Customer Reviews

Albania at War, 1939-1945 (Central European Studies)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

World War II was an event where mighty nations were pitted against each other and their national wills were focused on defeating the enemy states. However, among some of the smaller nations, the global perspective was masked by traditional local rivalries. In the area of the Balkans, the war was more a continuation of traditional ethnic and religious disputes and as much a civil war as a world one.
Albania was the most backward country in Europe at the start of the war, with very few paved roads, much less an industrial base. After the war, it was still the most backward in Europe, but it was ruled by a very hard line communist dictator, who rose to power despite the lack of industrial workers and being predominantly a Moslem country. Furthermore, unlike most of the other European nations who went communist after the war, there was no Soviet presence to execute the establishment of a communist regime. With so many unusual factors involved, the study of what happened in Albania before, during and after the war is a fascinating example of national structure based on many artificial internal and external borders.
If there is one broad lesson to be learned from this book it is that if your nation is invaded and occupied, a policy of cooperation with the invaders is a form of slow political suicide. The reason the communists were able to rise to power against such odds is due to the fact that they were consistent in fighting the invaders. When the more powerful groups vacillated and played both sides, their support declined until they were simply no longer credible as a national force. This left the small but generally disciplined and ruthless communists as the only viable national entity.
From the beginning of the Italian occupation in 1939 until the last organized German troops were driven out in 1945, the story is one of political opportunism, tribal rivalry, and shifting political alliances among the Albanian political factions and the invaders. However, the end result was a degree of national unity, albeit as a consequence of many executions and the most consistently repressive regime in Europe until the death of Enver Hoxha in 1985. Throughout all these years, there was also the exiled King Zog, a man who was the legitimate ruler until he fled the Italian occupation. Unfortunately, he was someone who commanded surprisingly little loyalty, either among the Albanian population at large or the foreign governments, who chose to ignore him as much as possible.
I found this book to be a forthright description of how difficult it is to govern countries in that part of the world and it contains many lessons for those who wish to intervene and make a difference in the events that transpire. It should be required reading for all those who wish to construct and implement a policy for that region.

This is a masterful history of Albania's travails during the last war and relates in fine and often laconic detail how the Italians in particular made such a mess of first invading and then administering the country that it helped trigger their eventual capitulation in 1943. The author is also good on how the Germans picked up the pieces and made a much more professional attempt to manage the country before their efforts also soured. There are on occasion too many Albanian surnames littering the text but don't let this put you off. If you have any interest in Albanian history, this is the book for you.

A great book about a controversial period in Albanian history which was distorted by Hoxha regime glorifying the partisan war and the role of the Albanian Communist Party and recently by the socalled democratic political forces who threw everything in the garbage.
I am glad the book has been translated in Albanian. The book is a lesson for Albanian historians who are still guided by political passions.
The book tells you everything about everybody, Italian occupation, antifascist resistance, partisans, nationalists, puppet governments, British and American influence, Yugoslav influence, Albanian Communist party, Enver Hoxha, King Zog, German Occupation, Kosovo, Cameria, political trends, social and economical development, The Superpowers etc etc. I mentioned some of them.
The book is very proffessional but easy to read. I read it in 3 days. I simply could not wait to finish it. I grew up reading about the glorious liberation war of the partisans and communist. After the overthrow of the communist regime this war was not said and believed to be so glorious anymore. Even the actors changed places. The "good guys" became the "bad guys" and the "bad guys" became the "good guys".
Well this book will tell you who "the guys" were, what they did, what they did not do and why.

I picked up this book after a conversation with Mr. Fischer. It is an extrodinary read. His ability to lay out the facts while at the same time conveying the hopelessness of the situation are achieved amazingly well. Not only do we learn that the Italians were a pathetic military, but we learn that without the germans, they would have lost to peasants. A great read for anyone

Albania at War by Bernd J. Fischer gives a good picture of the internal and external factors that impacted Albania during the first half of the 20th century. I read this book for a graduate History class on Modern Europe; it provided good information in a relatively concise package. Albania at War looks at King Zog, Mussolini's Italy, Germany, and the Allies. Fischer also spends a good portion of the book examining the internal struggles for power in Albania: the communists, King Zog, as well as nationalist leaders.

While this essay contains an amount of useful information on the rarely dealt with issue of Albania's history and role prior to and during WWII, it relies heavily, almost solely on Albanian and Anglosaxon sources - making of it a strongly biased, sometimes bordering on Italophobia, book.

The main, actually the only substantial Italian source used is Ciano's Diaries (!!). Here and there bouts of bad scholarship can be detected, eg. page 83, where one reads Italy did not take part in the 1941 attack on Yugoslavia, for fear of the Yugoslavs' reaction - which is not only a futile slander, but also entirely untrue. Mr. Fischer (Professor of History at Indiana University, no less) didn't even bother to look into any Italian history of the war. Perhaps poo-pooing anything Italian as unreliable.

I rate this book two stars because of the wealth of material provided on this rare topic. Its manifest bias and laziness (or prejudice?) about taking also a variety of Italian sources into account deserves one star only.

I always wondered what really went on in Albania during World War II. Frankly, you could not rely on the later slanted writings of Enver Hoxha to find out because Hoxha simply rewrote history to come out the way he wanted it to come out.This book provides the answers. Peter Lucas

This is a very useful history for a period that proved crucial to Albania's future fifty years. Very accurate and clearly-written report.