Book Description
A stunning account of the economic workings of the Third Reich—and the reasons ordinary Germans supported the Nazi state
In this groundbreaking book, historian Götz Aly addresses one of modern history’s greatest conundrums: How did Hitler win the allegiance of ordinary Germans? The answer is as shocking as it is persuasive: by engaging in a campaign of theft on an almost unimaginable scale—and by channeling the proceeds into generous social programs—Hitler literally “bought” his people’s consent.
Drawing on secret files and financial records, Aly shows that while Jews and citizens of occupied lands suffered crippling taxation, mass looting, enslavement, and destruction, most Germans enjoyed an improved standard of living. Buoyed by millions of packages soldiers sent from the front, Germans also benefited from the systematic plunder of conquered territory and the transfer of Jewish possessions into their homes and pockets. Any qualms were swept away by waves of government handouts, tax breaks, and preferential legislation.
Gripping and important, Hitler’s Beneficiaries makes a radically new contribution to our understanding of Nazi aggression, the Holocaust, and the complicity of a people.
Customer Reviews:
Hitler's Satisfied Thieves: Actually, the Case for Nazi German Larceny-and-Genocide Policies can be Made Stronger.......2007-08-19
German author Gotz (Goetz) Aly describes National Socialism as a form of populist wealth-redistribution welfare-state socialism. One-third of German taxpayers paid more than two-thirds of the tax burdens of war (p. 293), and businesses were heavily taxed (pp. 60-68). Hitler favored social equality for all Germans (p. 300), and worked to correct social inequities, notably in education (p. 322).
Pointedly, National Socialism massively transferred wealth from non-Germans to Germans: "In terms of wartime revenues, internal and external, low- and middle-income Germans, who together with their families numbered some 60 million, accounted for no more than 10 percent of the total sum. More affluent Germans bore 20 percent of the burden, while foreigners, forced laborers, and Jews were compelled to cover 70 percent of the funds consumed every day by Germany during the war." (p. 292). Consequently: "On average, the vast and not particularly affluent majority of Germans enjoyed more disposable income during the war that they had before it." (p. 293). Nazism also appealed to those opposed to traditional moral conventions, and to those inclined towards anticlericalism and anti-elitism (p. 319).
Not surprisingly, once voted into power by the German people, Hitler never needed draconian methods to maintain power until the end. Nearly 90% of the German dissenters executed lost their lives after 1941 (pp. 303-304). Unlike Communism, Nazism never demanded absolute devotion (pp. 23-24). In 1937, merely 7,000 Gestapo employees sufficed to handle 60 million Germans, while, in later East Germany, 190,000 surveillance experts controlled 17 million people (p. 29).
Jews weren't the only victims of larcenous Nazi policies--far from it: "This land of milk and honey in Eastern Europe was to be conquered not for the benefit of landed Prussian Junkers and powerful industrialists but to provide ordinary people with a real-world utopia." (p. 31).
Aly breaks new ground by showing that virtually ALL sectors of German society were involved in the expropriation of conquered peoples' wealth. German soldiers not only sent a considerable amount of looted goods back home (p. 178), but were encouraged to do so (p. 311). Later-writer Heinrich Boll (Boell) wrote much about this (p. 110, etc.). Not mentioned is the fact that, in German-occupied Poland, any German could enter a Polish or Jewish shop at any time and take anything at will without paying.
Poles targeted by the Germans for deportation, imprisonment, or execution immediately lost all their properties to the Reich (p. 197, 236). The 8-12 million forced laborers in the Reich, most of whom were Eastern Europeans, toiled under inhumane conditions. They were paid a wage in order to forestall resistance back home, but then the earnings were recouped by the Germans in various creative ways (pp. 156-157).
German-occupied Poland actually had to pay Germany for being occupied (pp. 76-77) "...with the result that the local population endured acute shortages of grain, potatoes, meat, and other necessities." (p. 77), leading to famine (p. 170). (This enables the reader understand why some Poles didn't aid fugitive Jews and why Poles sometimes betrayed or killed Jews known or suspected of stealing from them). Polish guerilla resistance eventually forced the Germans to slightly reduce the harshness of their exploitation of Poland (p. 160).
The Wehrmacht invaded Russia under orders to live off the land, placing 21.2 million Soviet citizens in starvation mode (p. 178). Additionally, millions of Soviet POWs were starved to death by the Germans (p. 175). Aly touches on the eventual Nazi extermination plans against Slavs: "...the most extreme proposal envisioned forcibly relocating 50 million Slavs to Siberia. (For years, the German Research Foundation also supported the development of technocratic plans for the slaughter of millions of people. Funds for research in this area were still allocated in the Nazis' final budget for the fiscal year 1945-46)." (p. 30). Yet the term "relocation" had itself already become a euphemism for extermination.
One Holocaust myth would have us believe that the destruction of Jews had been so uniquely irrational that the Germans would rather sacrifice themselves than leave Jews alive. In actuality, the deportation of the Jews from the island of Rhodes never did challenge the Wehrmacht's transport needs (p. 268), and there wasn't even talk of German retreat at the time of the Rhodes Jews' deportation (pp. 269-270). Once it did occur, the Rhodes Jews' deportation was itself governed by economic considerations (p. 273).
The case for Aly's premise that the Holocaust can't be properly understood without the larceny behind it (p. 285) can be strengthened (see: INTO THAT DARKNESS). Treblinka Kommandant Franz Stangl rejected the presumed Nazi obsession with killing all Jews, citing the creation of "honorary Aryans". Stangl asserted that the Holocaust was actually motivated by financial gain. When confronted with the obvious fact that most Jews weren't wealthy, Stangl retorted with the comment that almost every Jew had some worthy possession that could be confiscated--and that the booty added up.
How the Nazis Made All Germans Complicit in the Holocaust.......2007-07-30
Why is it that there never developed an underground resistance in Germany during WW2? According to this well researched book by Gotz Aly, it was because the Nazis spent like drunken sailors to keep the average German fat and happy during the war. The Nazis understood (from what happened in Germany during WW1) that as long as people were happy on the home front, their Armies wouldn't have to worry about their families and could concen- trate on fighting. They also mad sure that those soldiers who were not directly in battle would have ample resources with which to buy luxury goods that they could then send home.
Using all types of creative accounting, they never had to raise the tax rate that most Germans had to pay, even during the war. They were conspicuous in raising the tax rates on the wealthy and creating a war profit tax on businesses making enormous profits from the war. It's hard not to make money when your help practically works for free (force labor) and you never intend to pay for the raw materials that you purchase (steal).
So where did all this money come from? Well first of all it came via the Wehrmacht who shipped home multiple packages filled with stolen jewelry and other like items. The Wehrmacht paid it's soldiers with money extorted from the occupied nations as well as paying them in local currency that was converted at ridiculous rates. With all the extra money they had, the Wehrmacht was able to buy up anything that wasn't nailed down and strip most of the occupied nations of goods paid for with money that was inflated on the German side of the equation.
The Ministry of Finance took great pains to collect (with the help of the Wehrmacht and local collaborators) and occupation tax that was then used to pay their soldiers. In other words the occupied nations paid to be subjugated by the Nazis. They also looted the treasuries of not only the occupied nations but also those of their allies. They shipped home as much food stuffs as possible without worrying about starving the people of the occupied territories, since they were to be eventually eliminated. Goering said that, 'if some one has to starve, there's not reason that that person has to be a German'.
Lastly, not only did the Nazis (with the help of the Wehrmacht and German social agencies like the Red Cross) steal/confiscate/rob those Jews who were sent to the gas chambers; they also gave away their real estate, businesses, furniture and even clothing to the German public. You won't complain about your government if after you are bombed out, they give you a new place to live, furniture, clothing and even bed linens that might even be better than what you had before. It also costs the government nothing if these items have been stolen from people it plans to kill.
