Book Description
In this groundbreaking new history, Adam Tooze provides the clearest picture to date of the Nazi war machine and its undoing. There was no aspect of Nazi power untouched by economics—it was HitlerÂ's obsession and the reason the Nazis came to power in the first place. The Second World War was fought, in HitlerÂ's view, to create a European empire strong enough to take on the United States. But as The Wages of Destruction makes clear, HitlerÂ's armies were never powerful enough to beat either Britain or the Soviet Union—and Hitler never had a serious plan as to how he might defeat the United States. The Wages of Destruction is an eye-opening and controversial account that will challenge conventional interpretations of the period and will find an enthusiastic readership among fans of Ian Kershaw and Richard Evans. BACKCOVER:
Advance praise for The Wages of Destruction:
“One of the most important and original books to be published about the Third Reich in the past twenty years. A tour de force.”
—Niall Ferguson, author of Colossus
“Unputdownable epic history . . . Transforms not only our reading of HitlerÂ's sordid regime, but the history of the twentieth century itself. Brilliantly written, its original scholarship is telling and lightly borne on every page.”
—John Cornwell, author of HitlerÂ's Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII
Customer Reviews:
An enlightening analysis of economic factors behind the Third Reich.......2007-10-08
Tooze occasionally mentions in passing how companies or individuals benefited from fueling the Third Reich's war effort, but his real topics are far broader and more interesting: showing how economic factors drove Hitler's war goals and timing and how the continual feedback between industrial needs and war goals drove war strategy.
Tooze starts by describing the quandary which faced Germany in the late 1920's. Germany was not self sufficient in either food or raw materials and needed to be able to export in order to finance essential imports. Germany also needed to be able to sell its exports in order to obtain hard currency to pay the reparation demands from the World War I victors. Despite these difficulties, the German finance ministry was managing to navigate Germany through a slow and painful recovery from WWI. Then disaster struck with the Great Depression. First there was an inevitable shrinking in export markets and then, much more seriously, there were conscious protectionist decisions in America, Britain, and France to block German exports in order to protect home employment.
Before reading The Wages of Destruction, I had loosely understood how the Great Depression had been a key factor in Hitler's rise to power, especially due to widespread unemployment. But Tooze clarifies that Germany was facing a much deeper strategic dilemma than a simple economic depression. Germany was dependent on the goodwill of other powers for its export markets and for its essential food and material imports, but those powers were demonstrating that in a crisis they would look entirely to their own interests and would quite cheerfully close their markets and let Germany suffer. Given this behavior, the long-term economic and political future for Germany looked extremely grim. Hitler offered a radical solution to this problem: Germany needed to expand to the East and become self sufficient in resources in the same way as the British Empire or America. Given the depth of Germany's problem, it becomes easier to understand why many thinking Germans either enthusiastically or reluctantly accepted Hitler's solution.
In succeeding chapters, Tooze describes how Hitler rapidly switched the Germany economy to focus on rearmament. He argues that while the Nazi propaganda machine emphasized efforts to increase employment and visionary projects such as the autobahn system, this was really mere window dressing and the regime was massively focused on military preparations for war. More interestingly, he also highlights how the continual shortages of hard currency (and thus of key materials) continually constrained and shaped rearmament. By 1938 lack of currency and other economic constraints were limiting further military expansion. Hitler was thus faced with a situation where Germany could see its own military abilities peaking and simultaneously see other powers starting to accelerate their own rearmament, weakening Germany's relative advantage. Hitler being Hitler, this drove an impatience for war, while Germany had its best relative position. As the war progresses, Tooze revisits this theme from several angles. Hitler was continually faced with situations where enemy military production would quickly eclipse Germany's and he reacted by trying to knock particular opponents out of the war quickly.
Tooze's major focus is on the operations and outputs of the German wartime economy. Overall, he shows us an economy that was reasonably well run and efficient but where production was dominated by shortages of key resources, especially steel and skilled manpower. By making high-level decisions about reallocations of these resources the Reich leadership could cause major leaps (or declines) in production in target sectors such as aircraft or tanks or munitions. Typically these resources shifts would take about six months to work through the system. The lucky Nazi bureaucrat who happened to be in charge of a target sector at the end of the six months would then happily boast of his productivity miracle as his sector suddenly produced startling jumps in output.
Tooze does not shy away from describing and condemning the many darker aspects of the Third Reich's war economy. A major aim of the expansion to the East was to improve Germany's food supplies. But that land was already inhabited and that food was already being consumed. So the Nazi solution was the "Hunger Plan" which quite casually assumed that food would be diverted from Poland and the Western USSR to Germany and that many millions would be deliberately starved. Tooze argues that this appalling plan was widely circulated, understood and accepted among the German political and military leadership in 1941. Thankfully, it proved difficult to execute and while there was widespread suffering, the East avoided the systematic mass starvation called for in the plan. However, in subsequent years the same desire to remove what were seen as "useless mouths" and free up food supplies was one of the many input factors towards the holocaust. In parallel, Germany manpower shortages led to large drafts of forced labor from occupied countries to German factories. Tooze illustrates both the appalling conditions of the laborers and the folly of a regime that for ideological reasons oppressed and starved the very labor it was trying to exploit.
Overall, I found this book a very enlightening read. Tooze's thorough analysis of the details of exports, imports, and production constraints provides a convincing base for his explanation of how the constraints and limits of the German economy drove high level German economic and military planning.
A PROFOUND AND FAR-REACHING STUDY.......2007-09-17
I certainly agree with other reviewers who give "Wages of Destruction" highest praise. The only wonder is why it took so long to get the story out. We've been reading histories of the war for more than sixty years, and yet I cannot recall reading anything that lays out the economic choices and consequences as well as Adam Tooze has done here. My only criticisms in this regard would be that Tooze tends to look through a lens of economic determinism, as though weight of resources would inevitably result in Germany's defeat, no matter who was in charge. What Tooze does not delineate with any degree of specificity is Hitler's confidence in the risk aversiveness, if not downright cowardice, of the Western democracies. That was certainly the case with France, which went to war profoundly divided, and whose failure of leadership echos to this day. Great Britain under Nevelle Chamberlain was hardly better. As late as May, 1940, members of the Cabinet were still debating whether to try to cut a deal with Hitler. As for the Soviet Union, the idea that Germany could defeat the Red Army in the field and expect to hold onto captured territory was wishful thinking at its worst; even if Moscow had been captured, which Napoleon did in 1812, Hitler had to know that in Stalin he faced a man as ruthless as himself. The idea that he could repeat the German Imperial Army's success against Russia in 1917, and then confront the Western Allies, throws all rational calculation to the wind. The only other comment I would make about Wages of Destruction would be that Tooze tends to summarize the events between the Summer of 1943 and May, 1945, as though that 18 month period simply followed on what had been in the pipeline before.
Profound Analysis of Nazi Germany's Economic Situation.......2007-09-11
Recently, there has been a spate of excellent books arguing that Germany was a much weaker state than it has generally been thought to be, and that the tactical brilliance of its military obscured economic inadequacies and strategic incompetence. Isabel Hull's "Absolute Destruction," Ian Kershaw's "Fatal Decisions," and now Adam Tooze's "Wages of Destruction" all make a similar point in their very different ways. They also suggest something very interesting -- that given the insane premises that Germany should be a hegemonic power and that war and conquest were the means to attain that power, Germany's military decisions in World Wars I and II made sense.
Tooze points out in convincing fashion that not only was Germany an economic basket case compared to the United States (capable of produing perhaps 1,000 warplanes at the same time the United States could produce perhaps 50,000), but that even if it were matched against the British Empire alone, its long-run prospects were little better than 50-50.
Tooze goes on to show that after France fell and Britain would not make a separate peace, Hitler faced an economic and strategic dilemma. The United States was not likely to stay out of the war indefinitely; when it inevitably entered the war on the allied side, Germany would be grossly outnumbered and outproduced.
