In a landscape saturated with political noise, Greg Olear delivers a startling revelation: the deadliest foreign attack on American soil was aided not by faceless enemies, but by a family hiding in plain sight within the United States. This isn't a conspiracy theory; it is a meticulously researched family history that forces a reckoning with how ordinary people become complicit in extraordinary evil.
The Unearthing of a Secret
Olear frames the narrative not as a dry historical account, but as a decades-long detective story sparked by a single, cryptic warning. The journey began in 1987 when Christine Kuehn, a former journalist, met her Aunt Ruth, a woman who seemed like a "sweet little grandmother." The encounter took a sharp turn when Ruth, upon being asked about the family's German roots, "stiffened and pointed her finger" and commanded, "Don't ask any more questions. You have a good life. You don't want to ruin it with the past. Don't ask me any more about the family, your grandparents, or Pearl Harbor."
This moment of silence was more powerful than any confession. It signaled that the family's history was not just complicated, but dangerous. Olear notes that the mystery deepened when a screenwriter contacted Kuehn in 1994 regarding her grandfather, Bernard Julius Otto Kuehn, a man with a "lengthy FBI file." What followed was a thirty-year odyssey to uncover the truth that her grandparents were Nazi spies sent to surveil Pearl Harbor. The author emphasizes that the discovery was visceral, not just intellectual. "When I saw [my uncle] Leopold in his Nazi uniform…you know, everything else was just words on paper, all the research we did. But when you saw the pictures, it just came to life," Kuehn recalls.
The framing here is crucial. Olear avoids sensationalism, presenting the Kuehn family's story with a gravity that honors the victims of the attack while humanizing the complex web of betrayal. The narrative connects to the broader historical context of the Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, where the family's ideological alignment was forged, yet it remains grounded in the intimate horror of a dinner table conversation gone wrong.
"Secrets eat love like acid," Kuehn writes. "But love regenerates."
The Burden of Inheritance
The core of Olear's commentary lies in the emotional and ethical weight of this discovery. He argues that the book is not merely about espionage, but about the "only person ever tried and convicted for the bombing of Pearl Harbor" being one's own grandfather. How does one process that? Olear suggests that Kuehn's work succeeds because she refuses to lionize her heroic father, Eberhard, who walked away from his family to protect them, nor does she demonize the entire lineage.
Instead, the author highlights the stark contrast between how different generations process trauma and ideology. Olear draws a sharp, necessary parallel between Kuehn's path and that of modern political figures, noting that while Kuehn's grandfather was a Nazi spy, her father chose a different path, creating a life defined by integrity. "I am definitely a result of my dad," Kuehn says. "Because of what he did, he created a life for me that I wouldn't have had."
The commentary then pivots to a broader, more uncomfortable question about the nature of choice and inheritance. Olear contrasts Kuehn's empathy with the trajectories of figures like Jared Kushner and Stephen Miller, whose ancestors fled persecution only for their descendants to embrace policies that mirror the very hatred they escaped. "Stephen Miller's ancestors emigrated to the United States from the Pale of Settlement to escape the violent anti-Jewish pogroms there," Olear writes, noting that Miller's great-great-grandfather arrived just before borders closed to refugees. "Miller turned out to be the author of Trump's racist anti-immigration policies, and the spiritual father of the ICE Gestapo. An American Nazi, in other words."
This comparison is the piece's most provocative element. It challenges the reader to consider why some break the cycle of hate while others perpetuate it. Critics might argue that drawing such direct lines between historical trauma and contemporary political behavior risks oversimplifying complex individual choices. However, Olear uses these examples not to diagnose specific individuals, but to illustrate the terrifying variability of human response to generational wounds. The question remains: "What makes some of us turn out like Christine Kuehn, and others like Jared Kushner or Stephen Miller?"
The Human Cost of History
Ultimately, Olear's piece serves as a reminder that history is not a distant abstraction; it is woven into the DNA of families and the fabric of nations. The book Family of Spies is praised not just for its historical accuracy, but for its emotional honesty. It forces a confrontation with the reality that evil can wear the face of a relative, and that the decision to resist it is a daily, active choice.
The author concludes with a plea for hope, grounded in the resilience of love over hate. "Let's hope, for the sake of humanity, that the same is not true of hate," Olear writes, echoing Kuehn's sentiment that while secrets destroy, love has the power to rebuild. This is a story that transcends the specific events of 1941, offering a lens through which to view the ongoing struggle between the past's shadows and the future's possibilities.
Bottom Line
Greg Olear's commentary on Christine Kuehn's Family of Spies is a masterclass in connecting personal history to national trauma, using the Kuehn family's secret to explore the broader mechanics of complicity and redemption. Its greatest strength is the refusal to simplify the moral landscape, acknowledging that heroism and betrayal can exist in the same bloodline. The piece's vulnerability lies in its heavy reliance on the reader's willingness to engage with uncomfortable parallels between historical fascism and modern politics, but this boldness is precisely what makes the argument so necessary.