Book Description
During and following WWII, a special multinational group of more than 350 men and women served behind enemy lines and joined frontline military units to ensure the preservation, protection, liberation and restitution of the world's greatest artistic and cultural treasures. This "band of unsung heroes," formally referred to as the Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives (MFAA) section, or commonly referred to as the "Monuments Men," worked tirelessly to track down, identify and catalogue millions of priceless works of art and irreplaceable cultural artifacts, including masterpieces by Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Rembrandt and Vermeer, that had been stolen by Hitler and the Nazis.
The story of the Monuments Men, including their heroics and exploits in rescuing and safeguarding many of the world's greatest artworks for the benefit of mankind, has never before been fully revealed until now, with the publication of
Rescuing Da Vinci, an exhaustively researched historical account written by Robert M. Edsel. Mr. Edsel can best be described as a successful athlete and business entrepreneur turned modern day "Indiana Jones." Mr. Edsel has dedicated the last five years of his life to painstaking and far-reaching research to unravel the secrets of the Monuments Men and, in so doing, to make the world aware of their unprecedented contributions, both during and after WWII, and to ensure that these unsung heroes receive appropriate recognition from the United States government, as well as the broad public.
The detailed documentation, inventories and photographs developed and catalogued by the Monuments Men during and following World War II, have made possible, and continue to make possible, the restitution of stolen artworks of to rightful owners and their descendents. Long after WWII, many Monuments Men went on to become renowned directors and curators of preeminent international cultural institutions, including the National Gallery of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Toledo Museum of Art and the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, among many others, as well as professors at esteemed universities such as Harvard, Yale, Princeton, New York University, Williams College and Columbia University. Others became founders, presidents, and members of associations such as the New York City Ballet, the American Museum Association, the American Association of Museum Directors, the Archaeological Institute of America, the Society of Architectural Historians, the American Society of Landscape Architects, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as respected architects, archivists, artists and musicians.
"Mr. Edsel's book is captivating in several respects, from the graphic, garish reminders of the faces of the great plunderers, to the singular beauty of the art they sought to steal. And it is a high and overdue memorial to the "Monuments Men," who did the herculean job of tracking down and repatriating the great art." -- William F. Buckley Jr.
Customer Reviews:
A wonderful book.......2007-10-09
This book shows and tells another side of war. It is the story told in picture of Hitler and his Nazi thugs pillaging Europe and stealing priceless art objects, painting, statures, books, even ancient scrolls then hiding them in caves and bunkers in Germany. What I loved about this book were the photos of US Army units rescuing those stolen art treasures then returned them to the towns, churches and cities. The author has done an exemplary job of finding photos and stories which has made this an important work. Photos I've never seen and story I have never heard about. I think this book needs to be in every high school library in the country. Students need to be shown how our American Army worked to recover all this lost art. His book made me proud to have serviced in the US army.
Thank you for writing this book
SPOILS OF WAR.......2007-09-21
This is one of the most fascinating books i have ever read. The period images are amazing, just the photo of italian masons bricking up Michaelangelo's iconic David is worth the purchase. After reading this book I was stunned that so few art treasures were destroyed. I had no idea that much of the treasures at the National Gallery of Art in D.C. was stored at Biltmore because of its remote setting. I was also blown away to see the images of workman removing winged victory from the Louvre, I just had no idea all of this went on leading up to the war and during the war. The German pillaging of the great European art treasures is disgusting of course, especially the art they looted from the weathy Jewry like the Rothchilds and others, some of which even to this day are trying to get back art work that is rightly theirs. I highly recommend this great book to anyone interested in art, history, art history, or frankly has an inquisive mind. I want to thank the authors for a job well done.
What were they thinking!!.......2007-08-10
This was a fascinating and disturbing account of the massive Nazi looting and subsequent recovery by the Allies. It is a story told mostly by pictures to the tune of about 20 pages of pictures for each page of print. It is promoted by the publisher as the biggest non-told story of WWII and he might be right; it diminished the German war effort and probably shortened the War. It was also about the massive and admirable effort by the so-called Allied `Monuments Men' to recover and redistribute the loot back to their rightful owners after the War.