The only possible answer was Russia, either as an ally or as a colony. As an ally, the Soviet Union was unreliable, opportunistic, and probably treacherous. Moreover, Germany would have to bend a great deal to Stalin's wishes to keep the Soviet Union happy. As a prostrate colony, Russia might just provide the material to resist Britain and the United States. So, Tooze suggests, Hitler was not so irrational when he invaded Russia (provided, of course, one does not ask the question "If Hitler faced such a daunting situation even after France was unexpected defeated, how could he ever have figured on winning the war while France was still in the allied camp"?)
If anything, Tooze suggests, Germany got lucky -- it had no business being as successful as it was by June 1941. Even at that, so many things had to go right for Germany to come out of the war in any decent shape that total victory was an impossibility. Could he successfully invade England? Little or no chance. Could he starve England out? Not with the United States on Engalnd's side. Even if he had conquered Russia where would he be -- Facing the United States across a narrow strait with his army streched from the Bering Sea to the English Channel. This was not a winning hand.
Tooze presents plenty of evidence to show that the Nazis ran a miserable war economy; that it had no idea how to put together a coherent economic or military strategy; that its solutions were ad hoc, duplicative, inefficient, and ultimately monstrous. The famous "German efficiency" takes a terrible hit, at least on the strategic level. In sum, Tooze concludes, absent a complete collapse of allied will, Germany never had a chance. But given the fact that it never had a chance and chose to take one anyway, its seemingly irrational moves made a certain kind of mad sense.
Wages is Scholarly Blut Dull.......2007-07-21
Adam Tooze has made a great contribution to the history of Germany under Nazi party rule, breaking into territory trod by few hisorians. His scholarship is superior. Few have found a way to enliven economic history and Toonze has failed to break that barrier. This along keeps the book from a five star rating.
great book.......2007-07-07
Germany lost the Second World War was because the allies out-produced them. I've known that for a long time -- but until I read The Wages of Destruction I never really understood what that statement meant, and all that it entailed. The Wages of Destruction explains, in gripping, readable detail, how the Nazi war machine worked, how it failed, and how it shaped the strategy and some of the worst crimes of the Third Reich.
So let me add to the chorus of five-star reviews. I consider The Wages of Destruction required reading if you want to understand Nazi Germany, particularly if you have an interest in economics or business. Also, if you have read Albert Speer's Inside the Third Reich, you'll be interested in this book for the counterpoint it provides.
Amazon.com
Every few months you'll read a newspaper story of the discovery of some long-lost art treasure hidden away in a German basement or a Russian attic: a Cranach, a Holbein, even, not long ago, a da Vinci. Such treasures ended up far from the museums and churches in which they once hung, taken as war loot by Allied and Axis soldiers alike. Thousands of important pieces have never been recovered. Lynn Nicholas offers an astonishingly good account of the wholesale ravaging of European art during World War II, of how teams of international experts have worked to recover lost masterpieces in the war's aftermath and of how governments "are still negotiating the restitution of objects held by their respective nations."
Book Description
Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award
The cast of characters includes Hitler and Goering, Gertrude Stein and Marc Chagall--not to mention works by artists from Leonardo da Vinci to Pablo Picasso. And the story told in this superbly researched and suspenseful book is that of the Third Reich's war on European culture and the Allies' desperate effort to preserve it.
From the Nazi purges of "Degenerate Art" and Goering's shopping sprees in occupied Paris to the perilous journey of the Mona Lisa from Paris and the painstaking reclamation of the priceless treasures of liberated Italy,
The Rape of Europa is a sweeping narrative of greed, philistinism, and heroism that combines superlative scholarship with a compelling drama.
"Nicholas knows the art world as well as any military historian knows his battlefield.... Her work deserves the widest reading."--New York Times Book Review
Customer Reviews:
Nazi and non-Nazi German Rapacity; Planned Slav Extermination, etc........2007-08-14
Nicholas traces the plunder of cultural treasures by Nazi Germany followed by the Allies' efforts to locate and return the booty. The Germans also engaged in the wanton destruction of others' cultural treasures, beginning with the very start of WWII. For instance, the German forces deliberately bombed and shelled the historical section of Warsaw (the Old Town). (p. 61)
The reader soon learns that the pillage of conquered nations was done not just by Nazi hacks, but also by German intellectuals, as in German-occupied Poland: "Even the most distinguished German scholars were not immune to the opportunities presented by a cultural scene so open to exploitation...once the country lay at their feet many of these academics felt not the slightest qualms at transferring the collections, libraries, and even research notes of their erstwhile colleagues to their own use." (p. 74).
Spectacular German thefts include that of the giant Wit Stwosz (Veit Stoss) altar of Krakow (Cracow), and the Bursztyn Komnaty (Amber Room) of the city of Pushkin. The latter is yet to resurface.
Nicholas touches on those German genocidal plans against the Slavs that were to be implemented after Germany's expected victory over Russia: "The basic policies would be the same as those applied to Poland. After conquest, areas would be cleansed, exploited, and Germanized...In these [German-appointed districts] the cleansing would again be cultural, racial, and ideological. Not only Jews and `Bolshevists' would be eliminated by immediate execution; much of the general Slavic population would be allowed to expire naturally when their food supplies were diverted to the worthier citizens of the Reich." (p. 185)
There are some distortions and omissions in this book. Nicholas repeats the myth of the Poles "arriving at" an already-abandoned Monte Cassino (p. 247) when in actuality the Poles had to overcome fierce German resistance, and to take grievous casualties, in order to take Monte Cassino. She elaborates on the Germans' burning of the libraries and archives of Naples (pp. 232-233), and the agony of the Soviet-betrayed Warsaw Uprising (p. 77), but not the magnitudes-greater destruction of Warsaw's cultural treasures. AFTER the fall of the Warsaw Uprising, the vindictive Germans burnt and blew up the still-standing architectural treasures of Warsaw. They also burned all the libraries and archives of Warsaw, causing the loss of 13 million volumes, including about 500,000 irreplaceable ones.
All in all, however, Nicholas has given the reader a good overview of this sad subject.
should be on high school reading list.......2007-06-08
Interesting and detailed. The book is very good, but the movie, which is in art houses now (June '07) is excellent and it was easier to keep track of the thievery of the Nazis, and the efforts of the excellent Monuments men who tried to sort things out and return stolen property. I knew that the Nazis confiscated art, but I had no idea that it was on such a vast scale. I recommend reading the book AND seeing the movie.
now see the documentary film.......2007-05-23
For all who like the Rape of Europa there is now a documentary of the same name which just opened in theaters in San Francisco. This is a story based on images and the film makers have done it proud with fabulous photography plus amazing period footage. Watch for this film soon nationwide in your local art theaters and eventually on TV. Its fantastic.
Museum Robbery!.......2006-02-26
This book is a must for anyone involved in art - any aspect of it!
I was overawed by the preparation which was undertaken by both the Allies and the Axis forces pror to , during, and after WWII! This was one of two books I used for a report on Stolen Art. The only reason I rated this one as four stars is that it was sometimes difficult to plough through Chapter IX (The Red Hot Rake)- the rest of the book was absolutley fascinating. I would include another book -"The Lost Museum" by Hector Feliciano. "The Lost Museum" was easier to read and equally fascinating and portrayed the removal of the art from The Louvre in such a manner that it left me breathless! Read Both!
Outstanding.......2001-12-05
This book is more than just a hum-drum listing of works that were taken, lost or destroyed in the years leading up to and including World War II. It is an intriguing and thought-provoking look at the attempted cultural occultation of not just its own nation and ideals, but of the Nazi aggression on the world. The Nazi way of condemning certain "degenerate" works, either Jewish or Impressionist for example, painfully exhibit the ultimate crushing of free thought and expression which were so vital to the Nazi regime's recipe for authoritarianism.
But the underlying Nazi menace is only a part of the suspenseful undertone in this book. The various heart-wrenching stories of the brave souls who tried to protect and salvage the many works of art (on both sides surprisingly) are what give this account a real kick. To me the accounts on the Soviet front were especially remarkable.
My only complaint is that since I am not, as I suspect the majority of the readers are not, art historians, the significance of many of these works directly mentioned is lost. I would like to have seen more pictures of the art work in question. (I have uncovered a documentary in the works based on this book which might allieviate some of this problem, but until then...)
