Book Description
Origins of the Cold War, Third Edition covers the formative years of the extraordinary struggle between the Soviet Union and the United States, explaining how the cold war originated and developed. It sets out the various different explanations for the Cold War and unravels some of the complex issues which gave rise to it. Explores several questions, including, who was responsible for the Cold War, was it inevitable or could the whole episode have been avoided, and was Stalin genuinely interested in a post-war agreement? Revised, updated and expanded, this new edition in the Seminar Studies in History Series incorporates the most recent scholarship, theories and newly released information to provide an invaluable introduction. For readers interested in the World since 1945 and International relations during the Cold War period.
Book Description
In 1945, Josef Stalin, who had never been able to shake off the nightmare of Adolf Hitler, refused to believe that the dictator had committed suicide. He ordered his secret police, the NKVD, to explore Hitler's private life, and to clarify the circumstances of his death. For months the NKVD interrogated Hitler's two closest assistants, Otto Guensche and Heinz Linge. The resulting first-hand narrative of a decade of service in Hitler's headquarters was presented to Stalin in a limited edition of one, and for over fifty years was hidden in a Russian archive. Never before published in its entirety, it is "[a] notable historical document" (Wall Street Journal) that "gives an absorbing, truly disturbing account of Hitler and his demonic court" (PublishersWeekly)
Customer Reviews:
Hitler's Aggression, Genocidal Actions against Slavs, and Details of His Doom.......2007-05-03
This dossier is the result of the interrogation, by the Soviet NKVD, of two SS officials who knew Hitler very well--Heinz Linge and Otto Gunsche. It offers a comprehensive history of WWII, with much attention devoted to the closing stages of the European war on the eastern front. There is discussion of the Hitlerjugend sacrificed against the Soviets, the suicides of Goebbels and his family, and the self-destruction of the Fuhrer and burning of his body. (Hitler feared that the Soviets would turn him or his body into a public spectacle). The editors use numerous footnotes that clarify and correct the issues raised by the NKVD. The Editors' Afterword section provides extensive commentary, and the Notes include comprehensive biographical information on many Nazis (including dates of birth and death, and relevant postwar activities).
This dossier begins with a short, prewar history of Nazism: "The official version of the story was that Rohm had been executed for homosexuality, but Hitler concealed from the German people the fact that homosexuality was widely practiced and tolerated in the higher echelons of the National Socialist Party and the Hitler Youth." (p. 6).
Hitler is quoted, on April 17, 1943, of saying that Jews must either be annihilated of thrown into a concentration camp (p. 114). If correct, this itself suggests that, even at this late date, Hitler wasn't irrevocably committed to the extermination of every possible Jew within his reach. Interestingly, Hitler had a purely utilitarian view of Slavs that matched that of his view of Jews, as illustrated by the Nazis' use of both Slavic and Jewish forced laborers. Consider the former: "Filled with loathing Hitler remarked, `It is quite right to make Slavs do this, these robots! Otherwise they would have no right to their share of the sun!'" (p. 102).
The following was Hitler's reaction to Britain's declaration of war against Germany following the Nazi attack on Poland: "It is disgraceful to present Czechs and Poles as sovereign states when this rabble is not a jot better than the Sudanese or the Indians..." (pp. 47-48). At the start of Operation Barbarossa, the Germans fought under the slogan: "Bash the Russians' brains in...We need the Russian expanses without Russians!" (p. 76).
The editors cite an eventual figure of 11.27 million Soviet military deaths, but add: "On the other hand, it is mentioned only in a few places that the campaign against the Soviet Union was also a racially motivated war of annihilation, which claimed the lives of 18.4 million civilians. This war of annihilation was carried out above all by the SS, but a politically-indoctrinated Wehrmacht played its part." (p. 300). Combining these figures with others (e. g., the 2-3 million murdered Polish gentiles), it is obvious that the Germans' genocide of Slavs was greater than that of Jews (5-6 million). Considering this metric, the reader realizes that Jews and Slavs were indeed unequal victims--with Slavs the greater victims.
Some proponents of Holocaust uniqueness have claimed that the Nazis' disrespect and exploitation of the dead, as exemplified by the removal of tooth fillings, was done only to Jews. We learn instead that it was also done to Slavs--including living ones. Blaschke, Hitler's personal dentist, obtained crowns, bridges, and gold teeth that had been extracted from Soviet POWs (pp. 164-165).
Certain revisionists (e. g., Alfred Maurice de Zayas) have repeated the canard that the Soviets and Poles killed over 2 million German civilians during the final offensives and early postwar period. However heavy the loss of German civilian life actually was, it was clearly the fault of the Germans, not the Russians or Poles: "When the German troops fled in chaos, the population panicked and ran with their soldiers. A mass migration towards the German heartlands began. The roads and paths of East Prussia were thick with old men, women and children who had turned and run, only to become jammed in the numerous tank traps that offered only a torturously narrow path. Many--the children in particular--froze to death in the intense cold." (p. 180).
