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Bloodlands Paperback – November 4, 2016

4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 3,097 ratings

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From the author of the international bestseller On Tyranny, the definitive history of Hitler's and Stalin's politics of mass killing, explaining why Ukraine has been at the center of Western history for the last century.

Americans call the Second World War "the Good War." But before it even began, America's ally Stalin had killed millions of his own citizens-and kept killing them during and after the war. Before Hitler was defeated, he had murdered six million Jews and nearly as many other Europeans. At war's end, German and Soviet killing sites fell behind the Iron Curtain, leaving the history of mass killing in darkness.

Assiduously researched, deeply humane, and utterly definitive,
Bloodlands is a new kind of European history, presenting the mass murders committed by the Nazi and Stalinist regimes as two aspects of a single story. Bloodlands is a required reading for anyone seeking to understand the central tragedy of modern history and its meaning today.
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"A startling new interpretation of the period ... a stunning book."―David Denby, New Yorker

"A superb and harrowing history."―
Financial Times

"Genuinely shattering.... I have never seen a book like it."―
Istvan Deak, New Republic

"A brave and original history of mass killing in the twentieth century."―
Anne Applebaum, New York Review of Books

"A magisterial work.... Snyder's account in engaging, encyclopedic."―
Foreign Affairs

"Gripping and comprehensive.... Mr. Snyder's book is revisionist history of the best kind: in spare, closely argued prose, with meticulous use of statistics, he makes the reader rethink some of the best-known episodes in Europe's modern history."―
Economist

"Snyder...compels us to look squarely at the full range of destruction committed first by Stalin's regime and then by Hitler's Reich.... A comprehensive and eloquent account."―
New York Times Book Revew

"A superb work of scholarship, full of revealing detail, cleverly compiled...and in places beautifully written.... Snyder does justice to the horror of his subject through the power of storytelling."―
The Sunday Times (London)

“A gigantic achievement in modern history.”―
Rachel Maddow, The Rachel Maddow Show

About the Author

Timothy Snyder is the Housum Professor of History at Yale University and a permanent fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna. He received his doctorate from the University of Oxford in 1997, where he was a British Marshall Scholar. Before joining the faculty at Yale in 2001, he held fellowships in Paris, Vienna, and Warsaw, and an Academy Scholarship at Harvard.

He has spent some ten years in Europe, and speaks five and reads ten European languages. Among his publications are several award-winning books, all of which have been translated:
Nationalism, Marxism, and Modern Central Europe: A Biography of Kazimierz Kelles-Krauz; The Reconstruction of Nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, 1569-1999; Sketches from a Secret War: A Polish Artist's Mission to Liberate Soviet Ukraine; The Red Prince: The Secret Lives of a Habsburg Archduke; On Tyranny; and The Road to Unfreedom. He has written for publications including the New York Review of Books, the New York Times, Foreign Affairs, the Times Literary Supplement, Nation, the New Republic, the International Herald Tribune, and the Wall Street Journal.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Basic Books; First Edition (November 4, 2016)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 560 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0465031471
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0465031474
  • Reading age ‏ : ‎ 13 years and up
  • Grade level ‏ : ‎ 8 and up
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.45 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 1.4 x 9.25 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 3,097 ratings

About the author

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Timothy Snyder
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Timothy Snyder is one of the world’s leading historians, and a prominent public intellectual in the United States and Europe. An expert on eastern Europe and on the Second World War, he has written acclaimed and prize-winning books about twentieth-century European history, as well as political manifestos and analyses about the rise of tyranny in the contemporary world. His work has been translated into more than forty languages, and has inspired protest, art, and music. He serves as the Levin Professor of History and Public Affairs at Yale University and is the faculty advisor of the Fortunoff Archive for Holocaust Video Testimonies. He is also a permanent fellow of the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna.

Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5 stars
3,097 global ratings

Customers say

Customers find the research and detail in the book incredible and impressive. They also describe the writing style as excellent and powerful. Readers describe the emotional impact as brilliant, powerful, and forceful. They find the historical context very informative and make sense of the Russian mindset today. Opinions are mixed on the emotional content, with some finding it uneasy to read about and easy to understand, while others say it's heartbreaking and shameful.

AI-generated from the text of customer reviews

195 customers mention "Content"178 positive17 negative

Customers find the research and detail in the book incredible, objective, and concise. They also say it's engrossing, and includes personal testimonies that humanize the individuals. Customers also mention the book marshalls an impressive array of primary and secondary sources, some of them rare archival.

"...That said, it was very enlightening; as an American, some of the stories about Stalinist Russia I had not encountered before...." Read more

"...What I really appreciated about BLOODLANDS was that it provided a clearer understanding of the dilemma faced by those living between Hitler and..." Read more

"...hundreds of thousands, and millions killed–but he also includes personal testimonies that humanize the individuals behind these numbingly high..." Read more

"...This is a long overdue, magisterial work, which will be a very valuable source for students, teachers, and researchers in the future." Read more

153 customers mention "Writing style"111 positive42 negative

Customers find the writing style excellent, succinct, and well-defined. They also say the book is fascinating and well documented.

"...What made BLOODLANDS such a compelling read? Mainly, it is the manner in which the author presents the material...." Read more

"...The book looked fascinating, and the maps are important, so I ordered the hardbound version instead.---------------------..." Read more

"...There is also the exemplary clarity of the narrative: a tangled and complicated history, with many parties, has been presented in linear order...." Read more

"...It is an ugly subject and not an easy read. The author goes into great detail and all his information is carefully documented...." Read more

106 customers mention "Emotional impact"106 positive0 negative

Customers find the book brilliant, sobering, and valuable. They also describe it as grim reading and powerful.

"...Good book if you want to understand the ugly details, but not for the squeamish." Read more

"...edition of this book for a week or two, and, although the book is excellent in every way, my reading progress has been slow because the subject..." Read more

"...The book is grim reading, and while it is more of a scholarly study of the depredations of Hitler and Stalin, there are anecdotes contained within..." Read more

"...Despite my reservations this is a good book and though distrurbing in many ways is easy to read." Read more

88 customers mention "Historical context"86 positive2 negative

Customers find the historical context of the book very informative and important for Americans to read. They also say it makes sense of the Russian mindset today.

"...In light of current events in those areas, I found it useful to understand the history and backstory to what is currently happening there...." Read more

"...BLOODLANDS is one of the better history books I’ve read in years...." Read more

"This is an important book for Americans to read. We have a lot of romance surrounding World War II, for several reasons...." Read more

"...Despite the above one flaw, I consider this an essential historical work. 6-stars." Read more

136 customers mention "Emotional content"79 positive57 negative

Customers are mixed about the emotional content. Some find the anecdotes within the book heartbreaking, disturbing, sobering, and depressing. They also say the subject matter is terrifying and depressive, with graphic scenes.

"...While both books exemplify a deep, personal approach by the author to present the subject matter in a scholarly manner, I found “Black Earth” to be..." Read more

"...Since the information is so extensive and the graphic scenes are so horrifying, I had to put it down and take a break a few times before I was..." Read more

"...He has a keen sense of how spirtuality manifests itself in every day life. We clearly see the people who are being massacred in human terms...." Read more

"...the depredations of Hitler and Stalin, there are anecdotes contained within that are heartbreaking, such as the Polish-Jewish mother breastfeeding..." Read more

21 customers mention "Factual accuracy"10 positive11 negative

Customers are mixed about the factual accuracy. Some find the numbers astounding and unbelievable, while others say the book is heavy on statistics and mind-numbing. They also say the data overload creates a sad narrative of brutalities.

