Customer Reviews

Odilo Globocnik, Hitler's Man in the East

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I have written another English-language biography about Odilo Globocnik and collaborated with Joe Poprzeczny for years while he wrote his book. I therefore feel that I can vouch for his character in this impromptu forum.

First of all: Joe's Globocnik biography was no slap-dash job, but instead an extensive research in archives spanning almost twenty years. You see, Globocnik to Joe was the nemesis of a lifetime, because the "SS-Gruppenführer" deported Joe's mother in 1943 and put her in a concentration camp.

During the final stage of the war, Joe's mother and other prisoners were shuttled to the Old Reich, and that is how Joe became a German native. He was born in Trier and moved to Australia as a young child. His mother refused to speak about the camp until very late in her life. The search for his roots and the man who caused so much misery for his family was the driving force behind this exceptional work, which has baffled historians with a host of heretofore unknown facts about Globocnik and his entourage.

Joe is not one to rely on secondary sources. He had a host of detailed questions about Globocnik's Carinthian group that stimulated my own work. It was Joe's tenacity and journalistic skill that unearthed Globocnik's second fiance Irmgard Rickheim and made her talk to him.

This is an important book. I know a lot of Holocaust historians and some who have read this book. Nobody found its sources questionable (even though a sensitive editor would have removed the Irving quotes). If you want an inside take on the daily lives of Holocaust perpetrators this is where you get it.

There are numerous biographical details given about Globocnik, especially his early life, but these are overshadowed by this study of his anti-Jewish and anti-Polish policies. This is probably the best English-language study of GENERALPLAN OST in theory and in action.

The German dream of removing all the indigenous Polish people and the Jews, and replacing them with ethnic Germans, long predated the Nazis: e. g., Adolf Bartels, Heinrich von Class, Paul de Lagarde, and Otto von Bismarck. (p. 144) On August 22, 1939, Hitler said: "Poland will be depopulated and then settled by Germans...Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?" (p. 161) "To the Poles, Globocnik was yet another Germanic Margrave set on finally destroying them..." (p. 332)

Poprzeczny hints at why the Germans usually treated Jews and Poles differently: "The administration of Dr. Hans Frank sought quite vigorously to see rural parts of Poland become a productive force in the overall German scheme of things. That administration did not seek to see the Poles tormented to the point of inflaming resistance, which Globocnik and von Mohrenschildt did provoke after November 1942, by launching their cleansing of the Zamosc Lands with Himmler's concurrence." (p. 199)

In "Operation Zamosc", the Germans removed up to 200,000 Poles (p. 237) from nearly 300 villages (p. 182). Most of the Poles were sent to Germany for forced labor, while others were murdered locally or in death camps. Polish guerilla warfare, especially by the BCh (Bataliony Chlopskie: Peasant Battalions) and the AK (Armia Krajowa: Home Army) grew in intensity and became the "Zamosc Uprising". (pp. 182-183). The Germans tried to suppress it with increasing brutality, but eventually the Polish guerillas got the upper hand (p. 190), and this, plus German reverses on the eastern front, put a stop to this operation.

The genocide of Poles in Volhynia in 1943 by the UPA (so-called Ukrainian Insurgent Army) is blamed by some Ukrainians on the Poles having first attacked innocent Ukrainian settlements in Hrubieszow in 1942. They were anything but! The Ukrainian officials and "settlers" had been collaborating with the Germans and their de-Polonization actions. (pp. 181-182, 190-191, 317, 320-323, etc.). (In addition, Polish actions against Ukrainian settlements were trivial in scale compared with the UPA's genocide against Poles).

GENERALPLAN OST, of which "Operation Zamosc" had been merely a foretaste, had called for the resettlement of 100 million Slavs (p. 3), including 21 million Poles, to desolate western Siberia. But how could western Siberia, even with expensive development, possibly support so many people? Note that early plans for "Jewish reservations" (e. g., pp. 148-149, 154-155, 217) had to be abandoned as unrealistic, giving way to extermination. So how could the equally-unrealistic Slav-reservation plans fail to eventually follow the same course? For elaboration, see the Peczkis review of Hans Frank, Lebensraum and the Final Solution.

Globocnik was a Nazi conspirator who became one of the worst of the monsters - amazingly enough, this is the first full-length book in English about him and as such is an essential read for all interested in the period.

One necessary correction. There are some odd comments about the book in the first review, from which it could be assumed David Irving is a major source for this work: he isn't and indeed the author is careful to refer to Irving at the outset as "controversial", as well as only citing Irving on material where his well-known bias is not a potential distorting factor. Yes, there are many secondary sources but the author also includes many primary sources, and indeed uses them wherever possible. This is a work of scholarship, not the instant potboiler implied in the earlier review.

Poprzeczny was not treated justly by the previous reviewer. Nobody before Poprzeczny wrote a biography of Globocnik in English, a man who killed 1,5 million people, most of them Jews. All major US univeristy libraries have this book now. It is quoted by academic historians and Jewish historical websites.
As for the panctuation. Well, not everybody has to apply the American way of punctuation, Poprzeczny is not an American, he is an Australian, so he writes the Australian way. As far as comments concerning David Irwing, this comment is odd, as Poprzeczny clearly identifies where he stands recording Globocnik's murders and his efforts to loot the Jewish property.
The sources cited are reliable, now worries there. And many of them have been dug out from places forgotten by historians.

An interesting book. I would have given it 4 and half stars if that was possible.

The Good.

Very well researched as far as the names of those involved. Probably the best book I have read for that.

He does an in depth study of the Zamosc Lands resettlement program. Something, to the best of my knowledge, has very little written about it. He spends a great deal of words on the subject of General Plan Ost. Something, once again, had received very little coverage.

The author repeatedly mentions the plan of building strong points in the east staffed with SS and Police veterans. I have seen those same plans, including photos of what they were to look like in the 1941 series Die Polizei articles.

I agree with his conclusions, and also his statement that forced resettlement in this area was done poorly and provided fuel to the partisan fire. The author also mentions the different partisan factions represented in this area and also makes the point that long range Red Army raids should not be confused with partisan activity.

The Bad.

Yes, it wanders and is repetitive in places.
The author also speculates on certain possibilities such as a direct channel of communication between Globocnik and Hitler. Yet he presents his case and the possibilities are interesting.

This, at least for me, is a book you mine for data rather than read for pleasure.

Odilo Globocnik, Hiter's Man in the East should have a lot going for it. The author obviously feels passionately about his subject; and an English biography is much needed. However, there are undeniable major problems with this book. Firstly. it's very poorly written. Punctuation and cadence are those of a non-English speaker. Secondly, and more importantly, Mr. Poprzeczny's references are lacking and controversial. For instance, rather than consult original documents or research materials, he chooses to use the works of David Irving, rightwing Holocaust denier. Although Mr. Irving is explained to be an "historical revisionist" in footnotes, no mention is made of this in text. Readers from the States and UK, especially, will find this to be a major trigger -- are the rest of the resources so questionable? Mostly, no. Mostly...

Odilo Globocnik *was* Hitler's man in the East. He did his job ruthlessly well. The book does convey that truth. However, I wish it told the rest of the truth with more credibility.

Had I been able to see the list of sources used, I wouldn't have spent my time or money on this biography.