The Churchill-Roosevelt betrayal of Poland to the Soviet Union, culminating at Yalta, is often rationalized by the specter of a German-Soviet separate peace. However, Stalin ALSO feared a separate peace--a German-western one. For example, the Battle of the Bulge was framed as an attempt by the Germans to so bloody and dishearten the western Allies that they would unilaterally sue for peace (p. 170).
Somewhat interesting but hardly a "must-read".......2007-04-16
"The Hitler Book", a posthumous biography of Hitler personally prepared for Stalin, is of interest only as a historical curiosity and for the insight it provides into the strange political dynamics of postwar Stalinist Russia. Interestingly enough, and contrary to press reports and the claims of the researchers in question, this book was not recently "discovered" by a couple of German scholars digging around the Russian archives. David Irving used this dossier in the 1960s when writing his magnificent "Hitler's War", which is_the_book I would recommend for those interested in a life of Hitler, particularly his years in power.
Based on the interrogations of Otto Guensche and Heinz Linge (Hitler's SS adjutant and manservant respectively), this book covers most of the major events of Hitler's life more or less accurately, but should not be taken as an authoritative work of history. It's a gossipy, biographical caricature based on both public knowledge and the torture-induced testimonies of a butler and an aide. That's not to say that Guensche's and Linge's testimony shouldn't be trusted, but two low-level witnesses do not a biography make and, in any case, their information should be compared with what they freely told Western authors, like David Irving and James O'Donnell, after their decade in Soviet captivity. This book reveals no new information, and is also marred by the fact that it shamelessly panders to the prejudices and paranoia of its very important audience of one: Josef Stalin. It obviously makes no mention of the Ribbentrop/Molotov Pact and subsequent Soviet expansion into Poland, Finland, Romania and the Baltic states, and certainly doesn't deal with Soviet agressive intentions toward Germany or the reasons for the disasters of 1941. Its portrait of Hitler sticks to the wartime propaganda line, showing him as a feral, rug-chewing, cowardly maniac. And while the Soviet Union did indeed bear the brunt of the fighting against Nazi Germany, this book seriously downplays the Anglo-American contribution, deprecates the bravery and effectiveness of their troops and even accuses the Western Allies of trying to negotiate a separate peace with Hitler and of not bombing armaments factories whose weapons they knew would be used exclusively against the Soviets. It's an interesting look into the dark maze of Stalinist psychology, but is not the source to consult for a legitimate Hitler biography.
The Hitler Book: The Secret Dossier Prepared for Stalin from the Interrogations of Hitler's Personal Aides.......2007-04-16
Clearly one of the most informative books written about the life of Adolf Hitler. The account of the last days in the Fuhrer bunker is not only spellbinding, but probably the most accurate. A "must read" for the WW2 history enthusiast.
A Fascinating Read.......2007-04-11
I couldn't put this book down and was disappointed when I finished it!It's mandatory reading for all WW2 buffs as the insight it provides into the personal lives of Hitler and other top Nazis in the Third Reich is invaluable. I found it riveting as it described Hitler's personal foibles,his descent into paranoia and detachment from reality while his lackeys around him continued to pander to his gigantic ego and self-delusion.It depicts a world gone mad and rampant evil. Hitler's callous diregard for the lives of his soldiers and those of German civilians caught up in the horror that was 1945 Berlin stuns the imagination. Equally disturbing is Stalin's prurient fascination with his Fascist counterpart.
This is a superb book and of great value to the keen historian who wants more than just facts and dates.
"Must Read" Book.......2007-03-21
This is a "must read" book on the subject of Hitler and the last days in Berlin. It is a jewel from the Soviet archives.
Having said that, great caution must be used in accepting what is written in the book as the truth. Only by comparison with other accounts can the facts be sifted out from the propaganda. Read all the front and back material as well to get a better understanding of what is in this report.
The report on which the book is based was written for Stalin's consumption and therefore there are distinct biases and distortions in what information is reported and how it is presented. It is almost comical in places how the Soviet writers attempted to twist things. Almost comical - but not actually, because the intended audience of this book, Stalin was as diabolical and hideous, if not more, than the subject of the report.
The fact that it is a Soviet report is not really a flaw since it gives us insight into the Soviet mind and their use of history to indoctrinate rather than enlighten.
The true flaw in the book is that the English translation has abridged the German editor's notes and inserted additional footnotes that are often just plain wrong. The English translator also lacks any understanding of WW2 German military terminology, for example, translating "Minenwerfer" as "mine thrower" instead of "mortar". Very childish, but fortunately there are not too many of these screwups.
