SOURCE: A review of Kurt Gerstein: The Ambiguity of Good, in The New York Times Book Review, April 13, 1969, p. 10.

Cohen was an American historian, novelist, nonfiction writer, and theologian. In the following review, he examines some of the moral complexities Friedländer explores in Kurt Gerstein: The Ambiguity of Good.

The enigma of Kurt Gerstein, a lieutenant in the Waffen-SS responsible for securing shipments of Zyklon B, the lethal gas used in the crematoria of Auschwitz, first came to the attention of the American public through Rolf Hochhuth's celebrated play, The Deputy. There, Hochhuth represents Gerstein as having sought to bring word of the extermination camps to the attention of the Papal Nuncio in Berlin.

However Hochhuth has interpreted the case of Gerstein, the case remains open, and it is to the incredible moral complexities of his case that Saul Friedländer, author of Pius XII and the...