Customer Reviews

Nazism and War (Modern Library Chronicles)

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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.

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'ętre 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.

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.

I enjoyed this book as I didn't really have a very good grasp of Germany's path to Nazism prior to reading but found much of it repetitive. In particular, a few basic statements were repeated several times, perhaps for emphasis. Overall, I'd say that if you want a concise journey thru Germany from the early '30s to 1945 this would be a very good book to read. It's certainly much more "history" vs. "battle history" which is what I had hoped.

Those wanting more information to the lead-up years from the end of WWI to the 1930's should probably, however, look elsewhere. Of course, the brief informative overview is the intent of Modern Library Chronicles books so that is certainly not a fault. I just think the author could have used one more pass thru the book. For Modern Chronicles readers I'd rate it just above "London" and not quite up to "Inventing Japan".

Richard Bessel looks at Nazism from Hitler's rise to the aftermath of the war. It is fine companion piece to Robert S. Wistrich's book on the Holocaust in this same series, Modern Libary Chronicles. These two books together will give one a frightening picture of the impact of Nazism, first in Germany and then in the world. Bessel paints a broad picture and, in as much space as these small format titles allow, goes into the economic and sociological impact of Nazisim, particularly after attaining power in the early 1930s, in addition to the more obvious political impact. The last chapter is particularly fascinating in showing how Nazism and the German people were separated as concepts in post-war Germany as the focus in memory shifted to the last years of the wars with the Germans as victims. A tidy, concise, frightening read.

Richard Bessel's "Nazism and War" is fantastic survey of the ideology and practice of Nazi racial war and empire building. Much of Bessel's work consists of thoroughly investigative monographs, but Nazism and War will appeal to both casual readers and specialists alike. Bessel will challenge casual readers, who are probably familiar only with traditional military or popular histories of World War II, by contextualizing Nazi policies and practices within the historiographical landscape that has characterized more structural scholarly studies of 20th century German history. But he does so in a gentle and unintimidating way, eschewing technical terminology for a vocabulary that even readers new to the subject will be able process and enjoy. For specialists in the field of German history, Bessel doesn't offer much that is entirely new, and the book only utilizes primary documents sparingly. What he does offer specialist historians is a concise but thorough overview and synthesis of the most recent trends of scholarship, including a surprisingly broad array of recent German scholarship that may not be readily available to North American scholars or historians without fluency in German. Professionals will definitely appreciate this synthesis and Bessel's sharp observations as well.

When the physical book price is less than the Kindle price, there is no justification for downloading the book into a kindle.