Germany stole millions of art objects from occupied countries, and even from its own ally Italy, on the pretext of saving it from the `barbarian' invaders from the West. Monuments weighing tons, like the `Burghers of Calais' from France and the `Winged Lion' from atop the column in Florence's San Martin Square, were somehow lifted and hauled away. Also, 5000 church bells were stolen from Europe and 300 trolley cars were removed from Amsterdam. In short, they looted everything they could get their hands on, and they were good at it. There are good pictures of the bells and the trolley cars.
In Slavic countries such as Russia and Poland, the plundering was accompanied by an attempted systematic destruction of the culture itself; `inferior races' in Hitler's mind didn't deserve a history. The siege of Russia was particularly bad; 6000 hospitals were destroyed, and 86,000 elementary and secondary schools were destroyed. Decency had taken a long vacation in Germany.
Hitler was a master at destroying things. He destroyed a lot of Europe and Russia, and even extended his `scorched earth' policy to his own country when Germany was near defeat. Thankfully, that order was not faithfully carried out.
How could a country justify destroying the culture of another country? What were the people of Germany thinking when they elected this maniac as Chancellor in the 1930's? Why did they blindly follow him?
What were they thinking!!
I recommend this book.......2007-05-13
If you enjoy WWII history and art, this is a book that should be in your collection. It is full of wonderful photos that you will not find elsewhere. If you have ever wondered about what happened to the great masterpieces of art during WWII, this is the book to buy. Amazon also has a great price.
Great Book!.......2007-04-14
What a great story. Incredible photos too. Quality of the pages is very good. I'm actually surprised it's only $35 after getting it.
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:
- 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.
Book Description
In August 1942, Hitler directed all German state institutions to assist Heinrich Himmler, the chief of the SS and the German police, in eradicating armed resistance in the newly occupied territories of Eastern Europe and Russia. The directive for “combating banditry” (Bandenbekämpfung), became the third component of the Nazi regime’s three-part strategy for German national security, with genocide (Endlösung der Judenfrage, or “the Final Solution of the Jewish Question”) and slave labor (Erfassung, or “Registration of Persons to Hard Labor”) being the better-known others.
An original and thought-provoking work grounded in extensive research in German archives, Hitler’s Bandit Hunters focuses on this counterinsurgency campaign, the anvil of Hitler’s crusade for empire. Bandenbekämpfung portrayed insurgents as political and racial bandits, criminalized to a greater degree than enemies of the state; moreover, violence against them was not constrained by the prevailing laws of warfare.
Philip Blood explains how German forces embraced the Bandenbekämpfung doctrine, demonstrating the equal culpability of both the SS police forces and the “heroic” Waffen-SS combat arm and shattering the contrived postwar distinctions between them. He challenges the traditional view of Himmler as an armchair general and bureaucrat, exposing him as the driving force behind one of the most successful security campaigns in history, and delves into the contentious issue of the complicity of ordinary German police, soldiers, and citizens, as well as the citizens of occupied territories, in these state-sponsored manhunts. This book provokes new debates on the Nazi terrorization of Europe, the blind acquiescence of many, and the courageous resistance of the few.
Customer Reviews:
Dry Reading.......2007-08-22
This is a well researched book. If you desire information on the connection between ideologue and practice within the demented regime of Hitler's Third Reich, this work certainly fills the bill. It is rather dry reading. By that I mean, the flow of the information is sometimes overwhelming in detail and difficult to comprehend especially since the book lacks maps to show where the actions are taking place. The author includes a nice reference list of terms used and personalities involved. I found myself constantly checking these reference to ensure understanding. It is a labor to read and it took me well beyond the normal time I spend on a book to complete. It remains, however, the best book available on the brutality of Hitler and his followers. I left with a better appreciation of the planning and control the Germans employed to rid the conquered areas of those they considered hinderances to their dream of a new Germania. The cold blooded manner in which people and their possessions are handled brings a chill to your spine. How can human beings be so insensitive? Read the book to appreciate how man can inflict untold suffering on his fellow man without so much as a sigh of regret.