For those interested in the history of World War II and who might have exhausted the typical military accounts, I highly recommend this alternate angle into Nazi repression and its effect on those who lived through it. Heck, I recommend this for anyone who enjoys history.
Book Description
The White Rose tells the story of Hans Scholl and Sophie Scholl, who in 1942 led a small underground organization of German students and professors to oppose the atrocities committed by Hitler and the Nazi Party. They named their group the White Rose, and they distributed leaflets denouncing the Nazi regime. Sophie, Hans, and a third student were caught and executed.
Written by Inge Scholl (Han's and Sophie's sister), The White Rose features letters, diary excerpts, photographs of Hans and Sophie, transcriptions of the leaflets, and accounts of the trial and execution. This is a gripping account of courage and morality.
CONTRIBUTORS: Dorthe Solle.
Customer Reviews:
An amazing story, not the best account.......2006-03-12
I bought this book wanting some background on the White Rose before going to see the German film on Sophie Scholl, and it was informative, if rather short - the actual story is less than 100 pages, as half the book represents documents. On the plus side, it is by the sister of Hans and Sophie Scholl, so though it isn't a great read, presumably it is an accurate account. However, I have since read some negative comments that the author used this book to place herself more centre stage, which put me off a bit as I like to think the books I read - at least those on historical events - are well-researched and unbiased.
For a more gripping account with a fast-paced narrative, I would recommend Dumbach and Newborn's Sophie Scholl and the White Rose, which I've just finished. It has some rave reviews, is a much more vivid account, and as well as all the photographs of the students also includes all the leaflets including the seventh, previously unpublished, leaflet of the White Rose group that was discovered in the Gestapo archives after the fall of the Berlin Wall. So if you want both a good read and some very interesting historical documents, this is by far the better book.
It gives me hope.......2004-08-05
For those unfamiliar with the story of The White Rose, it is a testament to the power and courage of those who are willing to stand up for freedom and independence in a world gone mad. Once again I find this book paticularly compelling today, for obvious reasons. The pamphlets the White Rose students distributed (that they subsequently paid the ultimate price for) are reprinted in their entirety in the book. They are well written, beautiful in spirit, and as compelling today as they were then.
The story is told with honor and reverence by the sister of Hans Scholl and Sophie Scholl, siblings and two of the students in Germany who brainstormed the pamphlets and were executed swiftly and denounced publicly for their trouble. In spite of that, or because of it, their efforts caused a ripple of resistance in the German republic that caused its fair share of trouble for the Nazi regime.
Calling for a policy of passive resistance -- the ability for each one, individually, to sabotage any efforts of the fascist regime in power -- was a brilliant move on their part. No fundraising, no unending meetings, no need for mailing lists or computer databases. Sabotage rallies, sabotage in all areas of science and scolarship which further the continuation of the war, sabotage in all branches of the arts, and a refusal to give a penny to any government organized charity...such was the call of these noble individuals who had no great army, but who understood the power of the individual.
I only learned of the White Rose within the past couple of years myself. Everyone should learn and understand what they did and why. It gives me hope.
In All My Life.......2003-06-13
In all my life I don't think I have read a book about such courageous people as Hans and Sophie Scholl. They are involved in an anti-fascist resistance movement and know they can be killed at any hour of the day. They are in constant fear of the people around them, wondering if they are Nazi spies, and yet they keep going.
This inspiring book, so full of tears, fearfulness, joy, anxiety, and love should be read by every young person.
Janice Wipf
In All My Life.......2003-06-13
In all my life I don't think I have read a book about such courageous people as Hans and Sophie Scholl. They are involved in an anti-fascist resistance movement and know they can be killed at any hour of the day. They are in constant fear of the people around them, wondering if they are Nazi spies, and yet they keep going. This inspiring book, so full of tears, fearfulness, joy, anxiety, and love should be read by every young person. Janice Wipf, ninth grade.
You Could Die if You Knew!.......2003-05-28
Would you be willing to join a cause, knowing that you could be killed for even associating with members of that cause? Would you be ready to leave family and friends for something that is almost impossible to achieve? The young people of the White Rose movement did just that.
Sophie and Hans Scholl lived in Germany during the reign of the cruel dictator Adolph Hitler. They and several other young people and their teacher stood up to Hitler's brutal rulership and tried to bring about peace and justice in a country devoid of almost everything but propaganda, hate, and bloodshed.
Exactly what steps these young people took is not as important as the great Idea they stood for, the vision of peace, love, and justice. Writing such things as "Freedom"and "Down with Hitler" on walls and streets took courage that only the most devout and focused person could have. These people, who were killed for their beliefs, should have more than just a book about them with the name of their group, The White Rose. They should be known and honored world-wide for their nonviolent stand against the most wicked and horrible dictatorship in modern history!
Please get this great little book, read it, and pass it on!
Kenneth Zimmerman
Book Description
Since its publication in 1960, William L. Shirer's monumental study of Hitler's German Empire has been widely acclaimed as the definitive record of this century's blackest hours. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich offers an unparalleled and thrillingly told examination of how Adolf Hitler nearly succeeded in conquering the world. With millions of copies in print around the globe, it has attained the status of a vital and enduring classic.
Customer Reviews:
Requiem for America.......2007-10-01
It is a pity this book isn't required reading for all Americans; George Bush. Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Donald Rumsfeld, and Condoleeza Rice would have NEVER come within a million miles of the Oval Office.
And there would have been NO GOP after Watergate; that would have been the end. Instead, the GOP morphed into the AmeriNazi Christianist Party, with Reagan playing a senile Hindenburg to Poppy Bush behind the scenes and a budding Karl Rove chomping at the bit to become his nation's Goebbels. Indeed. Only the scapgoat targets change; not the tactics. Yesterday the Jews, today all of Islam who will rise up to the last man, woman, and child to fight the new Nazi scourge to the death to the point of genocide, and all "those who are not with us, are with the terrorists." See you in the Haliburton camps.
No matter though; what this book teaches is that Nazi Amerika will soon go the way of all Nazi Empires. The Fourth Reich will soon be no more as Bush, the Uniter, unites the entire world against him and it.
Scarry!.......2007-09-20
I've been meaning to read this for years (and years). - Not totally easy to read, but VERY interesting and relates to present-day events easily. Buy it (or check it out of the library), read it, and TELL YOUR FRIENDS.
Expansive and detailed.......2007-09-13
Though it took me just about as many years to finish this massive tome as it took for the actual Nazi regime to play out, I would still rank this as one of my favorite history books. And even though it is very long and detailed, it is actually written in way that is fairly well-paced and at times even highly dramatic. I doubt there will ever be as definitive a work on the whole Nazi regime as what is presented here.
Amazing read.......2007-08-23
This book is an amazing read. It is pretty thick and extremely detailed but the insight it provides is unparalleled. The primary source documents cited throughout are fascinating.
Extremely educational .......2007-08-17
William L. Shirer's novel is so well written that I cannot put it into the right words. I want to say that it felt like I was there, his descriptions of people and places were very, very heavy. That is the least of my concerns because this is a novel that goes so much farther into the history of Nazi Germany than perhaps any other I have ever read.
Shirer's book starts with exhaustive research that takes you into the childhood of Adolf Hitler. While known the world over as a monster, it was still important for me to see what this man's days were like before his deadly actions. Srategies, Socialism, tactics, politics, betrayal and so many other things are brought out and although some historical figureheads better versed on the subject than me may know some of this, I found a lot of it to be somewhat of a lost history that tends to take a back seat to WWII in general.
Book Description
A stunning account of the economic workings of the Third Reich—and the reasons ordinary Germans supported the Nazi state
In this groundbreaking book, historian Götz Aly addresses one of modern history’s greatest conundrums: How did Hitler win the allegiance of ordinary Germans? The answer is as shocking as it is persuasive: by engaging in a campaign of theft on an almost unimaginable scale—and by channeling the proceeds into generous social programs—Hitler literally “bought” his people’s consent.