Aly estimates that overall, the money that was extorted from the occupied territories and allies, as well as the revenues collected from the liquidation of six million jews, half a million gypsies (Romi) not to mention 'other' enemies of the German people; covered almost 50 percent of the costs of the war. These costs included the manufacture and production of war material (much of it done by forced slave labor) and the salaries of the Wehrmacht and associated armed forces. Germany never saw bond drives like they had in Britain and the US because of this pool of money that they were able to extort. The saddest part of the story is that many of the financial people who helped the Nazis organize this shell game to pay for the war; ended up working for the Federal Republic after the war.
Fascist capitalism.......2007-06-22
Until recently, histories of the Third Reich have focused on Hitler and anti-Semitic ideology. The Holocaust and Hitler's military adventures have been granted an enormous number of pages. A few historians have placed some emphasis on his incompetent dabbling in military strategy. That picture is overfocussed, and misleading. Goetz Aly addresses a wider scope in this fascinating study of how the Reich was able to perservere in the face of what should have been sufficient cause for its early demise. With extensive research applied to the Reich's economic practices, he ably demonstrates what kept it functioning and accepted by the German population.
The term "Nazi" means National Socialist Workers' Party. That seeming innocuous phrase has been omitted from the consideration of its meaning, according to Aly. "National" and "Socialist" are the key terms. "National", meant just that - policies were aimed at benefitting Germany. "Socialist", of course, is a philosophy designed to benefit the most people - particularly those of the lower economic classes. Aly argues with detailed evidence that this is precisely what the Nazis achieved during the 1930s and through the war years. That it succeeded right up to the end of the Reich is testimony to the effectiveness of the Nazi economic methods. The average German began, and remained the "beneficiary" of a highly manipulated financial system.
It was a complex system. Aly begins by explaining how the Nazi leaders were a group of youthful, dynamic characters. They represented change, particularly in a restructering of the class system. The deprived were to be granted first priority in social benefits. While the 1930s witnessed a slow improvement, the onset of war allowed sweeping economic and social change. This was accomplished primarily by shifting the burden of war costs to the occupied nations. France was the testing ground for many new fiscal techniques designed to maintain a comfortable lifestyle in Germany, while bleeding the local populace of essential goods by imposing "occupation costs". One technique was simply to issue a military scrip to buy local goods. Soldiers were able to ship home foodstuffs and other goods not readily obtainable in Germany. The method worked less well in Russia where the "scorched-earth" policy reduced available foodstuffs and other goods. By the time the Wehrmacht entered the Balkans, however, it had numerous finacial tactics available to apply there.
Throughout the Reich's conquered territories, it was the Jews who bore the greatest of these burdens. A number of new laws allowed financial institutions and tax collectors to fill their coffers. Heavily taxed, then dispossessed of belongings, savings, homes and, of course ultimately their lives, the Jews "contributed" to the Reich's ongoing success in several ways. Their homes and belongings were taken and sold, often to the refugees from Allied bombing campaigns. Resettlement in real homes and apartments, sometimes fully furnished, instead of being sent to refugee camps, maintained German morale. The technique provided the gloss of "successful" government policies. Instead of being swayed by charismatic leadership or effective propaganda, Aly argues successfully that personal comfort bound the populace to an adventuresome regime. As he describes it, the Holocaust will never be properly understood until it is seen "as a campaign of murderous larceny". This book makes a major contribution to that understanding. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]
Organized Theft from Occupied Lands and the Jews.......2007-03-29
Mr. Aly presents new and somewhat surprising view of the Nazi years and the effort that Hitler et al went through to keep the home crowds happy. His thesis is that Hitler provided 'guns and butter' through the systematic looting of the property of others including the jews and subsequently the occupied lands. He describes and documents that such looting was not just the looting of fine art from museums and factory equipment to the huge German companies but mundane, everyday items like hams and chairs. As Goring said in a speech on October 4, 1942, 'if someone has to go hungry, let it be someone other than a German.'
The book does not explain Hitler's support before 1933, and the book does not spend much time on happenings after February 2, 1943 (Stalingrad) and April 8, 1943 (Tunesia), nor of course on the last year of the war when the British and American bomber forces were finally getting it together.
The Nazi Robbers.......2007-03-16
Nobody will be surprised to learn that the Nazis robbed the Jews and other nations in Europe. But some of the detail will be new even to those who are well read in the voluminous literature on the Nazi period, and for that we must be grateful to the author. But it must also be said that he relied on the published work of others for some of the most interesting detail even in this narrow area.
Where the author is original is in his reading of the data of Nazi robbery. He argues that the German people benefited from the Nazi thievery, and, he says, for that reason (among others) they gave their enthusiastic support to the regime. He is careful not to dismiss other factors altogether, such as anti-Semitism, but he stresses the importance of the economic benefit to the population.
There are a number of problems with this thesis.
First, the evidence for happiness with economic conditions during the Hitler regime is totally anecdotal. The author has talked with members of his own family and other acquaintances, but there is no assurance that such haphazard interviewing has resulted in a representative picture. The same goes for his unsystematic reading of published memoirs by famous writers.
Is it simply common sense to assume that people are happy when they reap economic benefits? Not in the absence of other considerations. The German people, after all, underwent great hardship under the Nazi regime, especially in wartime. Aly does not mention that, from the point of view of material comfort, they had as many reasons to be unhappy with the Nazis as to be happy. Their taxes were low during the war, says Aly, because the Nazis robbed the Jews and the occupied countries to pay for the war. And low taxes make people happy. Even if your cities get bombed and your sons and husbands die on the battlefield? If, as Aly suggests, it is material benefits that motivate people above all else, the Germans might have been expected to oppose Hitler.
In my view, writers who have assigned greater weight to non-material motivating factors, such as the Nazi theology of anti-Semitism, have given more satisfactory answers to the puzzle of the Germans' wartime approbation of Hitler.
The Germans' happiness with the Nazis, moreover, began long before Jewish properties were expropriated. Why were the Nazis so popular in 1933, 1934, 1935 - before the program of looting was put into effect? On this point, Aly is totally ahistorical. His thesis is one of cause and effect - Nazi robberies having the effect of Nazi popularity. But what if the effect began before the putative cause?
To this reader at least, Aly's thesis lacks logic.
Book Description
Josef Goebbels, Hermann Goring, Heinrich Himmler, Rudolph Hess, Albert Speer and Karl Donitz. These were the men who smoothed Adolf Hitler's path to power and became the perpetrators of a reign of terror unparalleled in history. They were the supporters and executives at Hitler's regime, carrying out his orders with deadly efficency. This radical new assessment of power under the swastika reveals many unknown facts and gives a unique but disturbing glimpse behind the scenes of the Nazi state.
Customer Reviews:
A Bizarre Work of History.......2003-04-30
Guido Knopp's "Hitler's Henchmen" is really a multiple biography of the six men the author identifies as the German dictator's most important disciples: Herman Goering, Heinrich Himmler, Joseph Goebbles, Albert Speer, Rudolf Hess and Admiral Karl Doenitz. In Knopp's chosen lineup lies the first problem. Most students of The Third Reich would certainly place Hitler's Chief of Staff Martin Boorman and SS Security Chief Reinhard Heydrich well above the ineffectual Hess or the plodding Doenitz in terms of their importance to the Nazi regime. Ignoring those two vital figures is a serious flaw in the book.
The second problem is the book's configuartion. Not witstanding the fact that a few chapters is not nearly enough space to adequately explain the lives and roles of any of these individuals, Knopp provides pages of direct quotes from and about each one, interspersed at random throughout the narrative. He also makes the fatal mistake in such an introductory work of assuming the reader is already intimately familiar with the overall history of Nazi Germany, referring to larger events without attributing dates or in what sequence they occurred. All of this left me wondering exactly who the intended audience was for this work? Nazi scholars won't learn anything they didn't already know, while casual readers are likely to find themselves hopelessly confused.
