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9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
The title tells it all., November 6, 2008
The purpose of this little book is plain and simple: to establish that Nazism and war were inseparable and inevitable. Of course, some reconstruction of history has to take place before this argument becomes compelling and while the author makes an interesting presentation of his point of view, it is not without its defects. For example, too much emphasis is placed in the beginning of the book on the musings in Hitler's Mein Kampf to predict (and thus support as inevitable) future acts of Hitler and the Nazis, while the post-Mein Kampf events that actually influenced Hitler are conveniently ignored. Part of the problem with this reasoning (an undue reliance on Mein Kampf) is that it is based on Hitler being inflexible in his views and how to achieve his goals. Yet that reasoning ironically misses the point entirely of the basic construct of Mein Kampf, which is that Hitler realized (after the failed putsch that put him in jail and allowed him to write Mein Kampf) that he must not be inflexible but had to be amenable to changing his strategy of obtaining power and seek to obtain it through legitimate means rather than force. In other words, the use of Mein Kampf to attempt to show the inevitability of wishes, desires, and delusions discussed therein is undercut by the book itself and the events that led to its being written. In this instance, as the author's thesis is predicated on this faulty logic, the entire work necessarily suffers accordingly.
Some historically inconvenient facts ignored by the author are: (1) the terms of the Versailles Treaty were indeed harsh on the Germans not just bothersome as the author argues; (2) war for Hitler was not an either or proposition (total victory or total defeat), e.g., he tried to engineer peace treaties with England and, later, the Soviet Union while in the midst of war with both of them; (3) Hitler's policy of not willingly giving up territory but fighting to the last man and the last bullet was not only not axiomatic for Hitler (i.e., this supposed rule was broken again and again) but was not even unique to Hitler, Nazism, or World War II (e.g., the 300 Spartans) and was strategically used by all sides in World War II (e.g., by Stalin to save Stalingrad); (4) the idea of the Germans (or the French or the Italians) as a race of people was not unique to Germans or the Nazis but was a commonplace way of thinking at the time (e.g., the Allies in both world wars, including both Churchill and Eisenhower in World War II, repeatedly referred to the necessity of defeating the German race), thus the fact that Germans (or French or Italians) may have thought of themselves as a race of people was not in itself inherently or intrinsically evil, it was what the Nazis did with the concept (the idea of the Germans as a super-race of people [although even then there were constraints on this superiority, witness the Nazis' euthanasia programs] and the idea of other races or peoples or groups as sub-human) that led to the horrors that followed in the wake of Hitler's being handed the reins of power in 1933 and the Reichstag fire shortly thereafter that allowed the institution of rule by emergency decree.
I could go on but do not wish to belabor the point. In sum, this is a book that is trying to convince the reader of a certain point of view. The book should be considered only as a useful introduction to the topic.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Lucid introduction of Nazism and War, September 16, 2008
Richard Bessel ,who has already written several books on Nazi Germany, wrote this relatively short yet highly lucid one as a series of Modern Library Chronicles. According to the author , the war is not inadvertent outcome of tensed international relation but both Idee fixe and Raison d'être from the its taking over power in Germany in 1933.
The book consisted of largely three well developed , information-packed ,but succintly constructed chapters. The first chapter largely covers the Great War and its aftermath , including German high Command's malicious Dolchstoßlegende(Stab-in-the-back legend)making and its subsequent embedding in the German Society. I recall the author already wrote a book on SA violence in Eastern Germany in Weimar republic and in this chapter he provides ample information on political violence during the Weimar republic and concludes that Nazism ,even at the inception of its activity, show its malignant bellicocity.The author succeeds to show the core of Naziam- racism and violence.
Second and last chapter largely covers the process of WW II ,indoctrinated Wehrmacht's terrible activity during the war, and post war German interpretation of the war. The author points out how huge number of both German combatants and civilian casualties in last couple years of the war made Germans believe that they were victims rather than perpetuators of the war and unspeakable crime.
It's a very informative book that could be quite helpful introductory work for further study.
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent introduction into Nazi ideology and impact, February 6, 2005
This review is from: Nazism and War (Modern Library Chronicles) (Hardcover)
The Modern Library Chronicles offer readers concise history on a broad range of historical ideas, events, and nations. "Nazism and War" is a really good introduction of Nazi ideological beginnings, its impact on Germany and its war making ability.
What I learned from this book (while not a complete neophyte of German/WW2 history):
1. War was the basic element of Nazism. Not just for territorial conquest, but of racial superiority and annihilation. For example, the WW2 was lost as early as 1942 (right after Stalingrad), but the regime wasn't prepared to refocus strategy since its only stragegy was waging war endlessly. Germany suffered the majority of war casualities in the last 2 years (1944-1945) which were also its most brutal.
2. Majority of Germans believed they were victims in the post war world. The German Army, the Wehrmacht, underwent a period of revisionist history in that it was not a advocate of the racial war. Only in the mid 1990s did Germany feel comfortable discussing the army's role in the war.
3. Nazism's collapse was total (unlike Baathism and its insurgency in post-war Iraq 2004). Allies destruction of German forces in 1945 and the Nuremburg trials (where high level Nazis were hanged) removed any advantage Nazism once held by its believers.
This book has almost 220 full pages of text. The remaining 20 pages or so are for notes and bibliography.
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