Christopher Mauriello’s groundbreaking book
Forced Confrontation: The Politics of Dead Bodies in Germany at the End of World War II (Lexington Books, 2017) focuses on American soldiers' reactions to the victims of the Holocaust. Using photographs, memoirs, and letters from US soldiers, Mauriello attempts to recreate the emotional and traumatic reactions these men had when confronted with the worst of Nazi Germany. And, as a result, they made German civilians confront these horrors as an unofficial policy of the Military Government. Mauriello’s methodology converges historical analysis with the latest in analytical theory to explain these reactions and humanize the end of World War II.