I still give it 5 stars because it is a priceless document. I might suggest getting the German edition for better supporting material.
Book Description
On June 22, 1941, Hitler began what would be the most important campaign of the European theater. The war against the Soviet Union would leave tens of millions of Soviet citizens dead and large parts of the country in ruins. The death and destruction would result not just from military operations but also from the systematic killing and abuse that the German army, police and SS directed against Jews, Communists and ordinary citizens. In War of Annihilation, noted military historian Geoffrey P. Megargee provides a clear, concise history of the Germans' opening campaign of conquest and genocide in 1941. By drawing on the best of military and Holocaust scholarship, Megargee dispels the myths that have distorted the role of Germany's military leadership in both the military operations themselves and the unthinkable crimes that were part of them. Generously illustrated with 24 photographs and 7 maps.
Customer Reviews:
War of annihilation?.......2007-03-08
Megargee's book is a useful contribution to the growing volume of writing that is now (over half a century after the end of the Second World War)becoming available to the English-reading public about what the war was about. It counters the Cold War stories that monopolised writing by "military historians", by generals of the Nazi army and the de-politicised genre of "cowboy and Indians", also largely written by Nazi solders, that were/are popular as derring-do stuff.
This volume helps explain to a new generation (and to an older one that has forgotten much)why the Nuremburg Trials correctly condemned the Nazi Army itself for being a sine qua non, a willing participant, and intrinsic to the programme of Nazi conquest. Without the German Army (and it did not need purging to make it work for Fascism) there would not have been the barbarous war. That was not the work of a minority of bad SS people, a relatively small number of convinced Nazis which, somehow, controlled an unwilling and gentlemanly military machine. It also illustrates that the war was initiated by the Fascist government of Germany in the pursuit of plunder and the destruction of "Bolshevism."
Everything else was secondary to that, including the mass murder of European Jewry, the Rom and Sinta peoples and, by the way, the largest contingent of those on the Nazi list of "subhumans", the Slavs of Poland and the then Soviet Union, as racial perveyors of the virus of Bolshevism.
The author tells a little, also, of the economic requirements of the big employers like Krupp, that the brutal Nazi policies served. Placing the Nazi war aims and conduct before a new set of readers might counter the sort of stuff that is still being peddled, and is popular, such as the works by Anthony Beevor, Richard Overy and John Erickson, who would still have us see the Fascist war on the "East" as part of some unexplained "titanic" struggle that took place between two powerful machines. The only thing they leave out is what the war was about, and Geoffrey Megargee tells us a lot about that.
Good on the publishers - a book that makes a good present to a friend.
Michael Costello
Poor history from carefully cherry-picked incidents with worse conclusions........2007-02-18
The author, a young "scholar" at the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, indicts the German Army on the Eastern Front in total as criminal for its actions against the Jews and its lack of action to prevent their elimination by other organizations. Much of the author's presentation is invalid being based on half-truths, misstatements, and distortion of facts. He overlooks the fact that Hitler was able to use the term "Jewish-Bolshevik" with some accuracy in Germany due to the over-representation of Jews in the Bolshevik leadership and the spearheading of Communist activity in Germany by German Jews. The research is poor, and I grew tired of noting "no!" and "no such evidence!" in the margin while reading. The author treats von Manstein very unfairly, to note one of many. He dismisses Goerlitz's work, "The German General Staff" as containing "a great deal of misleading material" and stating "but its author was himself a General Staff Officer". One is tempted to reply that Megargee is not to be trusted because he works for the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. Megargee also states: "Beware of the German memoir literature! Books by the likes of Guderian and von Manstein are still selling briskly in English and German, but much of what they contain is not to be trusted...." Having read those works and compared the operations described within with other primary sources, I cannot agree with Megargee's statement. Von Manstein specifically mentions his victories at Kerch and Sevastopol as true battles of annihilation in which 260,000 prisoners were taken. "Annihilation" does not always mean killing or murder. The author must surely know that the evidence against von Manstein was extremely contradictory, and that no less a person than Winston Churchill contributed to Manstein's defense (although political motives undoubtedly played a part.) I would have been more sympathetic to the author had he revealed that the Soviets massacred whole villeges of peasants they felt to be unreliable during their retreat in 1941 and 1942, but the author is only interested in damning the Germans. That the war on the Eastern Front was brutal and merciless in the extreme is beyond doubt, but like everything, there were two sides. This work does not present anything new or of interest to the serious historian and is not worth the purchase.
An introduction and overview.......2006-09-04
This is an excellent, well-written, introduction and overview of the Eastern Front, 1941, with regard to German policies vis-a-vis the general populace. However, the author says upfront that the book is not intended as a work of great scholarship and, as indicated by the footnotes, it is not. Megargee wrote a great book in 2000 about the German General Staff (a WWII "must read"), and has a dream job at the U.S. Holocaust Museum. He is a top-notch military historian in the prime of his career, which is the reason I was so very disappointed with the book's bibliography. His book brings to mind scores of questions, and needs a good bibliography to lead the reader to appropriate literature. Instead, all we get is some lame "bibliographic essay". A definite flaw in the book.
