in hermitage, about 60 miles west of london, in the south of england. There the 98th set up a 1,000plusbed transit hospital where doctors and nurses would literally just stop the bleeding as wounded g. I. S were flown in from the front lines in europe before putting them on a train to larger hospitals in london. When the war was over, the 98th was sent to germany to take over a bombedout hospital in munich. In the fall of 1945, colonel burton andros, the commandant of the prison, heard about a lutheran chaplain in munich who could speak german and who had ministered to men in the st. Louis city jail system. Gerecke was given the assignment, but he was also given the chance to turn it down. Gerecke prayed hard about the decision. He asked himself how could a preacher from st. Louis make any impression on the disciples of adolf hitler . During his months in munich, gerecke had taken several trips to dachau. Hed seen the raw aftermath of the holocaust. He returned to his commanding officer, ill go, he said. Gerecke wasnt the only chaplain at nuremberg. The assistant chaplain was a francis can fry car from upstate new york. Father oconnor had been a chaplain with the 11th Armored Division known as the thunder bolt during the war. The 11th fought in the battle of the bulge and moved east over the winter of 1944 and 45. Oconnor earn add pons star earned a bronze star. In may 1945 the 11th helped liberate mat hawzen concentration camp outside hitlers hometown in austria where nearly 100,000 people were tortured and murdered between 1935 and 1945. This is a photo of what were called the stairs of death. They led down to the Granite Quarry called the german earth and stone works. Albert speier supplied granite for his great vision of nazi buildings and monuments, many of them in nuremberg. The 186 steps to the quarry floor were badly cut into the clay and slippery. When prisoners reached the bottom of the steps, they strapped massive granite slaps on their backs and were then sent up the stairway of death. When a man reached the top, seen here in a photo after liberation, an ss guard may have directed him to throw the slab from the top of the sheered quarry wall 12 stories high back down to the bottom of the pit, then demand he run down and bring the same boulder back up to the top. Throwing prisoners 12 stories to their deaths below was also a cheap, effective murder method for the guards. The ss called the victims of such murder parachutists. It held 66,500 prisoners on may 4, 1945, the day before it was liberated by the 1 is 19th 11th Armored Division and other units. More than 450 died each day during the following week. Father oconnor buried 2,911 people between may 8th and may 31st. This is a photo of earnest [inaudible] on the far right during an inspection of camp in 1941. With Heinrich Himmler on the left and the camps commandant in the middle. He was the head of the Reich Security Main Office and controlled the gestapo, the sd or Security PoliceSecurity Service and the Security Police. He had authority over the group that roamed Eastern Europe killing as many jews as they could find. And as Adolf Eichmanns superior, he was responsible for the administrative apparatus behind the entire concentration and extermination camp system. Three months after helping to liberate the camp, father oconnor was in nuremberg ministering to him. This is a promotional shot taken by the army of gerecke inr iqfi6 this a 169squarefoot chapel made by knocking down the wall between two cells. Few people believed they were capable of this horror. And philosopher ra veddleson has written it helps us to take ourselves to be against the doers, not the perpetrators. We like to think that they are not like us. But indeed, there being unlike us is a very quality that explains that they could do what they did. Having committed atrocities so outrageous in nature and scope as to explode this comprehension. They must surely be abnormal men. And so to think this way, however, is to turn away from what the holocaust means. To refuse to fully acknowledge the scope and what it is saying about the human condition. It is helping this is a historical fact in the first place. It attempts to understand does it create a path that excuses the behavior that creates evil. If the perpetrators of genocide can be seen as fellow human beings, to be deserved empathy or even forgiveness from those of us that use lead good lives . Theologians have argued that the existence of it is the corollary to free well and there is only one allpowerful god unless god come in some way, be responsible for this . Many say that either god cannot abolish evil or he will not abolish evil. If he cannot, he is not allpowerful and if he does not come he is not altered. And if god creates evil but also allows free will, is god or man responsible for the holocaust . If he is master of absolute good and evil, he must also claim those of us. And what about forgiveness . A theological point in which christians and jews differ. Many believe that god, through the crucifixion of jesus has 30 excepted and forgiven then. It has to working parts. An extreme opposite ends of the spectrum, desisting from the lachemann doing good. The jews who survived the holocaust and later generations have no moral standing to forgive the perpetrators of the holocaust for it what right does anyone other than those who died have to forgive anyone for critical participated in . Only the murder could forgive coming that could not happen. So must be restrained by the idea of genocide. And the majority of the Holocaust Victims were jewish. And they had to act towards this in ways that honored this humanity and its