In an interview on Nazi Hunters

The Tom Bower book, Blind Eye to Murder?

Tom Bower is one of the few decent investigative historians. There are too many historians who just use other people’s books to write their own histories but Bower says; Let’s go back to the source. I find the link between history and journalism interesting. Historians tend to think journalists are spivvy and hucksterish with facts, and journalists think historians piggy-back off other people’s research. But there’s no reason why you can’t be both, like Bower. Anyway, his book is about how we failed to prosecute the thousands of Nazis who went on the run after the war. It is disgraceful that if we thought it was a criminal regime we didn’t go on to prosecute the 80,000 people who committed murders and greater crimes. Nazi hunting basically stopped after 1948 when about five per cent of them had been caught, if that. People like me have to turn initially to this book to work out the extent to which the Allies failed. Read it and it will make you angry. The subtitle is A Pledge Betrayed and this is very accurate. Sure, some Nazis were useful to use against the Soviets in the Cold War, but the extent of it and the cynicism with which things were not done is disgusting. I say this without being naive.