Analyzing German anti-guerilla campaigns in Poland/Russia.......2006-12-19
One of the longstanding beliefs of World War II has been the separation between the Waffen-SS, an elite combat arm, and the SS Police Forces who are blamed for deliberate killings, concentration camps, etc. In this book the author examines the actions of the two SS groups in fighting the guerilla forces left behind as the Soviet armies retreated into the Soviet Union.
His conclusion is that the two forces were not nearly so separate as the post war stories would have you believe. He points out that 'across all the years of research, no examples were found of SS officers refusing to participate in crimes, or to refuse medals for having so participated.
As an secondary point, this book discusses the techniques used in fighting irregular forces. As the US is now involved in such a campaign in Iraq, there is perhaps a lesson to be learned. On the other hand, it is not clear that the American forces could act in the way of the SS. This leaves the question open as to what to do in Iraq.
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!
Amazon.com
Adolf Hitler rose to political prominence by quickly identifying his opponents' weaknesses and turning them to his advantage. As a military leader, however, he rarely exercised the same talent for exploiting weak spots. Instead, he threw the bulk of his armies against his enemies' strongest positions, sacrificing much-needed forces at Stalingrad and Tobruk, among other places.
Had he done otherwise, writes Bevin Alexander, Hitler might well have carried the day. His strategy until mid-1940 had been flawless, Alexander argues: "He isolated and absorbed state after state in Europe, gained the Soviet Union as a willing ally, destroyed France's military power, threw the British off the Continent, and was left with only weak and vulnerable obstacles to an empire covering most of Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East." After 1940, however, Hitler committed a legion of failures. Ignoring his field commanders' urging, he refused to commit armored divisions to seize the Suez Canal, which would have secured most of the Mediterranean and given the Third Reich easy access to oil. He diverted resources from the navy, allowing the Allies to gain control of the Atlantic Ocean and maintain nearly unbroken supply lines between the United States and Britain. And he weakened Germany's abilities to wage war by turning his armies' energies to carrying out the Final Solution. These and other miscalculations, Alexander suggests, cost the Reich many hard-won strategic advantages, and eventually any chance of victory.
Second-guessing history is an endeavor fraught with peril, and in any event, many historians have discounted the possibility that the Nazi regime could have emerged from global war undefeated. But Alexander's arguable exercise in counterfactuals soon gives way to a thoughtful, generally uncontroversial survey of the war in Europe, one that is of use to students of military history and tactics. --Gregory McNamee
Book Description
Most of us rally around the glory of the Allies' victory over the Nazis in World War II. The story is often told of how the good fight was won by an astonishing array of manpower and stunning tactics. However, what is often overlooked is how the intersection between Adolf Hitler's influential personality and his military strategy was critical in causing Germany to lose the war.
With an acute eye for detail and his use of clear prose, acclaimed military historian Bevin Alexander goes beyond counterfactual "What if?" history and explores for the first time just how close the Allies were to losing the war. Using beautifully detailed, newly designed maps, How Hitler Could Have Won World War II exquisitely illustrates the important battles and how certain key movements and mistakes by Germany were crucial in determining the war's outcome. Alexander's harrowing study shows how only minor tactical changes in Hitler's military approach could have changed the world we live in today.
How Hitler Could Have Won World War II untangles some of the war's most confounding strategic questions, such as:
Why didn't the Nazis concentrate their enormous military power on the only three beaches upon which the Allies could launch their attack into Europe?
Why did the terrifying German panzers, on the brink of driving the British army into the sea in May 1940, halt their advance and allow the British to regroup and evacuate at Dunkirk?
With the chance to cut off the Soviet lifeline of oil, and therefore any hope of Allied victory from the east, why did Hitler insist on dividing and weakening his army, which ultimately led to the horrible battle of Stalingrad?