Overall, "Hitler's Henchmen" is not a well written work of history, even allowing for the fact that it was translated from German into English.
Hitler's Henchmen.......2002-04-30
I'm only on the 3rd chapter, but from what I've read so far this book is well written. I'm only 17 and I don't know much about that era besides the war. because my history books never said anything thing about these men. It gave me an insight on what went on nazi Germany. When I started reading this book I thought that Hitler was the behind everything. I didn't even know these people existed. This book is giving me a psychology and history lesson.
Keep up the good work. Guido Knopp
Firebrands, Enforcers and Architects........2001-08-13
Guido Knopp has given us six psychologial pen portraits (not biographies) of leaders of the Third Reich - Goebbels, Goring, Himmler, Hess, Speer and Donitz. He will have no truck with the argument that Hitler was a weak, lazy or disinterested dictator. Rather, the henchmen portrayed in this book took their orders directly from the fuhrer. Knopp writes, "The Reich's murderous existence depended solely on him. Without him, it became a ship of the dead." Although the author has included some new material from British and Russian archives, the analysis of the characters does not break a lot of new ground (how could it?) although this reviewer was interested in Knopp's account that Speer may have returned to the Berlin bunker in late April 1945 to dissuade Hitler from appointing him as successor. The author's strength lies in putting these nazi leaders properly in context. He shows up very well the inconsistencies in Himmler's character which made him both a yes man and, ultimately, a traitor. Donitz by contrast was made of sterner stuff - he went on fighting for supplies and raw materials long after there was anything to distribute. If you want a summary of what made these men tick, interspersed with wry contemporary comments from their colleagues, Knopp's book is well worth studying. When Goring told Hitler in 1939, "We've got to stop going for broke," Hitler replied, "All my life I've gone for broke." Those few words aptly sum up the leadership problem of the Third Reich.
Average customer rating:
- OUTSTANDING WORK!
- How to review this?
- Important and useful that a rabbi would write this book
- Unbalanced defense
- It's a shame it had to be written!
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The Myth of Hitler's Pope: Pope Pius XII and His Secret War Against Nazi Germany
David G. Dalin
Manufacturer: Regnery Publishing, Inc.
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ASIN: 0895260344 |
Book Description
In Rabbi David G. Dalin's controversial new book, he explodes the newly resurrected, widely accepted, yet utterly bankrupt smearing of Pope Pius XII, whom Jewish survivors of the Holocaust considered a righteous gentile.
Customer Reviews:
OUTSTANDING WORK!.......2007-09-09
Thank you Rabbi Dalin for telling the true story of Pope Pius XII. I give this book 5 bright stars and would give it more if possible. Pope Pius XII had many Jewish friends, and did much to help save the lives of many Jews before and during the Holocaust. The fact that many have chosen to slander this saintly man's name is a sign of the devil's work.
The cause for beatification of Pope Pius XII took an important step forward on May 8, 2007 when the Congregation for the Causes of Saints voted to approve a decree that the life of the late Pontiff showed "heroic virtue." Although I am sure he is a saint in heaven, hopefully it won't be long before he is declared a saint by the Church.
I highly recommend this book to everyone who is interested in the true story of Pius XII. It is a true historical account of the evil of Hitler and the Nazis. Also, chapter 6 includes a great deal of very interesting information about Muslims and their anti-Semitic beliefs and teachings.
How to review this?.......2007-07-30
Call me obtuse if you want. I just can't think of any way of reviewing this without sounding preachy, or as some loving people say: as a bloody Catholic fundamentalist.
My review is simply this: you hate this Pope in particular or Catholicism in general? Then by all means, go buy and read the Harry Potter series. After having read 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows I can safely say that Harry Potter is a veritable classic of universal literature. Yes, I used the word 'classic', as in worthy of studying in class - as in school, universities, etc. And and I used 'universal' as in that EVERYONE should read those books.
To those people I prefer to recommend Harry Potter because this book is basically a well-documented book defending the REAL PRO-semitic actions of this late Pope, as well as the historical significance and repercussions, including of course, all the false accusations laid on against him and the reasons behind those. And to top it all off, is written by a jewish Rabbi. So you either take this as it is, or you simply will risk high-pressure problems.
Harry Potter on the other hand is safe, superbly written adventure, and with a real profound study of human nature.
So, off you go then!
Important and useful that a rabbi would write this book.......2007-05-26
We are getting to the place where anti-Catholic bigotry is one of the few forms of group hatred that is still OK. In a society where any other form of bigotry, or even a suspcious of the same, is viewed with implacable oppositon, it is still pretty much OK to spread the grossest lies and distortions of the Church and its long, complex historical record. In the same way that the only fact most recently educated students know about World War II was that the evil Americans interned innocent Japanese civilians, the only fact which most people know about the Church is a grossly exagerrated and distorted view of the Spanish Inquisition.
In this context, it is possible for most absurd lies to get a great deal of traction. Many people, particularly Jews, believe that the Pope during World War II, Pius XII, actively supported Hitler. They think he was a buddy of Hitler's and helped to round up Jews for the gas chambers. Most Americans find nothing implausible in this story, so, since a few lunatic writers have put it out there, they believe it.
This story is, and always has been, an absurd, malicious lie with absolutely nothing behind it but hatred of the Church. Pius XII was always a determined opponent of Hitler. The Church, as an organization -- and the Pope heads the Church -- saved more Jews from the Holaucaust than any other single institution. At a time when every one was sitting on their hands, or looking the other way, the Church acted. Jews at the time, and in the State of Israel, understood that the Church was one of their only friends in ths time of great horror. To turn this record around, and to argue that the Pope was a friend of Hitler's, has as much validity and legitimacy as those who deny that the Holaucaust (but hope that it will happen again), argue that Bush and Mossad were behind 9/11 and who otherwise wear tinfoil on their head while reading the National Inquirer.
That said, it was very helpful that David Dalin wrote this book, because he is a Jewish Rabbi. By its nature, this kind of defense is best done when it is not a Catholic doing it, but a Jew. It is very hard to accuse a rabbi of being biased in favor of the Church or indifferent to the fate of the Jews. It is very good to see people like Rabbi Dalin reach across religious lines, purely and simply to uphold the truth. It makes me think that, maybe despite everything, there is some chance that people of good will really can unite against those who want to use lies to tear down everything that is good and decent in the world.
Unbalanced defense .......2007-05-11
We should be careful that analyses of Pius do not become attacks on the Church. In the last 50 years, the Church has done many wonderful things to help the poor and serve the world; many parishes have kitchens to serve the homeless. That said, this does not excuse Pius or provide a defense. There are a few common arguments.
1. Nothing more could be done.
This is absurd. Obviously if more people protested, the scope and depth of killing would have been reduced. The Nazi killing machine was efficient simply because it enjoyed the support of virtually all of the German Christian population. Protests could have lessened what occurred.
2. But what would happen to us
Some suggest Catholics could have been attacked. Perhaps. But ultimately moral acts do not include torturing and killing others to save your own skin.
3. Some Jews liked him
Most holocaust analysts do not defend Pius- See Abandonement of the Jews. Gilbert, The Holocaust
To simply cobble together a few statements of Jewish statesmen eager for Vatican recognition of Israel shows little.
4. He helped save Italian Jews. Pius did help Italian Jews and should be commended. However, German Catholics tortured, starved, and killed, Jewish men, women, and children. For every Italian Jew saved, there were 10 killed with the aid of German Catholics and other Christians.
5. They wouldn't have listened This is the most specious arguments- suggesting Catholics, who listened to the Pope on matters of all types, raising children, marriage- would have ignored their Pope had he spoken out against murder.
6. He did say some things.
Unfortunately, when the Pope did speak, he made sure to speak in such vague and obligue terms that it accomplished nothing. Stop murdering Jewish women and children would have accomplished something but was never said.