An Outstanding Introduction to the War with Russia.......2006-04-30
For far too long historians of the Russo German war focused on either the military operations or the abuses of the civilian population in Soviet Russia. The most notably of these were obviously the Jews, although the Slavs and others suffered terribly. Although, in some instances Wehrmacht rear service units and the general staff have been identified as contributing to the escalation of brutality, for the most part the work of murder and starvation has been attributed to the various civil administration authorities and most notably, the SS. It is to this lack of connection between the occupation policies in Soviet Russia and the actual prosecution of the war that Geoffrey P. Megargee addresses in his book. Before I get any further however, let me be clear as to what this book is and is not. As the author informs the reader in the introduction, this book is not a comprehensive history of the Russo German war told from both sides of the story. It is primarily told from the perspective of the German plans and actions. This book is also not a shocking piece of new scholarship. What it is though, is a refreshingly new look at all of the pieces of evidence that have been laid down by other researchers and not previously seen for their interconnected nature. This book is a concise history of both the Nazi war against the USSR and the occupation policies and how the two inevitably led to the defeat of the Germany.
Finally there is the issue of the author's style. Simply said, it is excellent and the book is laid out in a very readable way. Each chapter is divided into sections describing military operation and rear area operations in regards to partisan warfare, POWs and `Jewish actions'. Furthermore, having side by side histories allows the author to clearly demonstrate their interconnectedness. The author uses a good number of sources to make his arguments but does so with a good degree of control in regards to the additional information given in the endnotes. I never once caught myself in the constant back and forth flipping that occurs when a less skilled historian writes a separate book in the endnotes. This book was a quick read and certainly the type of book a person can get through in a single weekend.
In the initial two chapters, the author, in an expert manner lays out the military and social background to the war in the east. He clearly shows how the General Staff's own long held biases, racism, social Darwinism, adherence to the `Stab in the Back' myth of the end of the first World War, and the connection of Jews and communists who supposedly committed this betrayal, led to enthusiastic support of an eastern campaign. Furthermore he shows the complete disregard that the Wehrmacht's leadership had for the well-being, even the very survival of the civilian population and Soviet POWs.
The next three chapters, lay out the various phases of the military campaign against the USSR and describes the several instances in which one army group or another lacked strength to meet an objective and was forced to pare strength from other groups in order to do so. Megargee clearly lays out the failures of resupply and reinforcement that caused this. He does this as well as describing the ever increasing brutality in occupation policies and an equal increase in the strength of the partisan movement. He also goes on to describe both the resources dedicated to the brutal pacification of the rear area and the nonexistence of resources to care for Soviet POWs.
In the last chapter, Megargee shows how the ever increasing brutality against civilians and POWs, intelligence agencies neglected to the point of uselessness and a supply system strained to the point of failure culminated in the Wehrmacht's famous defeat at the very gates of Moscow and Leningrad. Moreover he asserts that it was the racist and elitist beliefs of the General Staff that caused the deliberate starvation and death by exposure of thousands of POWs daily at a time when the German leadership was already beginning to struggle to replace a workforce pulled away for military duty.
In his conclusion the author states, with the weight of the evidence cited to support him, that it was in the opening months of the eastern campaign that the Wehrmacht lost the war. Through their ruthlessness and racist policies from the opening of hostilities as well as their lack of concern for logistics and intelligence gathering, the General Staff threw away any chance that they had of defeating the Soviet Union.
A quick introduction to the Eastern Front.......2006-01-17
This book is both for the layman and for those who want a better understanding of why the Eastern Front was such a struggle for life and death on the part of civilians and POW's not even speaking of soldiers on the front lines. The author goes through the history of Nazi ideology and the role it played in the creation of the Third Reich as well as the history of the German Army and why in the end it proved an essential tool in the genocidal campaign Germany would launch when it attacked the Soviet Union (although keeping in mind the Polish campaign showed signs of what was to come on a smaller scale). Although military movements are described, they are done so in a general sense simply to show the success the German Armed forces were enjoying and the amount of territory that was falling under their supervision. Then come the explanations for how involved the Army was in the genocide of Jews, Communists, and various other groups throughout the Soviet Union. Mainly the Armed forces helped the SS, Einzatsgruppen, Order Police, and other various units in their mass murders throughout the rear areas that they had just occupied. As well as making it possible for POW's to starve on a massive scale without a second thought to their fates. Without the Army's cooperation millions of Soviet POW's would have lived to see 1942 and perhaps tens of thousands of Jews and Communists would have lived to see the end of the war. The Army's complication in these crimes is now being shown for what it was, although the book is small, around 150 pages of text, the revelations it makes are very important for understanding what went on on the Eastern Front and how it evolved into outright genocide. Well worth the money.