relationship of god. And even though the war criminals have committed this different kind of wrong and this includes wiping out been one same recognize this, they ministered to this despite the horrors that they had executed. They attempted a different kind of transformation. Its one single burden was to return the mass murders from darkness to the good of their own lights. So im just going to read a little bit of one chapter. So the morning after the executions, interest had summoned them to his office and he said that the condemned man with you waking up 11 45 p. M. , served a last meal, then walked to the gym. The executions would begin after midnight and interest had ordered him not to tell the man or anyone else of the execution plans. They shouldnt know until they were working up that night, he told them. The day should proceed normally. In the afternoon as the chaplin visited the cells, they asked joachim von ribbntrop, Ernst Kaltenbrunner and whether or not he was asking. What did he know, do they demand . And this includes Ernst Kaltenbrunner, rosenberg, and joachim von ribbntrop. He aske3 joachim von ribbntrop. He asked them each to join in a pair that he had written and only rosenberg had refused. No, please do not, he said to gerecke. He demanded to know what was going on with the execution timetable. He was also refusing to leave his cell and he was adamantly against exercising [inaudible] he took all the family photos the decorated his flimsy table and put them in an envelope for his attorney. In the early afternoon, he requested a visit. What time are the execution scheduled for . And he didnt answer. The writes marshall was a likable man and he wished that he could have been honest with them. Even the chaplin called him a goodnatured farmer with a good sense of humor. And he had been surprised that Hermann Goering knew quite a bit about the bible. Of all the dmn, he impressed us the most, and with his brain he couldve accomplished a lot. He had been fascinated with a small, and he often discuss the game with oconnor during his visits. He wanted to know about the dodgers and how baseball does the business. Is there money in a . You ask. Oconnor told them that the dodgers general manager me 90,000 per year. Maybe i shouldve gone into that business, he had said. And so was midoctober and the st. Louis cardinals were battling the boston red sox. Though he was from upstate new york, oconnor had taken boston and a 10dollar bet with gerecke. And in between visiting the prisoners in their cells a day, the chaplains adhered on the prison floor to get the score. So the only way that they had of receiving updates after each happening was through a phone call from an american officer outside the prison walls. And around 7 30 p. M. , gerecke returned to the cell of Hermann Goering to get them to accept christ. He had been a regular, but he had resisted the efforts to bring you more seriously into the olds of the church. And he told Hermann Goering that ebert a special devotional form and he said to leave it on the table because he would read it later. But what he really wanted to discuss was the kitchens. And gerecke tried to steer the conversation toward how a man prepares his soul for death. He asked him to join him in a prayer, no, he said, he would watch and pray for from his cot. He thought that he seemed more depressed than we had earlier, which was not surprising given what was coming and he asked how the other men were doing. And he could hear crying and moaning with fear. And he asked gerecke if you might be able to see him to get through this. Then he started in again on the method of execution. Hanging, he said, was the most dishonorable way for him to die, given his former position with the german people. And he didnt even respond. He heard the same complaint dozens of times since the sentencing. Silence fell between them. Somewhat desperately now he tried one last time to engage him on the eternal values at how a man can be prepared to die to meet his god. But he was not open to listening. For the last time he told them he was a member of the Christian Church but he couldnt accept the teachings. He began to make fun of the creation story in the Old Testament and he ridiculed the idea that the bible was written by scribes divinely inspired by god. And he refused the fundamental Christian Doctrine of atonement, the duties is there his suffering by for the forgiveness of mans sin and this is not to stop speaking to you. What did you say jesus save me. And he said no, i cannot do that. This jesus you always speak of, to me he is just another smart jew. And he said this jesus is my savior who suffered and then die that i may go to heaven someday. He paid for my sins. Hermann goering yelled ach. You dont believe that yourself. When one is dead, they dont have anything. And he said pastor, i believe in god. I believe he watches over the affairs of men, but only the big ones. He is too great to bother about little matters. So he fell silent for a moment and then he looked at gerecke. Pastor, he finally said, how do you celebrate the lords supper . And he was astonished. He claimed membership in the church, you must be familiar with the sacraments. The lords supper was particularly meaningful for him, as a lutheran, he believed that when christ offered brad to his apostles at the last supper, telling him it was his body, and actually became his body. And bread and wine were consecrated and those in the pews have been taught to believe that the body of christ is truly present in and went in under the elements of bread and one. So in Holy Communion some christians believe that god is mitigating their suf