It's a shame it had to be written!.......2007-01-10
The book is a well written and well documented exposition of the truth about Pope Pius XII's official and personal behavior toward the Nazis and those they persecuted. Rabii Dalin has earned the thanks and respect of every Catholic who seeks truth in a world too full of hate and prejudice.
Product Description
The definitive work on the subject. It explains the early history of the Nazi Party and how it came into power,how it maintained it's power and how it finally fell. All of this is done from a historian's point of view with neither blame nor apology. Mr. Shirer has no agenda to follow but simply lays out the facts, albeit in a highly readble and interesting way.
Customer Reviews:
Thorough.......2007-09-01
I recommend this book to everyone. Whether or not you're a fan of the current presidential administration, reading this book will give you valuable insight into Nazi Germany, so next time some 21 year old anarchist is comparing George Bush to Hitler, you can say "That is a pretty stupid comparison."
Journey into Hell!.......2006-10-21
I have studied two years of German in college for my BS degree. My dad grew up in Nazi Germany. We were not the best of friends. Yet, this was a very fascinating book to me! I bought it because I figured that Hitler was a foreurunner of the Antichrist of the Bible and maybe this book would give me insight into his character. And it did. Yet I found some strange humor in it as well.Both my dad and one of my German professors had used the expression "he ought to be shot!" before as a reference to the frequent use of firing squads in the Third Reich. There is some of that gallows humor in there. Like a description of the quaiity built crematoriums for the death camps-made with the finsest of materials and German craftsmanship! My dad always was big on German craftsmanship and efficiency. I even found myself joking with my therapist about how cool it would be to become a dictator like Hitler where I could put all my enemies into concentarion camps, have them executed and have it filmed as the master had done!
I seemed to know more from that book about Hitler that my dad did. I discovered Hitler was a failed artist. My dad had tought he was a house painter. As my dad had terminal cancer and we visited once a month with him, we could talk about how he was living in Romania when Hitler invaded Russia and when they were repulsed that he and my aunt Margit had been evacuated out of Romania by Hitler. My dad was pretty tight-lipped about his childhood; yet this book actually gave us something to talk about befeore he died. What did we have in common? Quantum Theory? NOt! Bible Prophecy? NOt! We could discuss old "Uncle Adolph" as he had once called him!
So, I did see a twisted sort of humor to it. Just like on a News Radio Station from the Eastern US I had heard about a man who had a custom license plate in Virginia that said ZYKLON B on it. And how the state of Virginia had the plate revoked when they found out what it was. In Shirer's book, I discovered that ZYKLON B was the chemical that IG Farben had produced which Hitler used to carry out the "Final Solution" of the Jewish problem.
This book is jam packed with all kinds of trivia and interesting details. Just like I said, my dad grew up in Hitler Third Reich and did not know some ot these things!
There is an interesting lesson in this book in the life of Hitler. Hitler went to Vienna to study to be a painter. They rejected his application. So, he blamed this on the Jews and made it his ambition to erradicate them from the face of the earth-The Final Solution. Or in more modern times, I had seen on TV how the woman who had prayer banned from the public schools hadd been discriminated against in church; so she did not want to make her kids have to pray in school! Sometimes, discrimination comes back to haunt people!
Considered The Definitive Book on Nazi Germany, Publ 1959/60, 1245 pp, 5 Stars.......2006-09-07
If you only could read and own one history book on Nazi Germany, this would be it. Don't let the 1245 pages daunt you, this is a very well written and readable book on the subject. Shirer was apparently a journalist and started research on the book when he first went to Germany in 1925. He spent 5-1/2 years writing it. The title pretty much explains it, it covers the rise of Adolf Hitler to the eventual fall of Berlin. There are other history books that cover specific aspects of the Nazi's, such as the recommended 2002 publication of Antony Beevor's The Fall of Berlin 1945, but this is the one history book on it all. Considering how the events covered set up the modern world, this should be essential reading for everyone on the planet.
I see that this is the first review for the hardcopy version of the book, which is the version of the text that I have. Those wanting to read other reviews should go to the paperback version site.
Book Description
A chilling memoir by the head of Hitler's Foreign Intelligence Service-the only SS-man to describe the inner workings of the Nazi bureaucracy
This unique account of Hitler's corrupt regime illuminates more vividly than any other the deepening atmosphere of terror and unreality in which the Nazi leadership lived as the war progressed. Schellenberg recounts with firsthand knowledge the motivations and machinations surrounding the Nazi Army's every move in Poland, Austria, and Russia. But this remarkable inside account is perhaps most memorable for its riveting portraits of Reinhard Heydrich, Heinrich Himmler, Heinrich Mueller, Ernst Kaltenbrunner-men whom Schellenberg calls, with stunning lack of irony,"Hitler's willing executioners."
"[Schellenberg's] lack of self-consciousness, damning as a revelation of character, makes him the more valuable as an historical witness." -Alan Bullock
"The interest of this book lies in the rich assortment of 'cloak and dagger' stories, some of them so fantastic that they could only have taken place in the loony world of the Nazis, and in the picture of the sinister, bloodthirsty world of the Gestapo." -William L. Shirer
Customer Reviews:
Good but he keeps his nose clean.......2007-10-12
Its a well written easy to follow book about Walter Schellenberg the head of counter intelligence in the SS, he gives good details about a number of operations he took part in but their is limited details on a number of things such as concentration camps, death squads and July 20 plot.
History from someone who was there at the highets level.......2005-09-14
Since Mr. Schellenberg was a high ranking nazi you have to be aware that he has to have been covering his own tracks. Lets be honest he had to walk a fine line between the complete truth and perhaps a noose. We can assume he stretches the truth a bit here and there and surely omits things he'd rather not have known. But it is fasinating to learn what it was like being as close as he was to Himmler, Hitler and the rest of the nazi leadership. We learn that even someone as high up as Shellenberg was spied on by his fellow nazis. Even someone at his level had to watch his back.
A Historical Polaroid. .......2005-01-05
This is an amazing testimonial about life within the NAZI German rogue state. Schellenberg's confessional documents the attempts by one man to put together an intricate secret service on the behalf of his totalitarian benefactors. His tales are rather bewildering and one is grateful that he had the time with which to memorialize his deeds in print before he died. Ultimately his organization became extensive but paled in comparison to that of the Soviets.
Indeed, The Labyrinth also tells us much about the Soviet Union as their espionage links were so established that Schellenberg, in a country where he could randomly assasinate nearly anyone that he wished, was unable to completely disable the transmitters of the Rote Kapelle (Red Chapel).
To me, the most valuable thing about the book is the historical primary source information it provides. These prose portraits of Hitler, Himmler, Heydrich, Canaris, Ribbentropp and Kaltenbrunner are quite thorough and illuminating. Schellenberg has many useful insights about human nature that he shares as well.
The only reservation I had is that the narrator seems to be putting forth a sugar coated version of himself in its pages. This appeared to me to be a final bit of misinformation before death. His self-description is highly non-ideological and one feels as if they are being played while reading it. He really portrays himself as a highly humane individual who is an outsider within this criminal regime. His SS ranking of Brigadefueher belied such a conclusion.
The book of a master of deception.......2003-02-26
Walter Schellenberg, -the closest friend of Reinhard Heydrich, an intimate of Himmler- was an "idea man" for both and his career sky-rocketted to make him the youngest SS General. How are we expected to believe that he had nothing to do with the mass murdering of Jewish people?
Isn't he the one, who, on May 20 1941, ordered to stop the emigrations of Jewish people from France and Belgium, being the first to refer to the coming "Final Solution" of the Jewish problem... Well, you will not find this in his Memoirs, and neither in the US archives on Walter Schellenberg which have just been declassified (1999, 2000, 2001 and 2002) and even less in the British archives which have not been declassified.