Drawing on secret files and financial records, Aly shows that while Jews and citizens of occupied lands suffered crippling taxation, mass looting, enslavement, and destruction, most Germans enjoyed an improved standard of living. Buoyed by millions of packages soldiers sent from the front, Germans also benefited from the systematic plunder of conquered territory and the transfer of Jewish possessions into their homes and pockets. Any qualms were swept away by waves of government handouts, tax breaks, and preferential legislation.
Gripping and important, Hitler’s Beneficiaries makes a radically new contribution to our understanding of Nazi aggression, the Holocaust, and the complicity of a people.
Customer Reviews:
Hitler's Satisfied Thieves: Actually, the Case for Nazi German Larceny-and-Genocide Policies can be Made Stronger.......2007-08-19
German author Gotz (Goetz) Aly describes National Socialism as a form of populist wealth-redistribution welfare-state socialism. One-third of German taxpayers paid more than two-thirds of the tax burdens of war (p. 293), and businesses were heavily taxed (pp. 60-68). Hitler favored social equality for all Germans (p. 300), and worked to correct social inequities, notably in education (p. 322).
Pointedly, National Socialism massively transferred wealth from non-Germans to Germans: "In terms of wartime revenues, internal and external, low- and middle-income Germans, who together with their families numbered some 60 million, accounted for no more than 10 percent of the total sum. More affluent Germans bore 20 percent of the burden, while foreigners, forced laborers, and Jews were compelled to cover 70 percent of the funds consumed every day by Germany during the war." (p. 292). Consequently: "On average, the vast and not particularly affluent majority of Germans enjoyed more disposable income during the war that they had before it." (p. 293). Nazism also appealed to those opposed to traditional moral conventions, and to those inclined towards anticlericalism and anti-elitism (p. 319).
Not surprisingly, once voted into power by the German people, Hitler never needed draconian methods to maintain power until the end. Nearly 90% of the German dissenters executed lost their lives after 1941 (pp. 303-304). Unlike Communism, Nazism never demanded absolute devotion (pp. 23-24). In 1937, merely 7,000 Gestapo employees sufficed to handle 60 million Germans, while, in later East Germany, 190,000 surveillance experts controlled 17 million people (p. 29).
Jews weren't the only victims of larcenous Nazi policies--far from it: "This land of milk and honey in Eastern Europe was to be conquered not for the benefit of landed Prussian Junkers and powerful industrialists but to provide ordinary people with a real-world utopia." (p. 31).
Aly breaks new ground by showing that virtually ALL sectors of German society were involved in the expropriation of conquered peoples' wealth. German soldiers not only sent a considerable amount of looted goods back home (p. 178), but were encouraged to do so (p. 311). Later-writer Heinrich Boll (Boell) wrote much about this (p. 110, etc.). Not mentioned is the fact that, in German-occupied Poland, any German could enter a Polish or Jewish shop at any time and take anything at will without paying.
Poles targeted by the Germans for deportation, imprisonment, or execution immediately lost all their properties to the Reich (p. 197, 236). The 8-12 million forced laborers in the Reich, most of whom were Eastern Europeans, toiled under inhumane conditions. They were paid a wage in order to forestall resistance back home, but then the earnings were recouped by the Germans in various creative ways (pp. 156-157).
German-occupied Poland actually had to pay Germany for being occupied (pp. 76-77) "...with the result that the local population endured acute shortages of grain, potatoes, meat, and other necessities." (p. 77), leading to famine (p. 170). (This enables the reader understand why some Poles didn't aid fugitive Jews and why Poles sometimes betrayed or killed Jews known or suspected of stealing from them). Polish guerilla resistance eventually forced the Germans to slightly reduce the harshness of their exploitation of Poland (p. 160).
The Wehrmacht invaded Russia under orders to live off the land, placing 21.2 million Soviet citizens in starvation mode (p. 178). Additionally, millions of Soviet POWs were starved to death by the Germans (p. 175). Aly touches on the eventual Nazi extermination plans against Slavs: "...the most extreme proposal envisioned forcibly relocating 50 million Slavs to Siberia. (For years, the German Research Foundation also supported the development of technocratic plans for the slaughter of millions of people. Funds for research in this area were still allocated in the Nazis' final budget for the fiscal year 1945-46)." (p. 30). Yet the term "relocation" had itself already become a euphemism for extermination.
One Holocaust myth would have us believe that the destruction of Jews had been so uniquely irrational that the Germans would rather sacrifice themselves than leave Jews alive. In actuality, the deportation of the Jews from the island of Rhodes never did challenge the Wehrmacht's transport needs (p. 268), and there wasn't even talk of German retreat at the time of the Rhodes Jews' deportation (pp. 269-270). Once it did occur, the Rhodes Jews' deportation was itself governed by economic considerations (p. 273).
The case for Aly's premise that the Holocaust can't be properly understood without the larceny behind it (p. 285) can be strengthened (see: INTO THAT DARKNESS). Treblinka Kommandant Franz Stangl rejected the presumed Nazi obsession with killing all Jews, citing the creation of "honorary Aryans". Stangl asserted that the Holocaust was actually motivated by financial gain. When confronted with the obvious fact that most Jews weren't wealthy, Stangl retorted with the comment that almost every Jew had some worthy possession that could be confiscated--and that the booty added up.
How the Nazis Made All Germans Complicit in the Holocaust.......2007-07-30
Why is it that there never developed an underground resistance in Germany during WW2? According to this well researched book by Gotz Aly, it was because the Nazis spent like drunken sailors to keep the average German fat and happy during the war. The Nazis understood (from what happened in Germany during WW1) that as long as people were happy on the home front, their Armies wouldn't have to worry about their families and could concen- trate on fighting. They also mad sure that those soldiers who were not directly in battle would have ample resources with which to buy luxury goods that they could then send home.
Using all types of creative accounting, they never had to raise the tax rate that most Germans had to pay, even during the war. They were conspicuous in raising the tax rates on the wealthy and creating a war profit tax on businesses making enormous profits from the war. It's hard not to make money when your help practically works for free (force labor) and you never intend to pay for the raw materials that you purchase (steal).
So where did all this money come from? Well first of all it came via the Wehrmacht who shipped home multiple packages filled with stolen jewelry and other like items. The Wehrmacht paid it's soldiers with money extorted from the occupied nations as well as paying them in local currency that was converted at ridiculous rates. With all the extra money they had, the Wehrmacht was able to buy up anything that wasn't nailed down and strip most of the occupied nations of goods paid for with money that was inflated on the German side of the equation.
The Ministry of Finance took great pains to collect (with the help of the Wehrmacht and local collaborators) and occupation tax that was then used to pay their soldiers. In other words the occupied nations paid to be subjugated by the Nazis. They also looted the treasuries of not only the occupied nations but also those of their allies. They shipped home as much food stuffs as possible without worrying about starving the people of the occupied territories, since they were to be eventually eliminated. Goering said that, 'if some one has to starve, there's not reason that that person has to be a German'.
Lastly, not only did the Nazis (with the help of the Wehrmacht and German social agencies like the Red Cross) steal/confiscate/rob those Jews who were sent to the gas chambers; they also gave away their real estate, businesses, furniture and even clothing to the German public. You won't complain about your government if after you are bombed out, they give you a new place to live, furniture, clothing and even bed linens that might even be better than what you had before. It also costs the government nothing if these items have been stolen from people it plans to kill.
Aly estimates that overall, the money that was extorted from the occupied territories and allies, as well as the revenues collected from the liquidation of six million jews, half a million gypsies (Romi) not to mention 'other' enemies of the German people; covered almost 50 percent of the costs of the war. These costs included the manufacture and production of war material (much of it done by forced slave labor) and the salaries of the Wehrmacht and associated armed forces. Germany never saw bond drives like they had in Britain and the US because of this pool of money that they were able to extort. The saddest part of the story is that many of the financial people who helped the Nazis organize this shell game to pay for the war; ended up working for the Federal Republic after the war.