Ultimately, Alexander probes deeply into the crucial intersection between Hitler's psyche and military strategy and how his paranoia fatally overwhelmed his acute political shrewdness to answer the most terrifying question: Just how close were the Nazis to victory?
Why did Hitler insist on terror bombing London in the late summer of 1940, when the German air force was on the verge of destroying all of the RAF sector stations, England's last defense?
With the opportunity to drive the British out of Egypt and the Suez Canal and occupy all of the Middle East, therefore opening a Nazi door to the vast oil resources of the region, why did Hitler fail to move in just a few panzer divisions to handle such an easy but crucial maneuver?
On the verge of a last monumental effort and concentration of German power to seize Moscow and end Stalin's grip over the Eastern front, why did the Nazis divert their strength to bring about the far less important surrender of Kiev, thereby destroying any chance of ever conquering the Soviets?
Customer Reviews:
Completely Misleading Title.......2007-09-11
Given the title of this book, I was expecting a bit more analysis as to how Hitler could have won World War II. The author disappointed. This book is no more than a decent short survey of the war. In fact, it often read more like a college-level history paper than a carefully researched body of work. For example, the author describes Montgomery as "...an eccentric man concerned with his own glory...", but then fails to support his point. It's a rare occasion when I feel I've wasted my time reading a book--this was a rare book in that regard. I've read many a detailed account of the Second World War and I wasn't in the market for the broad survey that Mr Alexander's book offered. If you're looking for an analysis of courses of action Hitler might have taken to win the war--as I was--leave this book on the shelf.
very entrateining .......2007-05-12
As usual every book of Bevin Alexander is very nice to read, full of details and explanations.
The theory suggested is for sure a very intresting one, form the Political and miltary point of view he surely has a point. Economically the story is a little complicated, the containment of Russia for sure was a better alternative to a frontal confrontation, on top of that Russia was still delivering the supply needed to Germany untill the day of the attack, but actually the debate is: could Germany become an economically independent empire without conquering the fields of Ucraina and the oil filed of the Caucasus?
For sure the alternative to conquer Iran an Iraq for the oil part is correct, but still more than a military perspective, which is in my opinion very substainable, a further economic analysis could be very interesting.
Misleading...........2007-02-27
Although a good book & very well written,the title is misleading.Very little is written about HOW Hitler could have won WW2. Most of the book is a narrative skimming over the major events of the war.Very little is written about 'How Hitler Could Have Won WW2! For the novice WW2 reader it has it's merits but to a WW2 junkie there is very little to be learned.
Hitler's costly errors........2006-12-19
I think highly of this book. The author shows how the Germans almost won World War Two. Many people believe that the outcome was predetermined. However Hitler came close to winning the war. This book shows the many errors of Hitler and how it cost him the war. Just a few different choices could have resulted in a much different world than we live in today. If Hitler had sent two-three extra divisions to Africa when Rommel needed them, the Germans could have dominated the Middle East. If Hitler had let his army commanders decide on pull backs during times, he could have lost less troops and retained his strength. Hitler made many mistakes and it cost him his empire.
This is a nice little book about strategy. Some of the chapters are a rehash of the same battles, but the analysis of the mistakes shows some serious study here. I learned something from this book.
A Concise and entertaining overview of the war in Europe and Africa .......2006-02-10
Alexander does an outstanding job of organizing the historical information into a concise, high level overview of the German efforts during WWII that flows better that any other history of this type that I've read. I would definitely recommend it as a quick read that will spark your interest in reading more in-depth texts on specific battles and individuals from the war.
Book Description
Charles Stewart Henry Vane-Tempest-Stewart, the 7th Marquess of Londonderry, was born to power and command. Scion of one of Britain's most aristocratic families, cousin of Churchill and confidant of the king, owner of vast coal fields and landed estates, married to the doyenne of London's social scene, Londonderry was an ornament to his class, the 0.1 percent of the population who still owned 30 percent of England's wealth as late as 1930. But history has not been kind to "Charley," as the king called him, because, in his own words, he "backed the wrong horse," and a very dark horse indeed: Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party. Londonderry was hardly the only British aristocrat to do so, but he was the only Cabinet member to do so, and it ruined him. In a final irony, his grand London house was bombed by the German Luftwaffe in the blitz.