"...Eventually the numbers become mind-numbing ... almost as if Snyder had written his history of Eastern Europe caught between Stalin on the east and..." Read more

"...does have access to more recent Soviet documents and is able to provide accurate figures and more importantly put names to some of the millions of..." Read more

"This is a fastidious book to read, it has many pages and a rather dry subject...." Read more

"...The story is truly horrifying and the sheer numbers staggering, yet Snyder has woven together an excellent narrative which doesn't get bogged down..." Read more

Unreadable due to small print, even with reading glasses
1 out of 5 stars
Unreadable due to small print, even with reading glasses
This review is NOT a review of the book itself. My friends highly recommended it. I ordered it for my husband’s birthday. We both looked forward to reading it. Our eyes are not young eyes but even if they were, this would be a difficult read due to the very small size of the print. There is a large amount of wasted, empty, unfilled page surrounding a small block of print. Even with reading glasses, it was a struggle to read. And I don’t usually need reading glasses. I’ve attached photos. The first is a photo of a page from the book Bloodlands as sent by this seller. The second photo compares the book Bloodlands next to another book of the same size with normal size print. I’m thinking perhaps there was a mistake made in printing. If so, I’d be happy to take a replacement and adjust my review accordingly. I’ve returned the book. I hope the seller will contact me if there was an error in printing.
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Top reviews from the United States

Reviewed in the United States on March 8, 2014
I began reading this book as a tool for gaining a better understanding of what is going on in the Ukraine. There is no understanding of Ukraine's current situation without understanding the cultural, social and criminal history laid out in this groundbreaking book. The key to Bloodlands is that it is based upon STATISTICS. This book is not based upon he said she said third party accounts. That is all that German histories of the Holocaust can be since the key point is that 95% of "Holocaust" deaths did not occur in or near Germany. They occurred in Eastern Europe, and the Allies never even reached the places where the killing happened. The Nazis were meticulous record keepers and they also had plenty of help from the local populations of the countries they invaded. Timothy Snyder brings a wealth of statistical evidence to bear on the subject of Genocide.

Ukrainians are begging us today to free them from the Holodomor denying Russians. I hate to admit this, but I did not even understand what the Holodomor was. The "History" books sold me on the lie that Stalin was just doing what he had to do to establish the Soviet state and the Kulaks were a resistance group who had to be "dealt with". And there is the bizarre conundrum that Stalin was right ... the Kulaks and other dissenters who were shipped to the Gulag saved the Soviets by establishing industry in Siberia. We know that Stalin's brutality saved Russia (barely) in World War 2. I have always thought that this indisputable fact justified whatever Stalin did. But I know now that Ukrainians can never forget the Holodomor genocide. And the Russians have made an inexcusable mistake in denying that the Holodomor occurred.
It is crucial to understand the Historical facts presented here in light of the Ukrainian/Russian crisis.

The Hitler vs. Stalin Genocide comparison quickly reveals that there was not one Holocaust, but many. The author's premise that you need to compare genocides statistically in order to understand their true nature is clearly demonstrated. I must say that the planned starvation of the Ukrainian Holodomor exceeds by far any evil that can be conceived of. Stalin's wife did the right thing in shooting herself in the heart as a response to what Stalin was doing to the Ukrainians. Bloodlands relies on statistics from documents made available since the fall of the Soviet empire to expose the reality of what actually happened. The statistical analysis is backed up by humanizing eyewitness accounts. The author reduced me to tears repeatedly with the sorrowful vignettes he selected to elucidate what the cold statistics meant.

When I started reading Bloodlands I was attracted by some of the Horrific statements made in the Preface but it was not clear to me what Timothy Snyder meant when he said that in order to understand Genocide you need to compare one Genocide to other Genocides. But it very quickly became clear that the Hollywood version of the Nazi concentration camps was quite civilized compared to brutal Einsatzgruppen massacres like Babi Yar. 90% of Holocaust deaths involved the victims being rounded up, thrown in a pit and shot on the spot. It was just in your face DEATH with no death camps or sad family goodbyes. I have watched footage of the shootings and now understand why Jews were so passive and simply lay down in the pits to be slaughtered. They were completely dehumanized and facing atrocities on a scale where it was better to be shot and get it over with.
Victims don't write history but Timothy Snyder has done an eloquent job of speaking for them.
Anyone who wants to understand this book needs to watch the actual murder footage on the Internet. (Einsatzgruppen, Holodomor, WW2 etc, It's all out there. Sickening stuff, but inescapable.) There is no hiding behind propaganda and lies in today's world ... the footage that is out there confirms what Bloodlands says.