Fascist capitalism.......2007-06-22
Until recently, histories of the Third Reich have focused on Hitler and anti-Semitic ideology. The Holocaust and Hitler's military adventures have been granted an enormous number of pages. A few historians have placed some emphasis on his incompetent dabbling in military strategy. That picture is overfocussed, and misleading. Goetz Aly addresses a wider scope in this fascinating study of how the Reich was able to perservere in the face of what should have been sufficient cause for its early demise. With extensive research applied to the Reich's economic practices, he ably demonstrates what kept it functioning and accepted by the German population.
The term "Nazi" means National Socialist Workers' Party. That seeming innocuous phrase has been omitted from the consideration of its meaning, according to Aly. "National" and "Socialist" are the key terms. "National", meant just that - policies were aimed at benefitting Germany. "Socialist", of course, is a philosophy designed to benefit the most people - particularly those of the lower economic classes. Aly argues with detailed evidence that this is precisely what the Nazis achieved during the 1930s and through the war years. That it succeeded right up to the end of the Reich is testimony to the effectiveness of the Nazi economic methods. The average German began, and remained the "beneficiary" of a highly manipulated financial system.
It was a complex system. Aly begins by explaining how the Nazi leaders were a group of youthful, dynamic characters. They represented change, particularly in a restructering of the class system. The deprived were to be granted first priority in social benefits. While the 1930s witnessed a slow improvement, the onset of war allowed sweeping economic and social change. This was accomplished primarily by shifting the burden of war costs to the occupied nations. France was the testing ground for many new fiscal techniques designed to maintain a comfortable lifestyle in Germany, while bleeding the local populace of essential goods by imposing "occupation costs". One technique was simply to issue a military scrip to buy local goods. Soldiers were able to ship home foodstuffs and other goods not readily obtainable in Germany. The method worked less well in Russia where the "scorched-earth" policy reduced available foodstuffs and other goods. By the time the Wehrmacht entered the Balkans, however, it had numerous finacial tactics available to apply there.
Throughout the Reich's conquered territories, it was the Jews who bore the greatest of these burdens. A number of new laws allowed financial institutions and tax collectors to fill their coffers. Heavily taxed, then dispossessed of belongings, savings, homes and, of course ultimately their lives, the Jews "contributed" to the Reich's ongoing success in several ways. Their homes and belongings were taken and sold, often to the refugees from Allied bombing campaigns. Resettlement in real homes and apartments, sometimes fully furnished, instead of being sent to refugee camps, maintained German morale. The technique provided the gloss of "successful" government policies. Instead of being swayed by charismatic leadership or effective propaganda, Aly argues successfully that personal comfort bound the populace to an adventuresome regime. As he describes it, the Holocaust will never be properly understood until it is seen "as a campaign of murderous larceny". This book makes a major contribution to that understanding. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]
Organized Theft from Occupied Lands and the Jews.......2007-03-29
Mr. Aly presents new and somewhat surprising view of the Nazi years and the effort that Hitler et al went through to keep the home crowds happy. His thesis is that Hitler provided 'guns and butter' through the systematic looting of the property of others including the jews and subsequently the occupied lands. He describes and documents that such looting was not just the looting of fine art from museums and factory equipment to the huge German companies but mundane, everyday items like hams and chairs. As Goring said in a speech on October 4, 1942, 'if someone has to go hungry, let it be someone other than a German.'
The book does not explain Hitler's support before 1933, and the book does not spend much time on happenings after February 2, 1943 (Stalingrad) and April 8, 1943 (Tunesia), nor of course on the last year of the war when the British and American bomber forces were finally getting it together.
The Nazi Robbers.......2007-03-16
Nobody will be surprised to learn that the Nazis robbed the Jews and other nations in Europe. But some of the detail will be new even to those who are well read in the voluminous literature on the Nazi period, and for that we must be grateful to the author. But it must also be said that he relied on the published work of others for some of the most interesting detail even in this narrow area.
Where the author is original is in his reading of the data of Nazi robbery. He argues that the German people benefited from the Nazi thievery, and, he says, for that reason (among others) they gave their enthusiastic support to the regime. He is careful not to dismiss other factors altogether, such as anti-Semitism, but he stresses the importance of the economic benefit to the population.
There are a number of problems with this thesis.
First, the evidence for happiness with economic conditions during the Hitler regime is totally anecdotal. The author has talked with members of his own family and other acquaintances, but there is no assurance that such haphazard interviewing has resulted in a representative picture. The same goes for his unsystematic reading of published memoirs by famous writers.
Is it simply common sense to assume that people are happy when they reap economic benefits? Not in the absence of other considerations. The German people, after all, underwent great hardship under the Nazi regime, especially in wartime. Aly does not mention that, from the point of view of material comfort, they had as many reasons to be unhappy with the Nazis as to be happy. Their taxes were low during the war, says Aly, because the Nazis robbed the Jews and the occupied countries to pay for the war. And low taxes make people happy. Even if your cities get bombed and your sons and husbands die on the battlefield? If, as Aly suggests, it is material benefits that motivate people above all else, the Germans might have been expected to oppose Hitler.
In my view, writers who have assigned greater weight to non-material motivating factors, such as the Nazi theology of anti-Semitism, have given more satisfactory answers to the puzzle of the Germans' wartime approbation of Hitler.
The Germans' happiness with the Nazis, moreover, began long before Jewish properties were expropriated. Why were the Nazis so popular in 1933, 1934, 1935 - before the program of looting was put into effect? On this point, Aly is totally ahistorical. His thesis is one of cause and effect - Nazi robberies having the effect of Nazi popularity. But what if the effect began before the putative cause?
To this reader at least, Aly's thesis lacks logic.
Book Description
'A fascinating book, well written and forcefully argued...Luttwak's formulations are as refreshing as they are convincing... He has done for Roman historians what they have not done for themselves.' --Z. Yavetz, New Republic
Customer Reviews:
Pellucid analysis, and perhaps relevant to our own time?.......2007-04-17
Luttwak's book is not only a marvelous addition to any library concerning strategy or Rome, but it may also be, in Barbara Tuchman's phrase, "A Distant Mirror". Speaking of the last phase of the Roman Empire (i.e. the late third and fourth century CE), Luttwak says "The machinery of empire now became increasingly self-serving, with its tax-collectors, administrators, and soldiers of much greater use to one another than to society at large...."
Great explanation how a world empire defended its citizens.......2005-05-28
I do not agree that this book is only for specialists. I am of the opinion that it is a book for history lovers. And, moreover, it is for any person who wishes to understand how a highly developed society managed to defend its way of living. It most valuable because it depicts the success of the Roman system in the first two centuries of our era. The Third Century depicts the problem of a World power which has began its decline.
Reading the book you understand the Roman system, and you learn how a society must be prepared for selfdefense, and even for attack, if it wants to survive.
If you translate this book into the idiom of the early XXIst Century, you realize how our declining Western Civilization must behave in order to protect itself, and its inhabitants, from its external -and even internal- threats.
Eye-opening analysis.......2005-05-19
This book is a very interesting analysis for everybody who wants to know more about the strategy of the Roman Empire. While also very accessible to non-experts, even experts or people who have read a lot about Rome will learn a lot and see things a new way.
Mr. Luttwak splits the time of the roman empire into time periods of same strategy. This strategy changed a few times through the centuries.
One of the most interesting points is that the Roman Empire did have trouble expanding its Empire beyond the size of Augustus Principate because the roman army could not apply its full military force in the border areas because of the evironment there. The roman army's core was the heavy infanterie and with this the legions were strong and hard to stop or defeat but they were also slow. Therefore in areas where enemies had something to defend (cities, fields, etc), the power of the roman army (also using their siege capabilities) was very high and therefore it could apply this potential military might either in direct military success or into political power which then helped the romans to create client states around their empire which served as buffer states against any potential enemy attack.
But the forested middle Europe, the desert areas of Arabia and North Africa and the plains of Iran and Ukraine were wide and the people who lived there did not depend on a city structure which they needed to defend. Therefore they could avoid a direct confrontation with the Romans (which was their main strength) and apply their way of fighting to the Romans. The Roman army could still penetrate these areas, but only under above average costs and had trouble keeping this area under their control. Examples of this are the losses of Crassus against the Parthians and the losses of 3 legions against the Cherusci in the Teutoburg Forest.