Ian Kershaw is not out to rehabilitate Lord Londonderry but to understand him and to expose why he was made a scapegoat for views that were much more widely held than anyone now likes to think. H. L. Mencken famously said that "for every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." The conventional explanation of the coming of World War II is a simple story of the West's craven appeasement of Hitler in the face of his bullying. Through the story of how Lord Londonderry came to be mixed up with the Nazis and how it all went horribly wrong for him, Ian Kershaw shows us that behind the familiar cartoon is a much more complicated and interesting reality, full of miscalculations on both sides, miscalculations that proved to be among the most fateful in history.
Customer Reviews:
Misreading Hitler: The Seductive Logic of Appeasement.......2006-05-26
Making Friends... is a smoothly written, thoroughly researched and disturbing account of how a politician, Lord Londonderry, could completely misread the motivations and intentions of Hitler and the Nazis. It is a study of how a politician seemingly ignored what the other guy was saying and dismissed the notion that how a government treats its people and implements internal policies indicates how it will operate internationally.
Kershaw points out that Londonderry was not alone in faiing to accurately read Hitler and the Nazis. The understandable disgust after WWI left most British politicians and the British electorate anxious to avoid another bloodletting. Kershaw also carefully points out that there was widespread acceptance of the legitimacy of Germany's claims for rescinding some of the conditions of the Treaty of Versailles.
Londonderry clearly was not a very perceptive, astute or potent politician - but it would be wrong to see him as some aberration or as the British might say, an Upper Class Twit. Kershaw does not make this mistake: he recognizes that, however misguided and poorly executed, Londonderry's realpolitiks were not unreasonable given the intransgience of the French and the hovering threat of Stalin and the SOviets.
The book provides a useful means of pondering how our politicians need to deal with the leaders of North Korea, Iran and fundamentalist Islam in general. Kershaw's book reinforces one clear lesson: Dealing with unprincipled or fanatical leaders with the capability for mayhem can only be done from a position of undeniable military strength and the willingness to use that power. Londonderry's failure was that as Air Minister he failed to provide Britain with the air power needed to deter Hitler and to communicate to his German contacts - Goring, Ribbentrop, von Papen and Hitler - that Britain would use that power. What is scary in today's world is that there are so many who believe that you can talk fanatical political leaders out of trying to fulfill their fantasies. They are today's Londonderrys and too many are too close to the levers of power.
HOW I GOT LOST ON THE ROAD TO WORLD WAR II.......2006-01-30
Kershaw has taken an intriguing topic which is essentially a sidebar to the history of the buildup to, and prosecution of, World War II: why did Lord Londonderry, formerly Britain's Minister of the Air, court the Nazi leaders in the 1930s?
Londonderry's visits with Hitler and Goring in Germany and the highly publicized stay of von Ribbentrop at Londonderry's estate put Londonderry and his wife in an untenable position when it became clear that appeasement wasn't working. Why didn't Londonderry see the signs earlier?
Kershaw argues convincingly that Londonderry was not blind to Hitler's faults but he saw little choice for a militarily enfeebled Britain but to woo Hitler to the bargaining table with concessions, thus buying the British Isles time to rearm. Unfortunately, Londonderry had neither the intelligence nor the political skills to negotiate in the modern political world, where high office and the attendant deference were no longer automatic prerogatives of high birth. Mired in an increasingly untenable position, and with his public image besmirched, Londonderry dug his own hole deeper and deeper in efforts to exonerate himself, especially in regard to his earlier stewardship of the air force. Until the very end, Londonderry never understood that compromises could not work without the necessary force behind it to punish transgressors.
It is interesting to see how little Britain's leaders (Churchill and one or two others excepted) understood the menace that Hitler posed nor how much their own concessions worsened their bargaining (and eventually fighting) position in the struggle to confront a new kind of monster on the European scene.
