Official Secrets: What the Nazis Planned, What the British and Americans Knew (Hardcover)

by Richard Breitman (Author) "ADOLF HITLER MIXED CANDOR and dissimulation in nearly equal parts..." (more)
Key Phrases: police decodes, police leaders, hand ciphers, Order Police, Foreign Office, United States (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
Historians have long debated whether the origins of the Holocaust can be traced to a German tradition of anti-Semitism that Adolf Hitler was able to channel to his advantage (a view taken by Daniel Goldhagen in his book Hitler's Willing Executioners), or whether, instead, the mass murder of Europe's Jewish population was the byproduct of the Nazi war against neighboring states (Christopher Browning's position in Ordinary Men). In Official Secrets, American University historian Richard Breitman proposes an explanation that lies somewhere in between: whereas most ordinary Germans approved of the persecution of Jews, he maintains, the German leadership nonetheless took pains to keep the facts of the Final Solution out of the public eye, fearful that those ordinary Germans might not have approved of wholesale slaughter. Widening the scope of his inquiry, Breitman points out that the Holocaust was well mapped out in the pages of Mein Kampf, which the Allied leaders had studied well before war broke out. Those leaders also knew, thanks to detailed intelligence reports and intercepted German radio messages, of the existence of extermination camps like Auschwitz and Treblinka. Breitman examines why the Allies did so little to oppose the Holocaust as it unfolded--or, as he puts it, why "the U.S. government and the British government did not try to do what might have worked." His thoughtful answers are likely to excite further debate among historians. --Gregory McNamee

From Publishers Weekly
Breitman's important, dispassionate study adds to the already considerable body of evidence that Britain's top intelligence analysts knew, as early as September 1941, that the Germans were systematically carrying out mass murder of Jews in Nazi-occupied Soviet territories and planning their liquidation in the lands they conquered. Drawing on newly declassified British decodes of intercepted German police wireless-telegraphy messages, the author, an eminent Holocaust scholar and American University professor of history, establishes the crucial role of the battalions of the German Order Police, run by Gestapo bureaucrat Kurt Daluege, the arch-rival of Security Police chief Reinhard Heydrich. Breitman concludes that many police executioners obeyed the orders to murder Jews without compunction because they had long since internalized the pervasive anti-Semitic prejudice. In this respect, his study lends support to Daniel Jonah Goldhagen's Hitler's Willing Executioners, though Breitman qualifies this by arguing that while Jew-hatred was an integral part of 1930s Germany's political and social life, the Nazi regime had to reinforce and radicalize this prejudice in various sectors of society. Breitman also reviews the failure of both the British and Americans to rescue European Jewry and delivers a damning indictment of the U.S. news media for failing to make clear to the American people the true nature of Nazism. His meticulously documented study makes a compelling case that the Western powers could have made a significant difference in saving Jewish lives earlier, if the political will to do so had existed. Editor, Elisabeth Sifton.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 325 pages
• Publisher: Hill & Wang Pub; 1st edition (October 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0809038196
• ISBN-13: 978-0809038190
• Product Dimensions: 9.8 x 6.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #106,182 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

43 of 46 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An objective, well-balanced account of the Holocaust, May 21, 1999

By	John J. Rooney ([e-mail]) (Philadelphia, PA) - See all my reviews

In this account of Nazi atrocities,Richard Breitman, professor of history at American University, presents a factual picture in many ways more horrifying than dramatizations of the events.

The author draws on recently released transcripts of British intelligence intercepts of German Order Police (ORPO) radio transmissions, and he integrates this information with material previously known to scholars of the Holocaust.

Breitman presents convincing evidence that ridding Europe of all Jews was an early goal of Hitler, not one that emerged later in the war. This goal was pursued ruthlessly by the SS and ORPO with ever-increasing efficiency as the war progressed. Even when it was clear that the Germany could not win the war, its leaders continued their all-out effort to accomplish this objective.

