No, you didn't! I don't really think Soffer does, either, but it's an issue that's sort of bound up with the analysis that follows his book. Today, excusing someone for serving in the Waffen-SS would be coded differently, and more harshly, than it was in 1950 --- not because people in the 1950s were O.K. with the Waffen-SS, but because they knew less about it. And it's subtle, because the United States Government did know, and cared a lot (but was deeply fallible, then as now) --- but here we're talking about a story where the federal government harshly cracked down on the "Oak Park Nazi", and his defenders were just random people who were, I think, mostly ignorant about the issues at play.
People look back at like 1959 Oak Park and say it was wild this guy wasn't reported to immigration as soon as he turned in his marriage certificate with the Reichsadler and "Gross-Rosen" on it, but the superintendent of OPRF high school almost certainly had no idea what the hell Gross-Rosen was; even the OSI had to go consult experts to work that out.
I'm a little bit judging other people --- not you --- for judging local civic officials for not meeting the standards of a society where everybody has virtually all the world's knowledge in their pocket at all times.
People look back at like 1959 Oak Park and say it was wild this guy wasn't reported to immigration as soon as he turned in his marriage certificate with the Reichsadler and "Gross-Rosen" on it, but the superintendent of OPRF high school almost certainly had no idea what the hell Gross-Rosen was; even the OSI had to go consult experts to work that out.
I'm a little bit judging other people --- not you --- for judging local civic officials for not meeting the standards of a society where everybody has virtually all the world's knowledge in their pocket at all times.