Thanks to a plea bargain with the British, owing to the Allies desire to conceal that the duke of Windsor (former king Edward VIII) and Wallis Simpson (his wife) were Nazi spies, Walter Schellenberg's history was rewritten with the help of his western Allies investigators.
Schellenberg was given the time to prepare his defense in Sweden with Himmler's chyropractor, Felix Kersten, to be later acting as a defense witness. Thus, through the "Troza Memoradum" then written by Schellenberg, Felix Kersten was informed of how he had to adapt the "notiezen" which would be used for writing his own Memoirs. This avoided him of being convicted and helped saving his Gestapo accomplice.
Walter Schellenberg had attempted more negotiations for a separate peace witht the west than anybody else event if he was carrying them out not for a return to democracy but only for replacing Hitler by Himmler. Even this part is misinformation.
Schellenberg in fact was just an agent-provocateur, who infiltrated every treason attempt against the nazis. It did cost, at Venlo, Menzies and Dansey (heads of the British IS) their spy network in continental Europe.
During the war it only costed Himmler the life saving of a couple of Swedish jews, and, at the very end of the war, a train of 1200 Jewish persons which were about to be liberated by the Allies: for this "Musy train" negotiations had been dragging since June 1944 (almost one full year) but were arranged in a matter of days when it became strategic for Himmler.
Schellenberg worked as a chief of the Gestapo Office E, before directing (only for two and a half year) the political espionage of the Nazi Security Service. After the von Stauffenberg attempt against Hitler (which he and Himmler had fully penetrated) he also gained full control over the military espionage. Naturally the Memoirs loose the reader in the Labyrinth of the spy stories to avoid him getting to the Minotaur of the Holocaust. Wasn't the Minotaur symbolically representing the guilt of King Minos of Crete?
Schellenberg's Memoirs duly called the Labyrinth are full of silence and subtle lies, well wrapped up in true fascinating but misleading spy stories.
Unfortunately lots of historians did base other analysis on this twisted and biased account written by one of the nazi monster.
To be read with more than caution as, contrary to what the investigators claimed, the author is extremely clever. Their statement about his alleged lack of intelligence was only aiming at covering the holes left in their own investigation, and at hiding some inconsistencies in their presentation.
This book doesn't supply any answers but it raises a huge number of questions for the knowlegeable historian.
One day someone will use the Ariadne thread to find the proven way to the Minotaur and fly above the intricacies of the Labyrinth with wings that the sun will not melt down.
Schellenberg - A master in deceipt.......2002-12-30
I've been studying the American, British and German archives and testimonies about Walter Schellenberg for the last ten years. His memoirs are a masterpiece... in deception. The book aims at focusing attention on spy stories and personal stories concerning Hitler, Himmler and Heydrich (most of the times totally twisted but never totally factually false). Yet he would not have become the youngest SS general just on the accounts of his failed spying attempts that he very subtely describes in his book (omitting he had a heart attack at the only successful one). Readers should know that he was one of the originators of the Einsatzgruppen who shot millions of men, women and children behind the Eastern European front. He did play a part in the organization of the emigration of rich Jewish persons after they had been so heavily ransomed that they were basically left with their lives. He basically was the recognized idea man behind Heydrich (the worst of the worst) and Himmler. A letter signed by him demonstrates that he was working on the Final Solution of the Jewish Problem before May 20th 1941 (the Wannsee conference -where Heydrich announced it- would only come on January 1942) He favored the massacre of Jews (namely in Hungaria) to have something to exchange with the allies for peace negotiations allgedly preparing an alliance against the Soviet Union. He managed to go through Nurenberg by dealing with the American juges and the British Secret services and lying to them about the were-wolfes and the Alpine Reduit, which never existed. He was helped by charging some other major criminal when other evidences were inconclusive (Kaltenbrunner). He sprinkles his book with reference to a few Jewish persons (Portugal) or to Kersten (Himmler's chyropractor) who occasonally helped Jewish families to be saved. He used his negotiation attempts as if they were political and humanitarian (for historical practical reasons, the allies acted as if they believed it). To crown everything, he may have been [the young] "Werther", the soviet spymaster who had access to Hitler's most secret military plans and transmitted them, unpunished, daily from Berlin (he supported and save several times his adjutant Stirlitz really a Soviet agent, Colonel Maksim Maksimovich Isaev, who had infiltrated the SD): after all he was the head of the counter-intelligence. Naturally he did put historians on a false track inducing that H. Mueller (head of Gestapo) had turned into a communist. This book is very dangerous for historians as many massively quoted it, taking it at face value: these memoirs are one of the first real successful attempts at what is now called desinformation. It is done intelligently, with charm, making it all the more ambiguous. The other reviews here demonstrate how successful Schellenberg was, but he was one of the most cynical murderers of the time: he invented the solutions to Heydrich, Hitler and Himmler's problems and had others doing the dirty work to keep his hands clean and collecting the rewards of his murderous masters. Don't forget that this book was written after Nurenberg to clean his past preparing his future career. Fortunately there is a form of justice and he died from a liver cancer convinced that he was being poisoned by the British. Readers should remember that Bin Laden's September 11th is a (macabre) joke compared to what this guy invented.
Average customer rating:
- good stuff!
- A much wider review of nazi propaganda than swing music.
- The book is semi-informative, but the CD rocks!
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Hitler's Airwaves: The Inside Story of Nazi Radio Broadcasting and Propaganda Swing
Horst J. P. Bergmeier , and
Rainer E. Lotz
Manufacturer: Yale University Press
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Book Description
This book tells the remarkable story of Germany`s World War II English language propaganda broadcasting operation and the swing band it used to send subversive American jazz and swing music over the airwaves to Allied listeners around the world. Bergmeier and Lotz provide the definitive account of the range and ingenuity of Nazi radio public relations, along with a full-length CD featuring rare tracks of the jazz propaganda classics.
Customer Reviews:
good stuff!.......2002-05-02
this book is really interesting... particularly if you're doing a project on propaganda or nazis. It gives insight on often neglected areas of politics- music. The accompanying CD is also a plus. The songs are really interesting (if sometimes distasteful).
A much wider review of nazi propaganda than swing music........1999-09-02
Overtly this is an account of radio jazz and popular music broadcast to Britain and US between 1939 and 1945. It is indeed an excellently researched analysis of how Goebbels' ministry sought, and failed, to undermine the enemy war effort by tuneful propaganda. The accompanying musical CD, featuring "Charlie" and his Orchestra, says it all and additionally includes some choice bits by William Joyce or Lord Haw Haw, including his final broadcast from Hamburg when he was plainly drunk at the microphone. The book also contains much insightful information on other radio traitors such as John Amery, Axis Sally (Mildred Gillars) and the American, Robert Best, who canvassed from Berlin his own candidacy against President Roosevelt in the 1944 election. There is much new material in this book both about musical swing and the traitors in general. It really gets under the surface of an obscure world war two subject. The CD itself is a real hoot!
The book is semi-informative, but the CD rocks!.......1999-01-02
Actually, I didn't much like the book--it was pretty much like a series of encyclopedia articles on the greats of Nazi propaganda, but the CD was truly hilarious. My (teenage) children couldn't understand the point of any of the songs, but I was singing "Let's go bombing, let's go bombing, like United Nations airmen do..." all next week.