An important aspect of Bloodlands is to bring the individuals who suffered such atrocities to life. In addition to being a great student of History Timothy Snyder is also a great writer. He has a keen sense of how spirtuality manifests itself in every day life. We clearly see the people who are being massacred in human terms. After looking at the stats we are presented with a heartbreaking story of a simple human being who was senselessly and needlessly slaughtered.

Bloodlands makes it clear from the outset that the German accounts of the Holocaust represent an insignificant 2% of the victims. We are introduced to the other 98% along the way. And we are presented with many surreal scenarios that were commonplace. Eg. A Ukrainian man is captured by the invading Bolsheviks and serves in the Red Army. He runs away to join Nationalist Partisans, is captured by the Nazis and fights for them against the Bolsheviks. He is again captured by the Bolsheviks and is sent to Siberia. Seemingly bizarre examples demonstrate the ephemeral nature of survival in the Bloodlands.
What is clear is that since the Bloodlands were occupied twice by the Bolsheviks and once by the Nazis the hapless victims had no chance of self determination whatsoever. And if they survived at all they were fortunate.

In considering what the message of this book is, the author is clear in his intentions to avoid political intrigues and focus on the Bloodlands as a source of food that was essential for both the Nazis and the Bolsheviks. What is shown here is that when survival is on the line, there are no laws that can govern the atrocities people are forced to commit. Since we are approaching population levels where food is becoming scarce again we need to remember; Russians are not just posturing over the Ukraine, that is their breadbasket. We need to understand the history of this region and how dangerous Russian denial of Holodomor is. Ukrainians won't accept that any more than Israelis will accept Holocaust deniers.
At least the Holocaust is recognized by most people. Holodomor is not. We cannot comprehend how the Ukrainians must feel.
One of the greatest atrocities in history and it's not even recognized. This is what I learned from Bloodlands;
The victims of these atrocities are still here with us. They are Ukrainians. World War 2 is not over.
If Ukrainians feel the way I think they feel, then the current situation is a life/death struggle that cannot be settled
peacefully. Russian leaders need to learn a lesson from Pope John Paul II; he was the last person who needed to apologize for the massacre of Jews in Poland. Yet he did apologize because he recognized that it was a necessary step in the healing process.

Timothy Snyder has big balls as a man in taking on this subject. It is clear to me why Historians simply want nothing to do with it. Reading the facts quite simply made me sick to my stomach. I can't imagine how the author remained immersed in this material for years. As readers we are indebted to him for providing an undeniable resource regarding the Genocides in Eastern Europe. By providing statistical analysis backed up by concrete examples he refutes those who seek to replace Historical fact with Nationalist Revisionist History. Bloodlands brings to mind the old axiom: Those who cannot learn from history are destined to repeat it.
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Reviewed in the United States on November 2, 2015
“Without history, the memories become private, which today means national; and the numbers become public, which is to say an instrument in the international competition for martyrdom.”

One such number is 33,761. That is the number of Jews shot at Babi Yar, near Kiev, in the Ukraine. On numerous occasions throughout this monumental and essential history, Timothy Snyder uses very precise figures such as 33,761. Admittedly, it rubbed me the wrong way, since in the world of much uncertainty, as Heisenberg and others have proclaimed, it is impossible to know such a number, with that type of certainty and precision. But on the very last page of his account, the author, a Yale historian, explained fully why it is so important to use the “odd” number. It is the humanity that is revealed in the “1”, which can be multiplied by a million or more. It is the fragments of the stories of individuals who once had a real name, that have been preserved in diaries, or the memories of others, or simply a departing sentence scratched on a wall.