Book Description
One of the most successful and lethal dictators of the twentieth century, Stalin transformed the Soviet Union into a modern industrial state. While he demonstrated Russia's huge potential if harnessed correctly, Stalin's brand of coercive socialism sent millions to their deaths in the process. Updated to incorporate the most recent research the new edition in the Seminar Studies in History Series provides an accessible and important introduction to the Stalin phenomenon. Written by Martin McCauley, a leading authority on Russia and Eastern Europe, this new third edition includes a completely new chapter, Stalin: Personality and Power, which provides additional information about the man himself The author brings this best selling volume completely up-to-date, with existing chapters revised to include the latest information and debates. Additional documents have been added which graphically demonstrate the massive cost of the Stalin dictatorship to Soviet citizens For readers interested in the history of the Soviet Union
Customer Reviews:
Awful.......2006-11-22
It is near-impossible to describe the sickly feeling one gets from reading this book, but I will try.
Consider the following plain facts about Joseph Stalin, facts not even disputed by those who even now still hold a flickering torch for him:
1. In quantitative terms, a greater murderer than Hitler;
2. The GULAG: a brutal, high-mortality prison camp and slave labour system into which one could be thrown for the most trivial crime - e.g., the deaf and dumb carpenter who got ten years for hanging his coat on a bust of Lenin, (See Solzhenitsyn, Vol II, p. 294);
3. The Great Terror: show trials beginning in 1937 which led to the purging of his own party members, nationwide repression, arbitrary imprisonment and killings (number of executions ran into six digits);
5. Ruthless Cold War antagonist, swallowing and subjugating all of eastern Europe;
6. The Holodomor: the 1930s state-orchestrated Ukrainian Terror-famine which alone claimed over five million lives;
7. The Hitler-Stalin pact;
8. Murderer of Trotsky (ice pick to the head); slayer of Tukachevsky (blood bespattered the pages of his confession); killer of Vsevolod Meyerhold's wife Zinaida (her eyes gouged out by the secret police, seventeen stab wounds).
And then consider the following choice quotes from Mr. McCaulay's scholary tract on this era (my comments added):
1. "Who would seize Lenin's mantle and steer the ship of state back towards socialism? It turned out to be Stalin. Beginning in 1929 he launched a violent, phenomenally ambitious economic modernisation of the country.
[The debut of this 'modernisation' plan was the White Sea - Baltic canal, built almost entirely by manual labour: trees were felled without axes or saws; boulders were excavated by men dragging on nets, occasional use was made of cranes, which were wooden. Estimated death toll in the first three months alone: 100,000. (See Solzhenitsyn, Vol II, p. 98)]
Forced industrialisation and forced collectivisation transformed the country.
[As documented in Robert Conquest's books, the 'transformation' of the agricultural sector reduced the citizens of the Ukraine to cannibalism and Conquest is quoted as stating that 'about twenty human lives were lost for, not every word, but every letter in this book'. The book runs to 411 pages. (Quoted in Amis, Koba the Dread, p. 3)]
...
There was logic in this seeming madness. Only when Russia was the strongest state in the world could it feel secure.
[Would this same 'logic' apply to say, Malta?]
...
All the efforts and sacrifices turned out to be worth while." (p. 6)
[No comment, just stunned silence.]
2. "Calling Stalinism a civilisation is a bold move and reveals how far Soviet studies have come since the heyday of the totalitarian school. The great warhorses of that era would turn in their graves at the suggestion that Stalinism was a new civilisation. One reason for taking a more relaxed attitude to Stalinism and chronicling its successes (whatever one thinks about the goals and the methods deployed) is that no one fears Stalinism anymore. It has failed everywhere except perhaps in North Korea." (p. 11)
[Yes, indeed: the 'Stalinist' sense is about the only one in which the North Korean slave state could be considered a 'success'. And oh, the irritating pedantry of those Stalin-skeptics who keep bringing up the twenty million dead! Incidentally, I look forward to reading about the more 'relaxed attitude' that might be taken to analysing, say, Stalin's April 1935 decision to subject children as young as twelve to capital punishment. (See Solzhenitsyn, Vol II, p. 449)]
All of the quotes are from just the *first chapter*. Which also features the breezy assertion that "Despite the exploitation and the terror, people still thought that they were building socialism, guided by the wise father of the nation, Stalin" (p. 12); the jaw-dropping claim (repeated throughout the book) that Stalinism was "born of the Enlightenment" (p. 11) and the concept of "Russia's addiction to socialism" (p. 7) - presumably the tens of thousands of miners dying in the Kolyma were 'addicted' to propping up the slave state that was beating them down?
