<i>The Trial of a Nazi Doctor: Franz Lucas as Defendant, Opportunist, and Deceiver</i> By Andrew Wisely. New York, NY: Berghahn Books, 2024. Pp. xiv+364. Cloth $150.00. ISBN 978-1-80539-530-0.

While we know a lot about the general framework of the trials of Nazi perpetrators, including of specific professional groups, the field of Holocaust, mass violence, and perpetrator studies still needs more in-depth studies on the careers, crimes, and the postwar whereabouts of individual midlevel Nazi officials who had power of life and death over thousands of inmates of Nazi camps and whose lives and careers were not thoroughly investigated by scholars. That is why the book authored by Andrew Wisely examining the case of the SS doctor Franz Bernhard Lucas as a long durée historical biography, is a much-needed addition to this field of academic inquiry. The book offers valuable insights into the radicalization of German medical professionals who participated in Nazi crimes, into how they dealt with their highly unethical decisions targeting innocent victims during the war, and how they tried to evade their criminal responsibility after the end of the war by invoking various technical justifications and claiming oblivion about specific deeds, crimes, and persons encountered during their careers in the Nazi system.