BY BILL MAHER AND KIMBERLY DANIELS

Special to The Pilot

Donald M. McKale will be at The Country Bookshop on Wednesday, July 25, at 5 p.m. to speak about his latest book "Nazis After Hitler: How Perpetrators of the Holocaust Cheated Justice and Truth."

Dr. McKale is Class of 1941 Memorial Professor and professor emeritus of history at Clemson University.

It is perhaps fitting that he received the honor as it is named for the 57 members of that Clemson class who died in World War II because the historian is the top mind of his field regarding World War II and Holocaust research.

Among his many previous books, "Hitler s Shadow War: The Holocaust and World War II" was a 2003 main selection of the History Book Club. His "War by Revolution: Germany and Great Britain in the Middle East in the Era of World War I" (1998) received the Charles Smith Book Award from the European section of the Southern Historical Association.

His most recent book follows Nazi political agents and Holocaust persecutors after the war.

McKale has devoted his entire career to the study of genocide.

"As an undergraduate, the lectures of a modern history professor made it all come alive and I was totally hooked," he says. "Early in my career, I concentrated mainly on the Nazi party and the regime's diplomacy. Slowly, however, it became clear how deeply anti-Semitism influenced Nazism."

Therefore, Hitler's "shadow war" - the Holocaust - against the Jews of Europe became the primary focus in "both my teaching and research," he adds.

It is in this book that McKale follows Nazi political agents and Holocaust persecutors after World War Two. The book reveals the deep denial that is pervasive among the perpetrators of this "shadow war."

He explains why there is no record of these men as he offers a captivating narrative of the postwar lives of infamous butchers who escaped justice.

Speaking by phone, McKale mentioned the reasons for little or no prosecution.

"The Cold War influenced the relatively quick dying of interest (in prosecution)," he says. "But it should also be noted that during the war Allied leaders generally refused or failed to recognize that the Germans had made the Jews their special target in the mass killings.

"Only one of the 12 trials of lesser war criminals held by the US at Nuremberg focused on Holocaust perpetrators - the Einsatzgruppen trial. It was only during the Eichmann trial, in 1960-61, that the world learned fully of the Holocaust."

"It is an honor to have Donald McKale come to The Country Bookshop," says Travis Gray. "I hear he has an incredible mind."

McKale, who lives with his wife in Clemson,S.C., will be at The Country Bookshop on Wednesday, July 25, at 5 p.m.

For more information, call (910) 692-3211.