There is, is there not, something of a tonal contrast between the salient facts of the Stalin era and the manner in which they are rendered by Mr. McCauley? Or should that be ... avoided by Mr. McCauley?
Under 'G' in the index there is no entry for 'GULAG'. Similarly, the reader will look in vain under 'S' for any mention of the names Solzhenitsyn or Shalamov. (The same goes for the 'References' section and the 'Guide to Further Reading'. Robert Conquest is mentioned grudgingly and hurriedly.) Could one imagine reading a volume on Hitler that made *no reference* to the Nazi Holocaust? Or studiously avoided citing any of its chief chroniclers? Enough said? Not quite.
Suffused with the sublimated impatience that Stalinism somehow inexplicably wound up getting a bum rap from historians, this is, quite simply, a volume of astounding political and historical ignorance. Not even the most blinkered apparatchik could have written a tract as morbidly asinine as this. Beneath the weasel-wording, one can sense at every turn the song of praise to Uncle Joe trying to burst through a lake of anguished evasions. To have to trawl through this book was a morally disgusting experience. And remember: this is the *third* edition: it is as though Mr. McCauley has lived for years in a parallel universe in which all of the dreadful revelations about life in the USSR never saw the light of day. Hands pressed tightly against his ears, he simply ploughs through his argument as though the millions of lives devoured by Stalin's unspeakable cruelty were all an accident of some otherwise well-intentioned plan. It was all a misunderstanding ... and like all good apparatchiks, Mr. McCauley implies throughout that the misunderstanding belonged to the *critics* of Stalinism.
Average customer rating:
- Rubbish
- A pure fabrication by an anti-Ukrainian author.
- Soviet Dezinformatsia
- Nonsense
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Alliance for Murder: The Nazi-Ukranian Partnership in Genocide
Manufacturer: Sarpedon Publishers
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Customer Reviews:
Rubbish.......2004-04-18
Another example of anti-Ukrainian propaganda, once very popular in pro-Soviet circles and amongst their adherents in the West. The Soviets are now gone, hurrah, but their fellow travellers are, alas, still with us. Serious scholarship demonstrates that Ukraine lost more of its people than any other nation in Nazi occupied Europe (to say nothing about losses a decade earlier, during the genocidal Great Famine of 1932-33). Among the millions enslaved or mudered by the Nazis were many Ukrainian nationalists of the OUN and UPA, more than a few of whom were destroyed in the infamous concentration camps, like Auschwitz. Indeed the two brothers of Stepan Bandera, the OUN leader, both died there. The Ukrainian nationalists were not pro-Nazi, although there are obviously still those who would like the world to think that.
A pure fabrication by an anti-Ukrainian author........2002-11-07
Mr. Sabrin's book is nothing more than a fabrication of "historical" events. His sources for the book come entirely from the Soviet Ministry of Information and the KGB. Sadly, the book's purpose is indeed to exaggerate and inflame any differences between Jews and Ukrainians. Mr. Sabrin and the authors like him have few adherents in the post-Soviet era.
Soviet Dezinformatsia.......1997-08-27
Here is a most distinct sloppy and truly un reserched work on the issue of collaboration in Central and Eastern Europe. The author's reliance on KGB provided docuentation make one wonder what the purposes realy was in writting this "work".
Purpose of the work seems to have been the inflamation of unfounded animosity of Ukrainians and Jews. A comparative study on the collaboration of other nations with the Nazi's vis-a-vis Jews would reveal that French and Polish and Czech collaboration lead to a much more significant toll on the Jewish population in those occupied territories than in Nazi occupied Ukraine.
Nonsense.......1997-06-10
I know my history and this book is pure nonsense,
fabrication and a revision of history to support a
hidden agenda. Ukrainians also were in large numbers, inhabitants of the very same concentration camps as others. Put simply this book is pure racist and not worth the paper it is written on.
Average customer rating:
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Winners and Losers of EU Integration: Policy Issues for Central and Eastern Europe
Helen Tang
Manufacturer: World Bank Publications
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ASIN: 0821344277
Release Date: 2005-09-30 |
Book Description
"The Czech capital market has not played an important role in the development of the Czech economy thus far. On the other hand... it has been used and often abused as a tool of wealth redistribution in the CR [Czech Republic], and has influenced the outcome of winners and losers of the transformation process to date." Ten countries in Central and Eastern European (CEECs) have applied for membership in the European Union (EU). They could gain from exchanging lessons of experiences and best practices with each other as they address the common set of challenges in their preparation for EU accession. The "EU Integration" network of research institutes in the ten CEECs provides a valuable forum for such exchanges on key economic, social and political issues related to EU membership. This volume contains the papers presented at the first meeting of the EU integration network, as well as some background papers. The papers seek to identify the main economic, social and political groups that would gain or lose from accession, and highlight the policy adjustments on the parts of both the EU and the CEECs to ease the accession process. The contributors include researchers from the ten CEECs, as well as from current EU member countries. This publication will be of interest ot research institutions, governments, and nongovernmental organizations.