Great Scholarship.......2005-11-01
This piece of excellent scholarship uses Lord Londonderry as the foil with which to see appeasement and the road to war in Europe in the 1930s. An entire generation is understood through this lens, particularly the world of the appeasers and the Nazi elite. For the first time many new pieces of the puzzle are woven together. For instance we learn that the same right wing people like Lord Beaverbrook, who supported appeasement also supported massive rearmament while the Labour politicians were lost in a pacifist dream trying to outlaw bombers on the eve of war and trusting agreements. We finally understand the psychology of appeasement. We see how some right wing politicians misunderstood fascism and that only Winston Churchill alone conceived the threat as it truly was, daring to fight verbally against the Nazi racial laws, which so many on the left and right ignored in favour of economic interpretations. We see here the fear of Bolshevism that led some into the hands of Hitler.
Most remarkable for our own time is the famous call by Londonderry to `understand German needs and policies' in much the same way that we are told today to `understand the root causes of terrorism'. The appeasers in 1938 were asking the world to `understand' Nazism, when the only true course was no understand, no agreements, but only rearmament and the big stick approach. This is excellent scholarship at the highest level, woven with literary talent, showing that history can be truly poetic in its analysis. Through one man we are given a glimpse of an entire world gone mad.
Seth J. Frantzman
"Anglo-German Fellowship" .......2005-10-12
Ian Kershaw continues to add to his list of extraordinarily valuable books on Nazi-era Germany in this volume focusing on Lord Londonderry's activities prior to the World War II. Londonderry (ironically, a cousin of Churchill) took the lead in attempting to improve relations between Britain and Hitler's Germany and, thereby, head off war. By focusing on Londonderry (1878-1949), the reader can come to understand the various reasons why appeasement appealed to so many British politicans and the general public.
Of course, the interesting question is why did Londonderry so embrace the German point of view that he ended up publicly disgraced? Certainly some personal motives played a role, most directly his desire for vindication after being removed from the Cabinet as Air Minister (not to mention his failure to be named Viceroy for India) and generally being humiliated for his visits to Germany (Goering in particular), return visits from Nazi luminaries like Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop, and very public pro-German activities and writings. Kershaw suggests that like many in his aristocratic class, facing increased dimnishment of their wealth and power, Hitler was seen as a helpful bulwark against "Bolshevism" and domestic socialist movements. In exchange for a free hand in Europe, Hitler would protect the prerogatives of the 0.1% of the population that owned 1/3 of Britain's wealth.
Kershaw argues that Hitler was quite masterful in his manipulation of British public opinion--and one can hardly disagree. He also successfully exploited a split in the positions of France and Britain. Through Kershaw's skillful analysis, the genesis and appeal of the appeasement movement become evident. It is no wonder that Chamberlin fell into the trap. For Londonderry and this group, the agreement at Munich was a triumph, because it avoided war and insured a valid sphere of control for Germany. It took both "Krystalnacht" and Hitler's blatant invasion of the remainder of Czechoslovakia before Londonderry began to get the picture. Perhaps the rapid slide downward of the aristocracy after the war is, in part, attributable to the fact that many members shared Londonderry's perspective--and the rest of British society knew it.
As is to be expected, superb research and invaluable notes are part of the package. Like all of Kershaw's volumes, it is well written and easy even for us Yanks to follow as he maneuvers through the ins and out of British politics of the 1930's. The bottom line: the whole appeasement movement (which in hindsight seems somewhat inexplicable) becomes quite understandable after reading this book. That is its greatest contribution.
Lord Londonderry's Follies.......2005-09-30
An intrinsically important and engaging subject treated by Ian Kershaw
in quirky prose and in a numbingly repetitious fashion. Historians,
of course, do a lot of research but they don't have to stuff it all into
one book. A terser narrative perhaps one half the size would have
done the trick beautifully. I read the whole thing but some of it
(especially the overly-detailed figures on Britain's preparations for
airwar under Londonderry's ministry in the '30's) was a slog.
Also, my hardcover edition was full of typos.
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