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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
28 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
One of the pivotal books in my intellectual life,
By A Customer
This review is from: Blood and Soil: Walther Darre and Hitler's Green Party (Paperback)
Anna Bramwell's Blood and Soil is a strange, rare little book.I might never have heard of it, had I not seen it cited in abibliography of a book on the S.S. Richard Walther Darre (1895-1953) was Hitler's Agriculture Minister until 1941. He was also a major figure in the Nordic racialist movement, and was one of those people who was responsible for the "pagan" wing of the Nazi Party. I got hold of this book expecting it to be just another book on the "evils" of the Nordic Renaissance. I was surprised, however, to read a book that shed light on the fact that the Nordic movement was far more complicated than the "blond hair-blue-eye-let's-breed-superpeople syndrome" so often found in the American press. Ms. Bramwell writes about many figures in the movement, such as Paul Schultze-Naumberg a nd his wife, Hans F.K. Gunther, Bernhard Kummer, Johann van Leers and L.F. Clauss. I learned a lot about how the Nordic ideal was just that, an ideal, and that not all Nordics were supposed to be blond, for instance. Nordicism encompassed more than just a "racial" stereotype. It was a temperament, a way of life, a philosophy. It was a back-to nature movement, that stressed temperance and healthy living. It is interesting that many of the Nordicists regarded the Nazis as "un-Nordic", i.e. loud, showy, aggressive, and a few even went so far as to suggest that the Nazis were "mediterranean", "middle-Eastern" or "oriental" in their outlook and actions. In short, this book is valuable to me because it got me on a new path of reading, and I have come a long way since I first laid hands on this book back in 1992. There is an interesting bibliography at the end. Some people will not agree with this book, probably because they, for some reason or another, do not think they are "Nordic", and they may say that this book is seriously flawed, or even repugnant. But, Hans Jurgen Lutzhoft, in his monograph Der Nordische Gedanke in Deutschland 1920-1945, wrote that the Nordic movement was more international and liberal in scope, and the Nazi Party could never completely contain it. I strongly recommend reading this book, for the education about a misunderstood movement, and about a possible new way of living.
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Green Nazi,
By Cwn_Annwn (Copenhagen, Denmark) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Blood and Soil: Walther Darre and Hitler's Green Party (Paperback)
One of the rare unbiased accounts of anything pertaining to National Socialism. The subject of this book, Walther Darre, was one of the most interesting and progressive people to come out of the Nazi Party. Promoting various "green" ideas and putting them into practice. Of course like many others in the Nazi Party he was stabbed in the back and screwed over by Hitler in the end.
Conservation of forests and nature, eating healthy, animal rights, organic farming, living away from society, not having an uptight attitude about sex, worshipping your own ancestral gods instead of the gods of semites, localized socialism and self sufficency, these were all common themes and practices in the early days and origins of the nazi party. Most of these things were not practiced or even thought about at that time in history until the Volkish movement in Germany popped up. The hippies and environmentalists picked up on a lot of these ideas, although 99% were totally clueless of their origins. Yet another interesting person and facet of National Socialist Germany that you won't hear about on the History Channel or in your sound bite level university history class that covers WW2.
8 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Bramwell is too "historian",
By "prenzlberg" (Moundridge, Kansas United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Blood and Soil: Walther Darre and Hitler's Green Party (Paperback)
This book reads too much like a history textbook for me. Too many dates, facts, and personage, and not enough development of what the man was actually trying to do. Too many trees and not enough forest. Still, as practically the only book that deals with this fascinating man, I'm very grateful to Professor Bramwell for the excellent research and objectivity she has brought to bear.While it's certainly tricky business getting within a country mile of "rehabilitating" a Nazi, she puts a very human face on a very complex situation. The insanity of Nazi Germany is not moralized as much as it is displayed as an idealogical and political free-for-all where Darre finally was all but totally marginalized for his idealistic vision. Again, I'm left wondering about Darre. Bramwell doesn't seem to be all that familiar with Green philosophy or environmental history, which cripples her presentation of what she asserts are the roots of modern Green politics. Obviously, Darre was Green, but why? How did his personal vision of a pastoral, de-urbanized Germany develop? Was he the idealogical posterboy of the Nazis? Or simply a political tool used and discarded? Would a victorious Third Reich have eventually gotten back to his Blut und Boden message? I believe monumental, centuries-in-the-making forces flashed momentarily to life under a swastika, but in such a twisted form that we'll forever be wondering how and why. To me Nazism was just one possible mushroom popping up over a broad field of underground mycelia, and a very poisonous mushroom at that. This field is not gone, it's growing, and the mycelia will produce many more mushrooms, hopefully not as poisonous. Darre represented an outcropping that might have been, and probably will be again. Perhaps these issues need to be covered in another book.
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