Snyder does also use “round” numbers, as in 14,000,000. That is his estimate of the number of CIVILIAN deaths in an area he defines as the “Bloodlands,” between 1933 and 1945. It is an area that stretches from St. Petersburg in the north, encompasses the entire eastern shore of the Baltic to Danzig, all of Poland, and on, down to the entire Crimea, and touching the Don River in the east. One of the many strengths of this book is the numerous excellent maps set within the narrative. His contributions to our understanding of what happened in that space and time are numerous. Central is his examination of the disparate motives behind these numerous deaths, and to present a “balanced” account, in a world of madness. Snyder starts in the Ukraine, with Stalin’s efforts to collectivize agriculture, which lead to the death, by starvation, of millions. Many others were deported to the “Gulag.” Next there was the “Terror,” in the late ‘30’s, in which Stalin purged many in the leadership ranks of the Soviet Union, with a particular focus on the Poles. In fact, the “Polish Military Organization” was simply invented for the purpose of justifying the terror. Though the Soviet Union promoted an image of their tolerance towards minorities, which many in the West, probably at one time including myself, accepted, with the “you can make an omelet without breaking a few eggs” rationalization, Snyder concludes otherwise, to a stark degree. Next there was the brief period that Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union were allies, which, in part, resulted in the partition of Poland between them, and the calculated decimation of the Polish leadership.

What more can be said about the Holocaust and the Jews? Actually, quite a lot, I found. Once again, Snyder condemns best in measured, factual analysis. He deals with the “big picture,” and demonstrates how, after the German failure to take Moscow in 1941, that the destruction of European Jewry became a wartime German objective. He names numerous concentration camps I had never heard of, because they were taken by the Red Army. Prior to reading Snyder’s account I was under the impression that the gas chambers had to be constructed because there was some natural “limit” whereby soldiers could not be ordered to shoot and kill unarmed men, woman and children, and be expected to obey. The soldiers themselves would simply rebel and refuse to participate in these heinous crimes. Not so, apparently, as the author documents how so very many were simply shot, including all those at Babi Yar.

Amos Oz, the Israeli novelist once proclaimed that “the dead of the Six Day War belong to all of us; the dead of the Lebanese War belong only to their mother’s.” Snyder posits a similar issue concerning a Soviet Ukrainian Jew who had once lived in an area considered to be Poland. She can be claimed by four different national entities; who does she belong to? And to what political purpose today will these entities use her death? And like Bernard Schlick’s principle character in 
The Reader , who is accused of war crimes, but asks the Judge: “What would you have done?” and receives no reply, Snyder cautions against assuming the identity of the victim, and raises the issue of what people who are just “trying to get by” will do in order to stay alive… including being Jewish policeman in the ghetto.

My first efforts to obtain a different vantage point on the Second World War, other than the one I was brought up on, as an American, that is, Pearl Harbor and D-Day, was reading Alexander Werth’s 
Russia at War: 1941-1945 , in the ‘60’s. William Shirer proclaimed it to be “the best book we probably shall ever have in English on Russia at war.” I found it strange therefore that in Snyder’s extensive 37 page bibliography, it is never mentioned. Of course, some of Werth’s information and opinions, as set forth in 1964, are outdated and have been superseded. For example, Werth had left it an open question as to who killed the Polish officers in the Katyn Forest, the Soviets or the Nazis. We now know for certain it was the former, and Snyder details this.

I also compared accounts concerning the doomed Warsaw uprising of 1944. I found Snyder’s account less rigorous, with the implicit assumption that the Russians had simply stopped, for no particular reason, and allowed the Poles to be slaughter as a result. Werth seemed to be much more explicit and detailed, clearly condemning “…the awkward questions of the Moscow radio appeals at the end of July to the people of Warsaw to ‘rise’… and the Russian refusal to let supply planes from the West land on Soviet airfields.” Also, it was clearly in Stalin’s interest to allow the Polish elites again to be decimated. Nonetheless, Werth quotes the German general, Heinz Guderian on the inability of the Russians to take Warsaw, cites the failure to cross the Vistula in July, with a loss of 30 Russian tanks, and Werth concludes: “The only conclusion this author, at any rate, has been able to reach is that in August and September, 1944, the available Red Army forces in Poland were genuinely not able to capture Warsaw, which Hitler was determined to hold.” At a minimum, I think Snyder should have at least addressed this issue, and Werth’s knowledge of the matter.