Very good book!
Ancient history for current events.......2004-09-22
Although much of this book may be at a level of specificity of interest only to Roman history buffs, Luttwak's assessments of the Roman Empire's strategic strengths and weaknesses has much relevance to the modern United States, which occupies an historical position not unlike Rome's at the beginning of the Empire. For example, issues such as the efficient use of a relatively small professional army, or the maintenance of client states, are directly relevant to the modern world. Each section begins with a sufficiently adequate historical summary that readers not yet familiar with Roman history will not be lost.
An excellent overview of Roman imperial strategy.......2003-03-09
This is a unique work in that it tries to explain an overall strategic picture of Roman Imperial defense through the principate and into the turbulent third century when the empire as a political entity was in real jepordy of being swept away by internal and external threats. In somewhat technical terms, he goes on to explain how Roman Imperial security evolved over time starting with the early principate. Then going into the Flavian, Antonine and Severan eras. Luttwak does a great job in outlining the threat, security measures and strategies of each different era. Extensive notes allow for additional study. Even though written almost 30 years ago, it is still very relevant. It is striking how simmilar the strategic problems faced by ancient Rome are today faced by the U.S. My only critisism is that he does not go into any detail of internal security measures or how these relate to strategic defense. Otherwise an excellent work.
Book Description
From beginning to end, the captivating story of Sophie Scholl and the White Rose is an uplifting and enlightening account of the largely untold story of German resistance to the Third Reich. With details of Scholl 's arrest and trial before Hitler's Hanging Judge,Rol and Freisler, and including the leaflets that the White Rose circulated throughout the German population, this volume is an invaluable addition to World War II literature. And it is a fascinating window into human spirit. The animated narrative reads like a suspense novel.-New York Times
Customer Reviews:
A must read for a restless conscience.......2007-04-09
If you have a restless conscience then you will better understand the members of the White Rose. Like most kids in Germany in the 30's Hans and Sophie Scholl joined the Nazi youth movement and bought into National Socialism. However through their father who opposed National Socialism and a God instilled restless conscience they soon saw National Socialism for the evil it was and is. The author does a good job of making you feel the tension and stress as the story unfolds. Their dileama was how do you mount a meaningful opposition to a totalitarian state from within. Who can you trust? Gestapo everywhere and all opposition to the State outlawed.By 1940 most of the 500 or so pastors who would not bow down to Hitler were in jail or executed. By the time the White Rose decided to take action in 1942 most Germans were scarred to death of the police state they had allowed to enslave them. But there was sporadic uprising against Hitler. One interesting story in the book was when the gov't banned all the crucifixes from the public schools in Bavaria in 1941. The parents signed protest letters and petitions and even threw the mandatory picture of Hitler out of classroom windows. The protest was so strong that Hitler backed down. Its scary to think that our gov't has taken Christianity out of the classroom but Hitler couldn't. As you read the book you feel that they felt they were going to get caught but their restless conscience would not let them turn from the course of action that would lead to their deaths. As we see our own freedoms of privacy (Patriot Act), speech (Hate Crime Bills) and other constitutional rights being taken from us by an ever growing central gov't we can learn a lot from this book. At her trial Sophie Scholl said "Somebody had to make a start". They certainly did and their pamphlets and death had a lasting effect on the German people. Hans Scholl's last words were "Long live Freedom". The essence of freedom is the limitation of gov't and requires eternal vigilance. The German people allowed Hitler to much power and he enslaved them. We still have the time and ability to limit the power of our gov't but it will take a lot of work and most importantly a restless conscience. 5 stars for this book.
Amazing - a must read!!!.......2007-01-10
This book was definitely a must-read, not only for those that are interested in this time period of study, but for anyone who wants to have a better understanding of world history. It's amazing, simply put. It reads so quickly. You are definitely drawn in from the very first page to the last.
Understanding the other side of the story . . . .......2006-07-13
I bought this for research and it is terrific. It really gets into the mindset and political background of the story of the White Rose and helps the reader to understand the 'why' of the story. Not as personal as other accounts, it nevertheless is a wonderful background that will help you see Nazi Germany in a whole new light while telling the moving and touching story of Sophie Scholl.
Sophie Scholl and The White Rose.......2006-07-03
It is quite impossible to do an adequate job of reviewing this book.
Knowing that these young German students really lived, daring to risk their young lives and, indeed, losing them, for their distribution of their printed words challenging German people to act against Hitler, is unbelievably humbling and cause for great hope for mankind. Passive resistence worked. Life triumphed over death. Good was stronger than evil.
The authors, Annette Dumbach and Jud Newborn, became accomplished talents with the publication of this book alone.
Their ability to combine the biographies of Sophie, her brother and their compatriots in the making and distrubtion of the White Rose and the requisite history and analysis of the political climate in Germany during The Holcaust is masterful.
The book reads like a suspense thriller one could read in a few hours. However, their thoughtful, detailed insights into the minds and hearts of the protagonists, compel the reader to read and then reread many passages before being emotionally able to read on. This is a must read for young and old students of the human condition, a truly unforgettable book.
A very powerful and memorable book.......2006-03-25
SOPHIE SCHOLL & THE WHITE ROSE is, essentially, about the finest aspects of human nature. The White Rose members' integrity and their compassion for their fellow Germans and, more surprisingly, for the Jewish population who had endured years of prejudice and oppression followed by vicious persecution is very impressive.
To mount a secret campaign against the Third Reich, a totalitarian regime of insidious oppression and unbelievable brutality against both the German people and its conquered populations, takes amazing courage.
But to face up to that regime on an intensely personal level, without hesitation or - apparently - regret, fully aware of the consequences, is simply awesome. And it awes me that most of the White Rose members were students like myself! This is a very memorable book with a powerful message.
Book Description
Far more than a conflict of imperial aggression, World War II was about "blood and soil," a fight to determine who would control the earth's resources and which races would be exterminated because they were deemed inferior or undesirable. This collection of essays, many never before published in English, illuminates the nature of the Nazi system and its impact on Germany and the world. Included are careful examinations of the Holocaust, the connections between the European and Pacific theaters of war, a comparative analysis of the leadership styles of Hitler, Stalin, Tojo, and Roosevelt and a look back at postwar Germany.
Customer Reviews:
Not Good.......2007-01-04
Oh yay; more on Germany compiled from the German hater. Much to like here if you hate Germans. As objective as anything from Moscow in the 50's.
Rubbish from a cheap trash crackpot!.......2005-07-21
I have read most of Weinberg's so called works on German history and find them to be highly subjective and of dubious value to any serious understanding of the NS era, or German foreign policy in those years.
Belittling all German sources as aplogias or fakes, Weinberg has time and again proves himself to be a most unrelaible author, with axes to grind and who is prepared to go to the extreme of falsifying sources and translations to get his hate propaganda across.
This work is not worth the paper it's printed on.
Great insight and understanding will be gained........2001-02-12
Weinberg's short interpretations and insights make this a great book. If you are looking for a large quantity of in-depth information on the entire war then this is not the book for you. However, if you are seeking a broad overveiw of the German attitude before and during the war with regards to specific information of broad topics; this book is for you. Weinberg deals with issues such as;the European balance of power in 1918, the German generals' reaction to the planning of a war against Poland, what Germany was planning to do with their victory, the German perspective on Pearl Harbor, and many more topics. Overall this book provides great insight to areas that are not traditionally covered in other books.
Book Description
The inspiration for Michael Frayn's Tony Award-winning play Copenhagen, Heisenberg's War tells of the interplay between science and espionage, morality and military necessity, and paranoia and cool logic that marked the German bomb program and the allied response to it. On the basis of dozens of interviews and years of research, Thomas Powers concludes that Werner Heisenberg, who was the leading figure in the German atomic effort, consciously obstructed the development of the bomb and in a famous 1941 meeting with his former mentor Neils Bohr in effect sought to dissuade the Allies from their pursuit of the bomb.
Customer Reviews:
The relative nature of history.......2005-06-02
This is a solid, well-researched book that presents Heisenberg in a fair light, for once.
