Christian Caryl

Christian Caryl’s book project tells the story of one of the most remarkable investigative journalists of the 20th century. Gitta Sereny, born in Vienna in 1921, devoted her career to exploring the roots of human evil. The book traces her lifelong dialogue with criminals—Nazis, child killers, traffickers, and perpetrators of war crimes—to uncover how ordinary people come to commit extraordinary crimes. Sereny’s childhood and youth were shaped by the rise of Nazism, wartime exile, and postwar relief work. Later, after she established herself in British journalism, she produced her landmark books on the child murderer Mary Bell, the extermination camp commander Franz Stangl, and ex-Nazi armaments minister Albert Speer. The book traces her controversial methods, moral risks, and clashes with Holocaust deniers as well as her battles with public opinion. Sereny’s quest yields urgent lessons about personal responsibility, authoritarianism, and the enduring problem of evil in the modern world.