Loyalty on Trial

Small Press Bookwatch, Jan, 2005

Loyalty On Trial

Erik V. Wolter with Robert J. Masters

iUniverse.com, Inc.

2021 Pine Lake Road, #100, Lincoln, NE 68512

0595327036 $26.95 www.iuniverse.com

Loyalty On Trial is an in-depth case study and true story of the FBI's and American government's persecution of a German-American citizen during World War II. Arthur Wolter's membership in an organization targeted as "un-American" by J. Edgar Hoover and Wolter's own writings were used against him in an attempt to take away his citizenship; thousands of German-Americans like him were confronted with internment, forced expatriation, or worse due to fears of internal sabotage. Arthur Wolter's son is the author of Loyalty trial; he pieces together the story from a 700 page trial transcript, Arthur Wolter's FBI file, newspaper clippings referring to the trial, and other sources. Loyalty On Trial relies so heavily on primary sources and the transcript of the trial itself that it does not pretend to read like a novel; instead, it offers the straight facts to the reader, leaving him or her to judge Wolter's loyalty and the dubious American policy that almost certainly forced unjust imprisonment and deportation upon thousands of innocent German-Americans. A highly recommended, keenly relevant account especially in relation to modern-day desires to bend the limits of American rights.