One of the problems with reader/reviewer bias is that many people are pre-disposed to finding fault with any suggestions that conflict with what they want to hear or believe. Regarding the Farm Hall recordings, some people have latched onto the idea that Heisenberg and others knew of the build up of the Holocaust, but continued to work for the Bomb project.
What they are usually referring to is a section in which Heisenberg talked about five Jewish scientists, whom he obviously cared about, who had been arrested and later killed; and even though Heisenberg was talking openly about putting out feelers to see if they could be helped or saved (which alone could have put him at great risk), this somehow translates into guilt in some people's eyes.
As for him 'not co-operating with Hitler'... nobody in their right mind could possibly think that was an option. As I believe the book shows, Heisenberg did the next best thing, which was to work half-heartedly on the German Bomb. He basically killed it in 1942.
The fact that Heisenberg could come up with the correct basic bomb structure - path and critical mass analysis, in very short order almost certainly means that he could have brainstormed the right methodology years earlier if the German scientists had been 100% committed to producing a bomb for Hitler. If they had been Nazis.
To me, this fine book is one more step in the right direction, in underscoring the very fact that not all Germans were Nazis.
Hitler may have been a charismatic leader, but he made so many catastrophic errors, such as the insane decision to declare war on the USA in the hope that the Japanese would help him against the Russians - they never lifted a finger - that it is as true to say that Hitler lost the War as to say that the Allies won it.
A fair and highly recommended book.
Somewhat dull / Unconvincing Theme.......2004-08-24
My first criticism is that the book has way too much minutia which made it dull. I had to really plough through some of it and my reading was interruped by many naps.
The second criticism is of the main thesis: That Werner Heisenberg sabotaged the German bomb effort deliberately. I believe his comment at Farm Hall ("How could the Americans have separated two tons of U235?") was a spontaneous statement made by a man who had, until that moment, believed that he was the leader of the pack, and suddenly realized he was the Captain of the Bavarian Little League. It was a reflection of his confusion, shock and ego deflation, not a calculated deception of his fellow scientists. I just looked at the design specs of his Uranium machine in Haigerloch and it has no control rods. More confusion! It is difficult to recapture the total gestalt of the German scientist's predicament. Some of the parts of it were fear of failure. Associated with this is a lack of boldness on any of their parts. There was no Groves in Germany (as in Leslie R. Groves). If you work for Franklin Roosevelt and spend 2 billion dollars and fail, you would get fired and spend the rest of your life testifying before Congress. Do that with Hitler and you wouldn't get fired, you would get fired upon! There was a belief on the part of the nazi gov. that the war would be won soon. The held from 1930 until 1942. No sense of urgency! But Heisenberg was not an engineering physicist. He was no Fermi. That is part of it too. To say he sabotaged the German program as part of a heroic effort is simple historical revisionism for the purpose of presenting a new twist.
If you read this, read "Hitler's Uranium Club" by Jeremy Bernstein to get the right balance on this.
Scholarly but unpersuasive -- and heavy with details.......2004-02-16
While I found this book interesting and informative when it dwelled upon the personalities and contributions of the physicists who discovered and explored the field of quantum mechanics prior to WW2, I found two problems with the book as it entered the war. First, it spent too much time, at least for me, on the details of minor episodes and players. In this sense, I might have appreciated the treatment had I been a scholar researching the field - but I wasn't. Hence, I often found the reading dull. Second, I found Powers' ultimate thesis - that Heisenberg purposefully delayed the German atomic bomb program - unpersuasive. It appeared to me that Powers often strained his interpretation of the facts to make them conform to his thesis. For example, when reviewing Heisenberg's "Farm Hall" statement in August 1945 that two tons of U235 was required to make an atomic bomb, Powers suggests that because Heisenberg articulated the appropriate lesser amount a week later, and because he purportedly suggested at an earlier date that a bomb could be the size of a football, his "two ton" statement was a purposeful "error." Equally persuasive, if not more, is the simple thought that Heisenberg did indeed grossly overestimate what was required, thereby prompting him to tell Speer in 1942 that a bomb was impractical. This is not to say that Powers is necessarily wrong. I simply believe that based on the facts he presents, the issue remains debatable.
One of the best written books I have ever read!.......2002-02-13
This book is amazing on so many different levels I am not really sure where to begin. It is an amazingly well written, compelling, insightful, and utterly fascinating book on it's own. Fortunately, it is so much more than just a really well written book, it is TRUE story that everyone needs to read. It is book about a true hero, a courageous man who risked his life and his reputation to save tens of millions of lives. I don't really want to give too much away, but it answers a question that many World War 2 historians want to know: WHY didn't the Germans create the Atomic Bomb? Well, there is one word for why, Heisenberg. This man stayed in Germany and deliberately sabotaged the Nazi's attempts to make the bomb.
In a world where people struggle to find heroes and gather up courage it is a shame not many people know this story. I think many people would be amazed at the sacrafices one very proud man would endure to save the world. Please read this book, you will not be disappointed.
How History should be written.......2001-11-29
Heisenberg's War shouldn't be called just Heisenberg's war: it should be called Physics During World War 2 or something of that nature. This book does not concentrate solely on Werner Heisenberg, the great theoretical physicist, but also on the Los Alsos mission of America, specific characters within that mission and other important physicists throughout the world. Knowing little about Physics before reading this book (having only completed an AP course in high school) Powers educates the reader on the basis of Physics that needs to be known to fully understand the book and it's subject. In fact, this book took me 3 months to read, the longest it has ever taken me to read a book, because I would attempt to learn the physics being taught. It was a thoroughly rewarding experience. Nonetheless, if you have no interest in physics, I suggest you skip this book. This was a complete history and Powers managed to get many first hand accounts, most surprisingly, in my opinion, from Carl Friedrich von Weiszacker, Heisenberg's most brilliant pupil and fellow member of the Uranverein (read the book and you'll understand). A new conclusion is drawn about why Heisenberg and his fellow German physicists didn't build an atomic bomb, in contrast to the old conclusion which suggested it was due to, in short, 'bumbling Nazis'. Powers suggests the Heisenberg and his cohorts didn't want to build a bomb for Hitler. Though he does respect the fact that perhaps there were also several important flaws in their thinking; for example, Heisenberg thought a bomb could run with slow molecules, which, apparently, it couldn't (I'm no scientists). Overall, this is a complete history which is, at points, a page turner and I suggest anyone with an interest in the politics behind World War 2 of Physics purchase it.
Book Description
There is no story in twentieth-century history more important to understand than HitlerÂ's rise to power and the collapse of civilization in Nazi Germany. With The Coming of the Third Reich, Richard Evans, one of the worldÂ's most distinguished historians, has written the definitive account for our time. A masterful synthesis of a vast body of scholarly work integrated with important new research and interpretations, EvansÂ's history restores drama and contingency to the rise to power of Hitler and the Nazis, even as it shows how ready Germany was by the early 1930s for such a takeover to occur. The Coming of the Third Reich is a masterwork of the historianÂ's art and the book by which all others on the subject will be judged.
Customer Reviews:
Good but..........2007-09-27
This is a solid introduction to the issues surrounding the cultural milieu out of which the Nazis developed and took the reigns of power from the Weimar Republic. I find it most illuminating because of his interweaving the grand narrative with social history. This precludes one from developing the idea if the Nazis had left power in 1938 they would have been okay. Rather it shows the violence the broader political realm of Germany, with the the major political parties it demonstrates that the Nazis were not sui generis, and the shock of 1918 on the German psyche in legitimizing violence.
Evans from his introduction states that it is not his place to put forward judgments and moralizing. I wish he had been more successful in this. He often throws in modifiers to certain terms that demonstrate his bias. For instance when he is discussing a leader in the nationalist movement he calls it "virulent" yet when he is discussing other behavior by parties of the left (his terminology) he is more generous in their discussions. Moreover his use of neo-conservative to identify the originator of the the term "Third Reich" demosntrates his opinion the Neoncons are the most dangerous group today.
These quibbles aside this is a great introduction. One of the most fascinating tidbits for me was the source for the 1000 year Reich concept. He notes that it derives from the Holy Roman Empires nearly 1000 year longevity and not the Christian doctrine.