Amazon.com
This chronicle of German resistance begins in 1933 with the torching of the Reichstag and ends with a bang--literally--in 1944 with a failed bomb plot to knock off the Fuehrer. Hans B. Gisevius was an observer and participant in these events, working to undermine the Nazi regime from within (he served in German counter- intelligence). All along, he considered himself a patriot, even though this book contains a ringing condemnation of the German people for their complicity in Hitler's wicked regime. To the Bitter End was written practically as events unfolded, smuggled out of Germany in portions because Gisevius wasn't sure he would live to complete it, and first published in 1946. It offers a firsthand account of Nazi Germany and the various underground efforts to prevent Hitler from doing what he ultimately did. Gisevius may not have earned credit for halting the tragedy, but he does offer today's readers important lessons about the nature of dictatorship and the seductive powers of evil. Allen Dulles, who played a small role in helping Gisevius escape from Germany after the failed assassination, wrote the foreword. --John J. Miller
Customer Reviews:
A valuable testimony for a troubled era.......2007-01-09
An interesting account by someone who was on or close to the stage.Such testimonies become more rare as the time passes.Many details of the epoch come alive with a present day quality.I would recommend the book to those interested in the era.
The 'Other' Gestapo during WWII.......2001-09-09
A towering achievement. The first fifth of the book passes through a dream-like state while sweeping and surreptitious changes take place in the police forces, the national government, the propaganda movements, the press, the ministries, the military. This book presents things about Germany that are normally not considered. Most Americans probably think that Germany was an idealistic war machine in the 1940s: with one mind, one head, one purpose. Not so. The author begins in 1933 as a new attache in the newly-formed Gestapo. Immediately things begin to go awry. New changes come down, rumors abound, mistrust fosters mistrust. In his own building and everyday workplace, his own boss tells him to take the staircase at the wall-side rather than near the railing, as this would expose him to sniper fire from a vantage point higher in the stairwell. No one walks across the hall to clean his face without phoning a colleague on such a "dangerous enterprise." After these initial scenes, the author travels "outside" of government circles but remains in close contact with the major players plotting to overthrow the Fuehrer. He recounts across the years how the church was subdued, how the German people were "assisted" in imagining that things were working out, that propaganda helped to pave the way for even greater excesses, even how the generals were quailed (these last were long thought to be the last hope). The book is terrific in that it follows an agent in actual work, sifting through facts, talking clandestinely with associates, plotting an important life-or-death struggle to overthrow the Monster. Never knowing who to trust, never knowing what is coming next, never knowing when the bullet will come -- these are momentous and continuing features with which we have to deal. That the author survived as early as 1934 is remarkable. That he lived through the failed assassination attempt and the subsequent purges is incredible. A must read for WWII buffs, this highly readable text is a testament to those Germans working for sound government, healthy industry and a stable German society. An excellent book!
The Good that Lurked inside the Nazi Empire.......2000-06-09
To get top of the heap, and to start a war, and to institute Death Camps for Jews and other undesirables, Hitler had to leave many corpses. Among this carnage are the dead bodies of some of Germany's Finest People. If there was any GOOD person more knowledgeable about where the corpses were buried, it was SS Agent H.B. Gisivius, who was also an insider in the tragically unsucessful attempts to get rid of Hitler. Agent Gisivius also distinguished himself as a witness at Nuremberg with his testimony that enraged Herman Goering, the same Goering that was able to frustrate Supreme Court Justice Jackson's prosecution efforts. Gisivius goes though several adventures, from the Nazi Regime's bloody beginnings, to his transfer to the Abwehr [German Military Intelligence] under Canaris, to the frustrating attempts to get rid of Hitler, often interrupted by the major events of the war, and the lawless antics of Nazi Functionaries (including the embarrassing trials that took place for the Reichstagg Fire). Gisivius was a Witness, and like Historian Procopius, who tried to do GOOD in the Midst of EVIL, and He lived to tell about it!
Firstly, Hitler was a constitutional scholar, not in the sense that Thomas Jefferson was, but in the same sense that Houdini was a Locksmith. Hitler reasoned that the Law of the Land was what the Police enforced. His partners, Goering, Frick, Bormann, Hess, Rohm, and later Himmler, proceeded to build the Gestapo, which they eventually integrated into the Police. The SA acted independantly, starting their own private concentration camps. A power struggle broke out for control of the Police which Gisivius describes in detail with black humor. The result was the Night of the Long Knives, where SA Chief Rohm perished and Himmler gets control of the Gestapo. Meanwhile,Goering uses his special units to end the SA private concentration camps with his own special purge (Goering wanted no competition). In its first months, the Nazi Regime has already shot a Mountain of Corpses.
It was frustrating work to bring about the end of the Nazi Regime. Hitler, when he was in the deepest of doodoo (as in the Reichstagg Fire Trial) was able to pull off some magic trick to put himself back into a favorable light, be it the Annexation of Austria, the Occupation of the Rhineland (where he narrowly missed being declared insane), the annexation of Czechoslocakia, Poland, and the Russian Front. Hitler, had he passed from the scene during his pinicle after the Annexation of Czechoslavakia, would have been known as the Greatest german Statesman of All Time, and would have been the Supreme Proof that "Character DOES NOT Matter". Instead, Hitler stayed on and things turned sour by degrees, and it took till 1944 before things got bad enough for Assassination Atempts to become sufficiently daring to recieve notice. (Granted, the March 1943 attempt happened, but those in the know did not talk about it. It was so secret, even Hitler did not know!). Hitler was certainly protected by his own Guardian Devil!
The Big Day approaches! We must get rid of Hitler. The German Resistance meets for one last time before it happens. (The German Resistance were certainly a cut above the average Resistance Movement. In the French Resistance, you only had to worry about an interrogation [you did your duty if you lasted 24 hours] and a speedy execution, with some hope of release. The German Resistance, on the other hand, had secrets that had to be kept for months! No quick execution by pistol either! These guys died by long messy execution by piano wire at the end of a Meat Hook! Look up Fritz Nova's book for the biographys of the July 20th Martyrs to get into the details.) They argue and dissent! Stauffenberg delays and delays, with the hope of getting Hitler, Himmler, and Goering in one fell swoop. Leber has been arrested and is about to be shot, whom Stauffenberg wishes to save as a consequence of his tyrannicide. Staufenberg can delay no longer and the bomb goes off!
The Abwehr acts with Operation Valkyrie, or does it? When Gisivius sees that the dawdling that ensues will come to naught, he looks up his friend, Police President von Heldorf and attempts to abscound. Tragicommically, his attempts to leave the country are frustrated. The Good News is that Gisivius'es hous has been bombed, making it an excellent hiding place for the duration of the war. Finally, the Allies escort him out of Germany as Germany perishes in flames.
This is not a book for the weak of stomach! It is a study of Tyranny. Fritz von Hayek's Road to Serfdom had already been published in 1944, but doubtless, had Gisivius and Hayek had ever met, the von Hayek chapters on German and Austrian History would have been thicker. This book deserves to be a contender for the top 100 Great Books of All Times, and is Certainly worth the trouble to read.
Book Description
The Nazis never won a majority in free elections, but soon after Hitler took power most people turned away from democracy and backed the Nazi regime. Hitler won growing support even as he established the secret police (Gestapo) and concentration camps. What has been in dispute for over fifty years is what the Germans knew about these camps, and in what ways were they involved in the persecution of 'race enemies', slave workers, and social outsiders. To answer these questions, and to explore the public sides of Nazi persecution, Robert Gellately has consulted an array of primary documents. He argues that the Nazis did not cloak their radical approaches to 'law and order' in utter secrecy, but played them up in the press and loudly proclaimed the superiority of their system over all others. They publicized their views by drawing on popular images, cherished German ideals and long held phobias, and were able to win over converts to their cause. The author traces the story from 1933, and shows how war and especially the prospect of defeat radicalized Nazism. As the country spiralled toward defeat, Germans for the most part held on stubbornly. For anyone who contemplated surrender or resistance, terror became the order of the day.
Customer Reviews:
The last nail in the coffin of the 'good German'.......2007-03-31
There is no point, at this late date, for retelling German horrors, unless the retelling provides an insight into what was behind them. This Robert Gellately's "Backing Hitler" does, successfully but in irritating fashion.
He also adds some new information not used by earlier historians, from newspapers and Gestapo files.