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- In over her head
- More than just Resistance
- Much More Than Wartime Resistance
- Unveiling the family legend
- superior biography
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Resisting Hitler: Mildred Harnack and the Red Orchestra
Shareen Blair Brysac
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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The Red Orchestra
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The Great Game: Memoirs of the Spy Hitler Couldn't Silence
ASIN: 0195132696 |
Book Description
This gripping and heartbreaking narrative is the first full account of an American woman who gave her life in the struggle against the Nazi regime. As members of a key resistance group, Mildred and her husband, Arvid Harnack, assisted in the escape of German Jews and political dissidents, and for years provided vital economic and military intelligence to both Washington and Moscow. But in 1942, following a Soviet blunder, the Gestapo arrested, tortured and tried some four score members of the Harnack's group, which the Nazis dubbed the Red Orchestra. Mildred Fish-Harnack was guillotined in Berlin on February 16, 1943, on the personal instruction of Adolf Hitler--the only American woman executed as an underground conspirator. Yet as World War II ended and the Cold War began, her courage, idealism and self-sacrifice went largely unacknowledged in America and the democratic West, and were distorted and sanitized in the Communist East. Only now, with the opening of long-sealed archives, can the full story be told. Resisting Hitler is based on extensive interviews with Fish-Harnack family, friends and associates; it draws on personal correspondence and formerly classified German and Soviet KGB files and recently released CIA and FBI dossiers. It describes the life of a Wisconsin girl whose intelligence and beauty captivated a visiting scholar, Arvid Harnack, a member of a distinguished German academic family. It explores for the first time the complex familial connections of the Harnacks, Delbrucks and Bonhoeffers, twelve of whom were executed for resistance acts. And it details Mildred's friendship with Martha Dodd, daughter of FDR's ambassador to the Third Reich, whose affair with a Soviet diplomat led to his death. Moments before her death, Mildred said, "I have loved Germany so much." In this superbly told life of an unjustly forgotten woman, Shareen Blair Brysac depicts the human side of a controversial resistance group that for too long has been portrayed as merely a Soviet espionage network. The extraordinary story of Mildred Fish-Harnack's ten dramatic years of resisting the Nazi regime also reminds today's readers of the hard moral choices that beset opponents of a ruthless totalitarian dictatorship.
Customer Reviews:
In over her head.......2006-05-29
I wanted to read this book because I am interested in WWII espionage, but only the last third of the book really deals with this, and the actual espionage is sketchy at best. The first third recounts Mildred's early years in Wisconsin (and her life just isn't that interesting) up to her marriage to Arvid Harnack. She has a hard life with him after they move back to his native Germany. They never have any money and for fun read Goethe to each other and their friends. The author tends to glorify Mildred, but she is made human, perhaps unwittingly, in recollections by her friends during a visit to her homeland after Hitler is in power. She reveals herself to be full of insecurties by making references to her own beauty and by looking down her nose at the hicks she grew up with. Much is made of Mildred's beauty throughout the book, but it must not be the kind that reveals itself in pictures, since she looks rather plain. Arvid comes across as unlikeable, humorless, controlling and provincial in his own way, while Mildred is a gentle soul who really should have been a literature professor at an American university instead of getting tangled up in her husband's underground activities for the Red Orchestra. But she is loyal and her love for him leaves her no other choice. The book comes alive in the section about Martha Dodd and the Schulze-Boysens, who all did their share of clumsy, though well-meaning espionage for the Russians. Both Arvid and Mildred are highly intelligent and cultured, but neither of them seem to have a lick of common sense, which leads to their eventual arrest by the Gestapo. The author has done a remarkable, exhaustive amount of research and the book is well-written. A problem, though, is the amount of names thrown at you, and frequently someone is referred to and you have no idea who he is until you look in the index and see he was mentioned 200 pages earlier. All in all, this is a portrayal of a woman who really didn't have that much to do with espionage but was punished because she was Arvid Harnack's wife. But somehow I don't think she would have had it any other way.
More than just Resistance.......2003-07-06
A first class research by Brysac finally puts to rest the conflicting histories of the Red Orchestra (Rotte Kapella): the white-washing done by the FDR (former Federal Republic of Germany) vs. the pro-communist embellishments of the DDR (former East Germany).
The author's exhaustive research (de-classified Stasi and KGB archives, interviews with survivors, US Army documents) finally does justice to the only American in the German Resistance who was executed (Mildred Fish-Harnack) and also allows the readers to reach a balanced view about who the Red Orchestra was.