The Outstanding First Volume of an Epic Trilogy.......2007-08-07
British historian Richard J. Evans is tackling the Herculean task of writing a trilogy that tells the entire story of the rise and fall of Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich in a comprehensive, scholarly, fast-paced and readable form, using the latest available sources and recently discovered material. "The Coming of the Third Reich" is the first volume of the trilogy.
Spanning a 30-year period ending in 1933, "The Coming of the Third Reich" begins with the formative years of the National Socialist German Workers' Party (its German name shortened to "Nazi"). Evans examines the party's beginnings in the 1920s, in the time of civil strife, national outrage and runaway inflation that followed the Great War (World War I) and the disastrous Treaty of Versailles. Then, in what could be a cautionary tale for today's electorate, he traces the Nazis' inexorable, triumphant and completely legal accession to power in the Reichstag (German Parliament) elections of 1932. He describes how Hitler immediately consolidated absolute power in his own hands. In one of the most chilling parts of the story, he describes how, literally within weeks of the election victory that swept them into power, the Nazis embarked on the nationalistic, militaristic, demagogic, anti-Semitic course that would soon plunge the world into global war.
If you've avoided reading about the history of Nazi Germany because you thought the subject was boring, you should give Richard Evans a try. He writes in a compelling, conversational style that reads fast, but he does not sacrifice detail for the sake of the narrative. His examination of German social, cultural, military and political life is clear, lucid, well-organized and exhaustive. Interestingly, he spends just as much time on anecdotal stories about the "man in the street" as he does on the actions of Hitler and his cronies, thus showing, in terms that anyone can relate to, how the brutal Nazi regime affected the life of the average citizen.
My only quibble with "The Coming of the Third Reich" (it scarcely deserves mention) is Evans' insistence--which he addresses and rationalizes up front--on using only the English equivalents for certain common, well-known German terms. This is particularly jarring when he refers to the infamous, maniacal, hate-filled book that laid out Hitler's plans for the "Thousand-Year Reich" as "My Struggle," when all the world knows it as "Mein Kampf."
The other two volumes of the trilogy are "The Third Reich in Power," which covers the period from 1933 to the 1939 invasion of Poland that triggered World War II, and "The Third Reich at War," which covers the War itself. The third volume is not yet available, but that's no reason not to read and learn from the first two. "The Coming of the Third Reich" get my strongest possible recommendation.
Dissents from Gasman's thesis.......2007-06-17
A good book and, for a novice in the area of Nazi history, very readable. The primary interest this book had for me, in hindsight, is that it dissents from Daniel Gasman's thesis (in his book, Scientific Origins of National Socialism) of the etiology or origins of National Socialism in 19th century scientific biology, specifically Ernst Haeckel and his import, and purported perversion, of Darwinism into Germany. In short, those interested in the supposed pseudoscientific origins of National Socialism will find a brief but decisive objection to Gasman's main argument.
Great look at how the Nazi's came to power.......2007-06-04
The Coming of the Third Reich is the first of three by Richard Evans in his attempt to track the rise and fall of the Third Reich. The book starts out with an overview of German history from Bismarck to the end of World War 1 and provides a look at the factors that led to the identity of the Reich. Evans calls upon a tremendous amount of sources and summarizes them very well capturing the salient points. As always Evans is very fair in his treatment of the Nazi's and looks at their rise through the lens of a bystander. The hyperinflation in Germany is characterized very well and his point that the reparations were not beyond repayment before the financial crisis is a bold step. The rise of the Nazi party through their thugs and propaganda is tracked very well and they appear a modern political party. They spend vast amounts of money campaigning and they work the local election scene building a power base. This is characteristic of Europe and the rise is tracked with the right amount of detail. The rise of Hitler's lieutenants is also scene and there are almost mini biographies on Himler, Goring and Rohm. The rise of the SS and SA is clearly being formed however a great deal more detail to those organizations is given in the second book. The book ends with a look at how the Third Reich tried to reexamine the culture of Germany. The persecution of the jews is only one facet of this policy and the general disruption of law was the more shocking. Hitler believed that the Nazi's must obtain power legally but the Nazi's broke almost every law in the process. Violent pogroms became the norm and savage beatings are characteristic throughout the book. For those who want to begin to understand the Nazi rise to power this is an excellent book to start with. Book 2 is even better (The Third Reich in Power) and is a must read for anyone wanting to look at Germany.
From Chaotic Disaster to Disasterous Order.......2007-05-21
This is a well-written and informative book that I would recommend over some lengthy (and drier) volumes on the subject (e.g. The Rise and Fall of Nazi Germany).
Richard Evans' book follows the rise of German fanatical nationalism from the early Weimar years to the Nazi's assumption of state power in 1933. However, he starts his analysis by examining the roots of authoritarian politics (monarchist, nationalist, authoritarian, conservative) in Wilhelmine Germany. In essence, like so many other nations in the early 20th Century Germany faced a bewildering array of change in lifestyle, technology, and economics. And like many nations to the present, many people clung to the reassuring steadiness of conservatism in turbulent times.
Where social democrats and moderates were interested in promoting personal freedoms and rights, the conservatives opted to focus on retaining economic and political power combined with financial and social stability. In a country torn apart by an undeclared civil war in 1918-1919, the choice was a difficult one. And it was a compromise - superficial moderate social democrat rule reliant on dangerously ambivalent and authoritarian military support. And yet, this need not have led to Nazi Germany.
The one man who would lead Germany down that path spent the early Weimar years observing the anarchic, democratic, and economic disasters unfolding before his eyes. Convinced (like many other Germans) that Germany's greatness was being subsumed by malign foreign influences, he decided to join in the political fray. Shortly after joining the German Worker's Party, he discovered (and practiced) his tremendous public-speaking abilities. As the party's main draw at all its assemblies, Hitler demanded and won uncontested leadership of the party, thus instituting 'the leadership principle' which Germany itself would hold a decade later. Since most Germans wouldn't have been to a Baptist sermon, Hitler's emotional and dramatic speeches were a unique, entertaining, and compelling performance. His was a searingly ruthless nationalistic and ethnic belief, though.
Evans recounts how Hitler, like any good professional speaker, adjusts his message according to his audience. Speaking with workers, he promised more jobs and to free up those held by anti-Germans (i.e. communists, Jews, etc.). When speaking with business leaders, he offered control over many workers and a competing dogma to worrisome communism. When speaking with the middle classes, he offered a return to stability, prosperity, and German greatness. But unlike most modern-day politicians, he also had a violently effective weapon immediately at hand, the Brownshirts, to follow his orders. (This tradition was common among political parties at the time, though.)
And though bent on authoritism, Hitler used all the modern technology available to successfully spread his gospel - airplanes, radio, films. And he needed to do so, as it turned out that the earliest enthusiastic Nazi supporters were located in hard-to-reach conservative rural areas and small towns across Germany. Hitler also realized the importance of pageantry and ritual, such as awe-inspiring assemblies and dramatic torchlight parades, keying in on many people's psychological need of being part of something greater than themselves. And Hitler successfully used these tactics throughout his rise from political oblivion to the threshold of power. However, after the Nazis' great election victories in the early 1930's, the Communists and Social Democrats caught on by successfully copying the Nazi's PR tactics.
At this point, Hitler began to intrigue with Weimar officials to inveigle his way into power, despite holding less than a majority in the Reichstag. After some near-run victories by the Communists, the Weimar leaders sought Hitler's support in forming a gov't. Hitler refused to accept anything less than the leading position - the Chancellorship - which he won. Immediately afterwards, he used his combination of emergency police powers and now semi-official Brownshirt units to flush out, imprison (or murder), and re-educate all those groups hated by the Nazis - communists, Jews, modern artists, sexologists, political critics, etc. All the while the one force able to decisively stop Hitler - the army - stood passively by. And in less than six months, almost the entire German nation had been completely cowed into abject submission by Hitler.
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Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600-1947
After the Reich: The Brutal History of The Allied Occupation
Hitler's Beneficiaries: Plunder, Racial War, and the Nazi Welfare State
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