For a long generation after 1945, most reports of German atrocity, if they tried to maintain any balance at all, just threw up their hands and asked "How could this have happened?" Stated or implied was a caveat: Germans were human beings, too, so this inhuman behavior could not really be explained.
Few indeed turned that conundrum on its head to propose that Germans were not humans, at least not humans advanced out of savagery. It was scarcely 10 years ago when Daniel Jonah Goldhagen seriously suggested, in "Hitler's Willing Executioners," that savagery ran deep and true in Germans. The outrage that greeted Goldhagen's book was, in the most charitable light, testimony to the reluctance of most people to think anybody could sink so low as Goldhagen sank the Germans.
Less charitable commentators, like me, saw the antagonism to Goldhagen as the late 20th century expression of 1930s appeasers who declared that Germany could not be nearly as bad as its enemies portrayed it, because Germans had written so much lovely music. This infantile outlook has been all too powerful in the historiography of the Hitler era.
Gellately knocks the idea in the head, stuns it and drags it off to history's towering scrapheap of silly ideas. "The great majority of the German people soon became devoted to Hitler and they supported him to the bitter end in 1945" sums the findings.
One myth is easily disposed of: the claim that the "good Germans" were unaware of what the Nazis were up to. Gellately finds front page stories in mass circulation newspapers and magazines in which the German public was told about the concentration camps, from the start of Hitler's regime, and told that they were a good thing -- originally to dispose of "Communists." Some Communists were indeed disposed of, along with, as time passed, an expanding menagerie of unGermans: Gypsies, drunkards, the mentally ill or physically handicapped, even a few Catholic priests who, although the Roman church got on well with Hitler, persisted in a sentimental appreciation for the Catholic Center Party.
The German version of the Gallup Poll, the Gestapo listeners-in, found that the good Germans massively approved of it. The village of Heuberg preferred to have a concentration camp nearby because it displaced a children's home, which the Heubergers found offensive.
Really, it is hard for civilized people to comprehend, much less understand, how German the Germans were. Gellately doesn't make it much easier. The first half of "Backing Hitler" is mostly a recapitulation of atrocities that are well known already to anybody who has studied Hitlerism.
Also, he fails to make the crucial distinction between German love of Hitler and love of Hitlerism. Not all Germans loved Hitler, even if most did. The social elite despised him as a common Austrian who spoke German with a hick accent. They sat around, drinking stolen wine and whispering to each other how Germany would be better off without that schwein. Not without his policies, which satisfied them very well, just without the individual.
In the second half of the book, the pace picks up and Gellately summarizes dozens and hundreds of examples of how ordinary Germans cooperated with the regime. The police state could not have operated without that. There were never more than 7,000 Gestapo men in Germany, a nation of nearly 70 million. Any medium-size American city has more cops.
There were other police, the uniformed Order Police, the detectives or Kriminal Police, and the rural constables, but for a police state Germany had remarkably few cops. (During the war there were plenty of German cops in the conquered lands, but Gellately explicitly limits his history to Germany proper.)
The argument of "Backing Hitler" is powerfully persuasive. It offers to English readers a taste of what a new generation of German historians has produced at home, although their books have not generally been translated into English.
Now the bad word. Gellately is a scholar, but practically illiterate. "Backing Hitler" was not edited or even proof-read. In general, the sense of Gellately's sentences is clear, although there are a few exceptions, but the book is an agony to read.
Nevertheless, it should be read, at least until a better version of the same facts is given us by a better writer.
Fantastic history of National Socialist Germany.......2006-12-16
Traditionally, I have read books on American history rather than European history, but this one caught my eye because of the premise - that ordinary Germans played a role in enforcing Hitler's mandates of Aryan supremacy.
Backing Hitler: Consent & Coercion in nazi Germany is a thought-provoking book that looks at ordinary German citizens and their involvement in the governmental policies of forcing "racial purity". By examining the police (both ordinary uniformed police and undercover officers), Gellately has given us a view into Hitler's Germany that hasn't been explored much before.
Gellately explored the police and contends that ordinary people made up the police force and were consentually backing Hitler's policies. These people opted to enforce the policies, regardless of whether they felt that the policies were right because their personal experiences told them so or that the propaganda won them over. The folks that were coerced into compliance were often herded into concentration camps such as Auschwitz or Dachau.
The concepts in the book are well argued, though it appears that the author is not overly familiar with all of the rules of English grammar (i.e. placement of commas, etc.), thus making the book a touch more difficult to read, but it is a book that really should be on your list if you are interested in German history between 1933-1945.
How The Germans Accepted Nazism And Hitler.......2002-12-28
Robert Gellately's "Backing Hitler" may be the most thought provoking, extensive study as to how and why the German people ultimately embraced both Nazism and Adolf Hitler during the course of the Great Depression and World War II. Gellately makes the startling claim that most Germans were aware of Nazi atrocities - though not necessarily the worst - and yet found them tolerable as a means to combat crime. Indeed, he notes how Germans embraced Nazism as a succesful antidote to the financial and cultural corruption they'd seen in the 1920's and early 1930's during the Weimar Republic. With the notable exception of the Holocaust, Nazi goverment officials and agencies such as the Gestapo and the SS did not hide the existence of concentration camps and torture from the general public, but instead, allowed them to be published both in Nazi popular journals and daily newspapers (And the Holocaust itself was not hidden, except for its most virulent, deadly phases, in which Jews were dealt with via "special handling", the Nazi euphemism for genocide.). Only towards the end, during the final months and weeks of the war, did the German public see the most brutal aspects of the Nazi regime. Yet surprisingly, many Germans continued to support the regime until the very end. Gellately's premise may seem unoriginal in light of Daniel Goldhagen's popular book indicting the entire German nation for the Holocaust, yet unlike Goldhagen, Gellately offers substantially more persuasive evidence to demonstrate how a social consensus was reached within German society in support of the Nazi regime. Gellately's book may be the seminal work looking at how the Nazis successfully used the media in disseminating their philosophy to Germany.
Interesting and Thought Provoking.......2002-06-07
Backing Hitler: Consent and Coercion in Nazi Germany by Robert Gellately is a interesting and thought provoking study of what the German people knew and when they know it. Gellately does a fine job delving through the historical achieves, especially old newspapers, to give the reader an insight into what information was available to the German public.
What is fascinating about the book is the insight which the author only touches on concerning the need of the Nazi Government to form firm a basis of popular support and their decision to take drastic steps to insure that the support did not falter. While the Nazi could act with ruthlessness maybe only equaled by Stalin in dealing with foreigners or subhumans, when it came to its reflation with its Aryan brethren, the Nazis were sure to only go as far as they believed that their policies would be accepted. While this limitation may have ceased with the end of the war, it does not mitigate against the fact that the German public by backing the main polices of Nazism facilitated the regimes evils deeds.
The fact that the Nazi publicized the formation of the concentration camps and the marginalization of the Jews and Gypsies speaks volumes about the anticipated public reaction. Gellately points out that most Germans saw these steps as part of the larger Nazi law and order campaign as well as moving Germany toward a more wholesome future. What is terrifying about the book is not only that the German public bought in to the Nazi propaganda, but the chance that if they had not that millions upon millions of people might have lived through the war.
The down side of the book is that at times it is repetitions and it could have used a good editing. The subject matter is dense, but that may not have been able ti be avoided. This is an important book, and even with the above limitations it is a worthwhile read.
Interesting Mess.......2001-12-13
I looked forward to reading this volume with great anticipation. Unfortunately, I was disappointed. While the subject matter is certainly interesting, the editing (or lack thereof) is so unacceptable as to make several lengthy passages almost completely unintelligible. For my money, "Hitler's Willing Executioners", which covers the same topic, is much more well-constructed, if a bit dry at times.