Despite the above one flaw, I consider this an essential historical work. 6-stars.
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Sara Barron
5.0 out of 5 stars Astounding work of scholarship on a very relevant subject
Reviewed in Canada on August 9, 2023
I thought I knew a lot about this subject, but realized I only knew it from a military-historical point of view. Bloodlands looks at the conflicts in the zone between Germany and Russia from the civilian point of view, and it's astounding. The breadth and depth of Snyder's scholarship is staggering. I learned so much about what befell the Jews, Poles, Belorussians and Ukrainians. The genocidal cruelty of the Nazis was well known to me, but I learnt a lot about how the Soviets were comparably genocidal, including before the war. I learnt too that most of the Holocaust carried out by the Nazis was outside of Germany itself, and how it swung back and forth between needing Jews to work versus wanting to exterminate them. It makes for very difficult but necessary reading. Thank you, Professor Snyder.
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5.0 out of 5 stars Ottimi contenuti
Reviewed in Italy on May 9, 2023
Apre un mondo di conoscenza a chi han raccontato la guerra solo dalla parte occidentale. Si riscoprono politiche e macelli in gran parte tenuti nell'ombra. In evidenza molte bugie fondanti delle politiche espansioniste attuali. Non sempre scorrevole. Sarebbe utile una tabellina riassuntiva delle cifre, talmente alte e frammentate da far perdere il conto più e più volte.
Jimeet Gandhi
5.0 out of 5 stars Appalling and fascinating piece of history
Reviewed in India on July 1, 2021
Richly detailed, conservative (and still high) in death rates reported...this is a piece of history that every student of European history in any form should read, not for the acts itself, but the ideologies and the twisted political reasonings explained behind those acts.
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Anna v. D.
5.0 out of 5 stars Revisionismus
Reviewed in Germany on June 12, 2021
Timothy Snyder beschreibt akribisch und nüchtern wie zunächst der sowjetische Bolschewismus, danach der nationale Sozialismus und zuletzt wieder der sowjetische Bolschewismus (nunmehr geronnen zu einer Art bizarrem Nationalbolschewismus) die Bloodlands, Länder und Gebiete östlich der Grenzen des Deutschen Reiches von 1938 und westlich der Linie Leningrad-Smolensk-Rostow am Don, nachhaltig zerstört haben. Die verstörenden Details hierzu sind im Werk selbst nachzulesen und brauchen an dieser Stelle nicht repetiert zu werden.

Auf der Metaebene protokolliert Snyder das Zeitalter der Ideologien, den Mythos des 20. Jahrhunderts, das im Ringen um ideologische und territoriale Vorherrschaft zwischen der marxistisch-leninistisch-stalinistischen klassistischen Variante des Sozialismus und der rassistisch-faschistischen nationalsozialistischen Variante des Sozialismus seinen tödlichen Gipfelpunkt fand. Die Verschränkung zwischen Bolschewismus und Nationalsozialismus tritt deutlich hervor, ebenso die Art- und Wahlverwandtschaft zwischen beiden, der allmählichen Anverwandlung des Anderen im jeweils eigenen und der daraus resultierenden Eskalation an Gewalt, Völkermord und Vertreibung.

