Customer Reviews

The Logic of Evil: The Social Origins of the Nazi Party, 1925-1933

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

 

 

William Brustein's work raises fascinating concepts which deserve serious consideration. One of these, often ignored or overlooked by many historians, is the possibility that average Germans did not see the Nazis as the 'radical right.' Instead, Burstein's contention is that the Nazi leadership was astute enough to position themselves between two dramatically opposite viewpoints: the Moscow-subservient Left(such as the KPD and SPD) and the slash-and-burn 'free market' efforts of the Bruning administration to cut government spending under the weight of a world-wide depression. Claiming the ground of 'good patriotic Germans,' while still demanding the salvation of the massive social welfare system, the Nazis endeared themselves to millions. The average German saw the men in brown as the saviors of the welfare system they had come to know and love, and turned out in droves to vote them into office. In essence, Burstein contends that the Nazis ran as moderates between two extremes. The weakest part of his book is the last chapter where he attempts to draw modern parallels which simply do not fit his own analysis. But the major contribution of the work is in line with current scholarship that tends to debunk the notion that a type of societal 'madness' griped the Germans, leading to a madman's election to high office. It is becoming more certain that average Germans did what most people do in any society: vote for the middle between two extremes. Burstein's work is worth serious consideration to students of National Socialist politics.

Hitler was the leader of the Nazi political party. And over a 12 year span, the Nazi party's influence grew stronger each year. The Nazi's didn't violently seize control, as did the Bolsheviks. The Nazi's were elected by the Germans. This book explains the causes for making the Nazi party appealing to a majority of Germans. The author breaks down the German citizenry into different classes; economic classes (rich, middle, poor), labor classes (non-working rich, white collar, blue collar, self-employed, farmers), male and female. Breaking out the people into different groups helps give a clear picture of why the Nazi's were popular.

The writing is very good. I'm not an academic, but i was never lost, or frustrated with the traditional academic pompous wring style of using arcane words when a more common word describes the situation just as clearly. Most of all, I could see how our American democracy could be a place for a fringe group to grow popular, given the right combination of economic and political setbacks.

The author is able to communicate a lot of ideas in under 150 pages, and an intelligent use of Appendices. My goal was to understand how Nazi's could be elected, and this book explains it clearly.