The reader will also become acquainted with how life was in Germany (particularly Berlin) during the 30's and early 40's through the lives of Mildred Fish-Harnack and her husband Arvid Harnack. Since the Harnacks were highly educated, came from esteemed families, and had influential friends in elitist Berlin society the reader also gets a glimpse of how divergent the views of various Germans and Americans were towards the Berlin regime.
In conclusion, it is sad to see how a heroic German-American (Mildred Fish-Harnack) and an independent thinking German intellectual (Arvid Harnack) who spoke-out against, resisted, and even sabotaged the evil regime of Hitler met such a drastic end due to the follies and reckless acts of Stalin's regime.
I wish there were more history books like this one written out there:
* impeccable research
* excellent prose (and thus easy to read)
* semi-autogiographical
* great lessons to draw about WWII, society, economy, and contemporary events.
Much More Than Wartime Resistance.......2001-03-18
This book contains much more than a description of one woman's efforts at wartime resistance. It is a remarkable depiction of the intellectual and social life of the liberal and sometimes left-leaning intelligentsia in Madison, Wisconsin, and as well as of the liberal upper class in Germany in the period from the turn of the 20th century to 1945. The material ranges from vivid social commentary,historical narrative, and thriller, to final tragedy and its aftermath. The writing style is lucid and the footnotes copious. This book conbines the virtues of being a good read and a highly informative social history. I recommend it strongly.
Unveiling the family legend.......2001-03-16
Resisting Hitler, by Shareen Brysac
When criminals gain control of governments, average citizens mostly pretend not to notice. Each thinks to himself something like, "How could I possibly pass judgment on our august leaders?" In a state ruled by force there are no competing politicians left to whom they can shift their allegiance. By default, then, they allow themselves to be used by the regime to prove that it has popular acceptance.
Not so my great-aunt Mildred Fish Harnack, whose resistance against the Third Reich has been a vivid legend in our extended family for half a century. Her story gradually became known to a widening circle of interested people, including Shareen Brysac, who finally taking the initiative, researched the case exhaustively with its myriad details, and assembled from them a powerful, vivid mosaic.
Like the Diary of Anne Frank, it is a tragic story imbued with the sense of inevitability that comes from everyone knowing the ending -- and yet it is joyous, because through Brysac, we cannot help being deeply inspired by the example of Mildred and the scores of her fellow resisters in the Red Orchestra, including her husband Arvid Harnack. They all knew they were taking a mortal risk, but as serious intellectuals who cared deeply about -- and even helped to create -- the best in German culture, they knew the truth of Socrates' dictum that "the unexamined life is not worth living." And so they lived their lives to the hilt.
By telling Mildred's story, which is by extension and implication the story of every person willing to put their life on the line to resist tyranny, Brysac has enriched my life, and all our lives. I have been inspired by Mildred for 50 years. Now let the rest of the world be inspired too.
superior biography.......2000-10-27
Initially,Shareen Brysac's Resisting Hitler attracted me because of my long-term fascination with German history, Holocaust Studies in particular.This book opened a whole new world to me! Brysac's sensitive portrayal of Mildred Harnack's tragic and extremely heroic story literally brought tears to my eyes.I'd never heard of her, nor of the "Red Orchestra"--a Nazi Resistance group little known in the U.S.Brysac's gripping tale is supported by copious research in archives, including those only recently opened to the scrutiny of scholars.I strongly suggest this biography to those interested in having a fresh look at a much written about period in German history, and to anyone who appreciates a well written book--both informative and exciting.
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The Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and the Third World (International Council for Central and East European Studies)
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 052134459X |
Book Description
In this volume an international team of contributors examines various aspects of recent Soviet East European policy toward the Third World. The first group of essays are concerned with broad aspects of Soviet policy, including political relations, Soviet perceptions of insurgency and counter-insurgency, and the Soviet use of propaganda in the Third World. Part Two is concerned largely with economic affairs, and the concluding section includes specific case studies of Soviet relations with Syria and India.
Book Description
In 1990, a NATO conference of heads of state proclaimed the end of the Cold War. Beyond Superpower Rivalry examines the implications of this statement for the countries of Latin America. How has Soviet policy toward these countries changed under Gorbachev? In turn, how has U.S. policy changed in response to the new political climate? What tangible effect will these developments have on Latin American countries? This book, a collection of essays by leading experts in academia, business, and government, analyzes the past influence of the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. on this region and debates the possible future of a Latin America emerging from the shadow of the Cold War.
The distinguished contributors to the volume include Osvaldo Hurtado, former president of Ecuador, Francisco Villagran Kramer, former vice-president of Guatemala, General Edgardo Mercado Jarrin, former prime minister of Peru, and other scholars and policy makers from Latin America, North America, and the Soviet Union.
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