Reviews for Hitler's Ambivalent Attach?: Lt. Gen. Friedrich Von Boetticher in America, 1933-1941

The average rating for Hitler's Ambivalent Attach?: Lt. Gen. Friedrich Von Boetticher in America, 1933-1941 based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2016-09-25 00:00:00 Joe Cecala This book ends the Bs in my project of reading at least one book about every nation, and, among the As and Bs, it is the fifth about a country that has experienced genocide. Burundi is the southern neighbor of Rwanda, and its post-colonial history of conflict between the Hutu majority and Tutsi minority mirrors that of its northern neighboring state, if on a smaller scale--as though the systematic, racially motivated murder of hundreds of thousands of Hutus can be considered small, by any comparison other than to that of more than a million. U.S. Ambassador Robert Krueger's post to Burundi in 1994-1995 positioned him and his family at a bird's-eye view of the ethnic cleansing perpetrated by the Burundi army after it's assassination of President Melchior Ndadaye, whose democratic reforms threatened Tutsi power. As an antidote to the Tutsi political leadership's common refrain that accusations of genocide were mere rumor, Krueger ventured into the killing fields, at significant risk to his own safety, to document the testimony of survivors in the immediate aftermath of acts of genocide and to photograph the bodies of the slain. Presenting numerous photographs of mutilated bodies and countless survivor narratives, the book served to establish the facts of genocide in a country otherwise largely ignored by the international community. The book, with chapters authored by both Ambassador Krueger and his wife Kathleen, is easy to read and obviously written by people who held great concern for and offered tangible help to the Burundian victims. The authors' ambassadorial work did much to bring international pressure to bear against the genocidal government. Mr. Krueger risked both his career and his physical safety, sometimes violating the genteel dictates of diplomatic tradition, to sound the alarm on behalf of Burundians. Though this is the story as told by the Kruegers themselves, the narrative details ring true. Though there is on occasion reason to be not a little cynical about American policy in Africa, the actions of the U.S. Ambassador to Burundi during its 1994-1995 genocide transcended policy and exemplified the best of compassion and selfless service.

Review # 2 was written on 2019-09-27 00:00:00 Matt Trace Highly recommended - though I've read a few other books on Burundi, they have focused on political elites, or the country from a distant, removed perspective, so none have given me a sense of what the conflict was like on the ground. So I found this book fascinating, and though it only touches on a few events that the Ambassador witnessed, those were highly informative and even page turning. But it is also the tale of a US Ambassador that does his job like I once imagined it was possible - really trying to make use of his position to influence events for the better, even at personal risk to himself.