Customer Reviews

Gestapo: Instrument of Tyranny

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This is the first history of the Gestapo -- the Nazi instrument of terror used within Germany and beyond -- that I have seen. The Gestapo is traced back to the start of the reign of National Socialism in 1933 through the Final Solution until its collapse in 1945. Special attention is paid to the individuals of this instrument of tyranny, namely Hermann Goering, the one who first controlled the Gestapo right through to Reinhard Heydrich, Heinrich Himmler and Heinrich "Gestapo" Mueller, who became its rightful chief. The Crimes of the Reich Security Main Office, the branch of the SS that controlled the SD and the Gestapo, are revealed with the greatest of force, leaving individuals like Adolf Eichmann, Otto Ohlendorf, Christian Wirth, Rudolf Hoess and others with no chance to plea, seeming that they were some of the main perpetrators of this terrible crime against humanity. Edward Crankshaw's book, first published in 1956, has not yet shown signs of old age, seeming that he was one of the few historians that attempted to report on an elusive organization that all came to recognize as another word for mayhem.

This book has very good information about the founding of the Gestapo and what it did. It also features in-depth descriptions of how people like Goering, Himmler, and Heydrich, among others, played a role in the Gestapo. The book is well researched, easy to read, fairly fast paced, and is broken down into small, easy to read chapters. My one quarrel with the book was that Crankshaw often described what the SS as a whole was doing rather than what just the Gestapo was up to. Still, a very good book and one of the few on the Gestapo.

This book was written a few decades back but still has an allure to it. The book depicts most of the brutalities performed by the members of this infamous organization (the Gestapo that is). Also, the book brings alive the main characters of the Gestapo and other sister organizations (the SD for example) and paints a background that enables the reader to see the "forrest" in spite of the tall trees. The prose is beautiful and clear thus making the book highly readable. Trying to unravel the mind of the Germans, the author engages a bit into German bashing. This is a book that I am happy to own.

If you are a person wanting to have ALL books about Gestapo buy it. Otherwise do no spend your money. The author does not hide what he thinks: "although a Nazi, Helldorf retained to the end a certain feeling of decency" in page 106 is part of a very long list of personal disqualifications. This kind of book is not history but rubbish.
Nevertheless, I was suprised to find that the members of the Gestapo were only 40,000. This is a rather small number for all Europe (1944). It is widely known that the USA-backed military regimes in Latin America (in the 60's and 70's) have more people in their security services for minor populations.
All the other facts mentioned in the book can be found in more serious texts about the same topic.