What did the Allies know of the atrocities? During the war, the American people had heard reports of persecution of the Jews by the Nazis, but they were astounded when allied troops uncovered the horrifying extent of the extermination. Yet this book presents evidence that high officials in Britian and the United States were aware of this throughout the war. Reports from the Polish Government-in-Exile emphasized that all Jews, including women and children were being eliminated. Jewish organizations, and individul citizens in many countries were also reporting this, and the ORPO radio intercepts confirmed it.

Unfortunately, not all allied officials had access to all of the information, and there was considerable disagreement about its accuracy and relevance. Some thought the reports were fabricated or grossly exaggerated. Even if substantially true, there was disagreement over what could be done about it. Winning the war was the overriding goal at the time; everything else was subordinate to it. Thus it was argued that only working harder to win the war sooner could help the Jews.

The author is convinced that much more could have been done. German officials went to considerable trouble to keep the mass atrocities secret. And Allied broadcasts into Europe failed to give the Holocaust the emphasis it deserved. If the truth had been more widely known, more Jews could have gone into hiding; sympathetic neighbors could have given more help; and neutral and allied countries could have accepted more refugees. Despite widespread anti-Semitism in Germany and other countries, some people were sympathetic to the Jews, and even many prejudiced people would have helped save potential victims had they known they were fated for death. That the Nazis were concerned about this is evident, not only from their efforts at secrecy, but also from the vicious and incessant propaganda they used to intensify existing anti-Semitism.

Allied threats of post-war reprisals against participants in atrocities also might have been employed more effectively, although they had some impact. Italian and Hungarian leaders, for example, frequently resisted deporting Jews, in part for fear of reprisals to come.

The most disturbing aspect of Allied policy, however, was the attitude toward refugees. Rather than making every effort to accept as many as possible and to urge neutral countries to do the same, procrastination and outright resistance were common. There was much discussion, but little action. How would refugees be transported and supported? What was their legal status? Would it help or hurt the blockade? Would it give credence to German propaganda which claimed the war was being fought for the Jews?

Some officials argued that the Allies should not relieve Germany of the resonsibilty of taking care of dependent children by making efforts to accept them as refugees. Tragically, the Nazis did "take care of them."

All in all, an informative and thought-provoking work.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Review, July 26, 2008

By	Stephen Campbell "Author" (Washington, D.C.) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Official Secrets: What the Nazis Planned, What the British and Americans Knew (Paperback)

I have read this book twice. Perhaps the author repeats himself. I may even have a few minor quibbles with some of research regarding conclusions. All that does not matter. Why? Because the author makes you think twice about commonly held beliefs. A good author in this area makes you want to read his footnotes. Again why? Because what he has written makes you want to know more. The author had me bookmarking where I was reading, and his footnotes, so I could go back and forth.

This book goes into detail about the role of the German police battalions in the mass murder that resulted from Hitlers racial policies. Something that very few researchers have written about. I would rate this book, and Brownings writing on Police Battalion 101, as the two best books on the subject.

10 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Short but Informative, and Free from Anti-Polish Bias, August 31, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Official Secrets: What the Nazis Planned, What the British and Americans Knew (Paperback)

Breitman's little book stands in striking contrast to much popular-level Holocaust material, which demonizes the Poles. Viewers usually see "Polish death camps" and Poles wishing death to Jews. Brietman's book, instead, shows how the Polish underground (notably Jan Karski) made a major effort to inform the west about Nazi-German efforts to kill millions of Jews, and also millions of others. The limiting factor was not what Poles could do, but, as pointed out by Breitman, the ingrained disbelief of western politicians about reports of what was going on. Both Polish and Jewish accounts were downplayed on the supposition that both Jews and Poles exaggerate their losses in order to get western help. Breitman also rebuts the charges of David Engel concerning Karski's supposedly belated reporting of German crimes on Jews relative to German crimes against Polish gentiles. Throughout this book, Breitman refrains from a strictly Judeo-centric approach to the Holocaust. For instance, he points out that Auschwitz was originally founded as a concentration camp for gentile Poles, and credits the Poles with breaking the Enigma code. Good reading!