Book Description
As the Cold War followed on the heels of the Second World War, as the Nuremburg Trials faded in the shadow of the Iron Curtain, both the Germans and the West were quick to accept the idea that Hitler's army had been no SS, no Gestapo, that it was a professional force little touched by Nazi politics. But in this compelling account Omer Bartov reveals a very different history, as he probes the experience of the average soldier to show just how thoroughly Nazi ideology permeated the army. In Hitler's Army, Bartov focuses on the titanic struggle between Germany and the Soviet Union--where the vast majority of German troops fought--to show how the savagery of war reshaped the army in Hitler's image. Both brutalized and brutalizing, these soldiers needed to see their bitter sacrifices as noble patriotism and to justify their own atrocities by seeing their victims as subhuman. In the unprecedented ferocity and catastrophic losses of the Eastrn front, he writes, soldiers embraced the idea that the war was a defense of civilization against Jewish/Bolshevik barbarism, a war of racial survival to be waged at all costs. Bartov describes the incredible scale and destruction of the invasion of Russia in horrific detail. Even in the first months--often depicted as a time of easy victories--undermanned and ill-equipped German units were stretched to the breaking point by vast distances and bitter Soviet resistance. Facing scarce supplies and enormous casualties, the average soldier sank to ta a primitive level of existence, re-experiencing the trench warfare of World War I under the most extreme weather conditions imaginable; the fighting itself was savage, and massacres of prisoners were common. Troops looted food and supplies from civilians with wild abandon; they mercilessly wiped out villages suspected of aiding partisans. Incredible losses led to recruits being thrown together in units that once had been filled with men from the same communities, making Nazi ideology even more important as a binding force. And they were further brutalized by a military justice system that executed almost 15,000 German soldiers during the war. Bartov goes on to explore letters, diaries, military reports, and other sources, showing how widespread Hitler's views became among common fighting men--men who grew up, he reminds us, under the Nazi regime. In the end, they truly became Hitler's army. In six years of warfare, the vast majority of German men passed through the Wehrmacht and almost every family had a relative who fought in the East. Bartov's powerful new account of how deeply Nazi ideology penetrated the army sheds new light on how deeply it penetrated the nation. Hitler's Army makes an important correction not merely to the historical record but to how we see the world today.
Customer Reviews:
Poorly researched, Flawed Methodology, Sweeping generalizations, .......2006-12-04
It seems like Bartov decided upon the results of his research first, then cherry-picked whatever sources he could find to "demonstrate" that the Wehrmacht became "nazified". He makes sweeping generalisations based upon flimsy evidence and poor logic, then expands upon the results to make even more flawed conclusions.
For an excellent critique, see
[...]
unconvincing and too long.......2006-05-26
The book is actually rather short, less than 200 pages. But the book might have been better received by me if it were an article. First off, Bartov includes too many sources and excerpts most of which demonstrate the same point, over and over. Additionally most of the excerpts were not necessarily of exception quality, which meant the reader reads account after account of the same type of entries about ideology or the horror of war. At one point, it was just better to read only one excerpt and skip the rest.
Bartov also just simply doesn't convince me of his thesis. In the last three chapters, there were so many excerpts I simply forgot what he was trying to prove. And when he did go back to his ideas, he would suddenly make, in my opinion, great leaps of logic. After a few excepts he might say something like, that demonstrated that the soldiers were completely indoctrinated in Nazi ideology. Well, I'm not so convinced because even though they were fed propaganda, who is to say they didn't already have their predispositions and prejudices against "jewish bolschevism," before joining the army, and more importantly, before Hitler even came to power? He also concludes at the end that the Germans removed themselves from hitler and made themselves victims and that, so-to-speak, "others" committed the crimes of WWII, whether it be on the east front or Holocaust. Regardless of whether or not that's true, the conclusion came seemingly out of nowhere and I have a hard time believing his statement, because he doesn't explain it. He doesn't explain how they remove themselves, etc.
Lastly, this is probably just a pet peeve, but I hate how random german words pop up in excerpts and in the text that aren't translated, but others are. He talks about an author having heard a veteran in a "german Kneipe," but didn't bother translating it to bar. Or in my translated texts, he leaves some german phrases in brackets. I just find it redundant and at the very least, inconsistent.
The first chapter, however, is a rather good description of "demodernization on the front," and worth reading. The rest of it is rather, mediocre.
The worst book I ever read about the Wehrmacht.......2006-03-03
Bartovs dubious method to prove that the German soldiers were influenced by Nazi-Ideology by using letters which were edited by the german Ministry of Propaganda (!!!!), isn't a serious scientific method. He selects his sources with view to his wished findings and ignores many other, more scientific editions of letters of German soldiers, because they would contradict his theories.
In some cases he has interesting ideas, but he can't prove them by sources. In general he simplifies to much and doesn't try to get a more differentiated view.
There are much better books which fulfil scientific claims, like the books of Wolfram Wette, Harald Welzer, Hannes Heer and Gerd Ueberschär - but they aren't translated up to now. Maybe "The War behind the Eastern Front" from Alexander Hill is an alternative.
Interesting if at times bland.......2006-02-19
Bartov's book focuses on the German Army fighting on the Eastern Front. Bartov challenges the previous, although outdated, thought that the German military was apolitical and a wholly professional fighting force. The author points out that the Army was eventually molded in Hitler's image, with the army eventually seeing the war as a fight to defend German civilization from Jews and Bolsheviks. Although I don't agree with every little detail of the book, it is very interesting. The only downfall is that Bartov does tend to repeat himself and that the book can be dry at times. Still, though, it is worth a read.
Absorbing and Thoughtful Book On Eastern Front!.......2002-09-27
One of the most troubling and horrific aspects of the four-year long Eastern campaign begun in June 1941 by the Germans is the effect it had on their soldiers, who were pounded mercilessly by the evolving circumstances of the battle month after month along a thousand mile front. When that front gradually turned into a quicksilver panorama of different conflicts in quick succession over a variety of terrain, against an ever-changing cast of millions of Russian soldiers, the war became a living hell for the foot soldier of the Wehrmacht.
In this excellent exposition by Harvard fellow Bartov, the focus remains on the nature of the blood-thirsty struggle between the forces of the Wehrmacht on the one hand, and their seemingly indefatiguable Soviet opponents on the other. From the beginning the Germans were horrified by the fighting ferocity of their foes, who would fight literally until they were dead, who seldom surrendered, and who seemed propelled by an energy and life-force quite unlike anything the Germans had witnessed up to that point. They would fight until the ammunition was exhausted, and then fight on with fixed bayonets, with swords, and with knives, hand to hand, until they were all dead.
Of course, the Germans were no strangers to savage warfare, and had been forged in the crucible of prior conflicts into a rugged hardiness that made them formidable foes indeed. Yet they were singularly unprepared for the energy and determination the Russians showed them at every turn. The experience was quite educational, and made the Germans even more savage in their own execution of the war. Given the long chain for logistics support and the elusive nature of the much-hoped for collapse of the Soviet Army and a subsequent capitulation by the communist regime, the average German foot soldier found himself forced to commit his own series of personal day to day atrocities just to survive in the harsh and unforgiving winter conditions of rural, agrarian Russia.
This tome is an explorations of the depths of depravity and savage circumstances the German soldier found himself subjected to, and how this experience molded him more and more into the shape of the Hitlerian conception of the Eastern war as a war for the survival of the Aryan race against the sub-human Slavic hordes. Seen in this way, the German soldier fought for the survival not of himself and his comrades, but for the survival of the German race as well. Given the extraordinary set of existential circumstances present, it is not hard to understand how Hitler's world view and his racist ideas eventually became so widespread and so fervently believed among the German troops along the Eastern front. Stripped of their original comrades, and thrown together into a constantly changing set of organizations with an ever-changing cast of individual players, 0ne found oneself more and more hypnotized by the facile rhetoric and actions of the Third Reich. This is an absorbing and thought-provoking book, and one I am sure you will take pleasure in reading. Enjoy!
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