Breaking Silence

Historians Laqueur (A History of Zionism, etc.) and Breitman here tell the story of the German industrialist, who, at great risk, was the first to inform the world that Hitler had begun a systematic extermination of the Jews. Eduard Schulte, a fierce but secret Nazi-hater, was a non-Jewish, middle-aged, one-legged head of a mining company, whose Polish branch bordered the death camp Auschwitz. Access to top Nazi officials led to his discovery of the ""Final Solution'' in 1942, but his warnings to the U.S. State Department and American Jewry were delayed for many months through State Department bumbling. By 1943, Schulte was forced to find asylum in Switzerland. Almost as disturbing, and equally absorbing, is the authors' revelation that Schulte was rated disloyal to the Vaterland by postwar German officials, hence his virtual anonymity. Photos. Jewish Book Club alternate; author tour. (May)