Die sowjetischen Morde, die geplanten Hungersnöte, die Konzentrationslager, die Vertreibungen und ethnischen Säuberungen gingen jenen der Nationalsozialisten vor, bildeten aber auch den Referenzrahmen für nationalsozialistisches Handeln. Die "antibolschewistischen Bolschewisten" (Zitat: Joseph Goebbels) waren gelehrige Schüler ihrer bolschewistischen Todfeinde und Lehrmeister. Wo der Bolschewismus Klassenfeinde vernichtete (und zunehmend Klassenfeinde mit ganzen Nationalitäten gleichsetzte, siehe "Polenaktion", "Ukraineaktion" und Säuberungen in den besetzten baltischen Staaten), wollte der Nationalsozialismus die Rassenfeinde der Arier vernichten, die er zugleich als Träger des bolschewistischen Virus ansah, die Juden. Im nationalsozialistischen Ansatz verschränkten sich Rassenhass mit Klassenhass (das Ziehen der Goldzähne, die Ausplünderung der Juden vor ihrer Ermordung und der Umverteilung dieses Wohlstandes an bedürftige Volksgenossen, sind Tatsachen des Klassenhasses, s.a. Götz Aly, Volksstaat), der zunächst gar nicht exterminatorisch war, sondern anglehnt an das bolschewistische Vorbild, Vertreibung der Juden nach Sibirien oder Madagaskar vorsah. Mörderisch wurde die angedachte Endlösung erst als im Winter 1941 klar wurde, dass der Weltanschauungskrieg im Osten zuungunsten der nationalsozialistischen Variante beendet würde. Zumindest der Krieg gegen den Rassen- und Klassenfeind sollte dann noch gewonnen werden.

Wo NKWD (direkter Vorläufer des KGB und heutigen FSB), flankiert von wohlwollenden und sympathisierenden westlichen Literaten und Journalisten, leidlich klandestin Verschleppungen, Ermordungen und Konzentrationslager betreiben konnte, blieben diese Privilegien dem Nationalsozialismus von vornherein verschlossen und so steigerte sich das nationalsozialistische Morden hin zu einem Crescendo einer Symphonie des Grauens 1944 nach dem Warschauer Aufstand. Die Erzählung an dieser Stelle evoziert Bilder eines Hieronymus Bosch, dessen Teufel in Gestalt der Mörder, Vergewaltiger, Diebe und Geistesgestörten der SS-Sonderbrigade Dirlewanger ihre Widergänger fanden. Das Ringen der verschränkten Ideologien fand seinen Höhepunkt in einem unwirklichen, satanischen, perversen Karneval der Gewalt.

"Befreit" wurde von der Roten Armee anschließend niemand, außer vielleicht ein paar Juden in den übriggebliebenen Konzentrationslagern. Für die Übrigen gingen die Verschleppungen, Vertreibungen und Morde unter anderen Vorzeichen, wenn auch vermindert, weiter. Das Feuer der großen ideologischen Auseinandersetzung sollte noch bis Anfang der 1950er Jahre glimmen und in einer perversen aber folgerichtigen imitatio, eignete sich das nun zum Nationalkommunismus gewendete stalinistische Regime Kernpunkte der nationalsozialistsichen Ideologie an. Die Juden wurden im sog. Ostblock ab 1948 wie einst unter Hitler als unzuverlässige, zersetzende Elemente und "Kosmopoliten" geschmäht; eine anti-semitische Kampagne nach der Vorlage des Großen Terror 1937-38, eine "Judenaktion", zeichnete sich bereits am Horizont ab - nur der Tod Stalins ließ es nicht zum Äußersten kommen.

Die Sowjetunion hatte das Ringen für sich entschieden, aber sie hatte den Nationalsozialismus buchstäblich verschlungen und ihre eigene DNA mit der des NS vermischt. Eine kapitalistische Sowjetunion war stets undenkbar gewesen, aber eine Sowjetunion erweitert um nationalsozialistische Elemente nicht; das ist die Wahlverwandtschaft aller sozialistischen Varianten und Häresien.

Snyder bestätigt nicht die These Ernst Noltes vom Kausalen Nexus, für welche Letzterer 1985 von der linken deutschen Haute Volée gecancelt wurde, wie man heute sagen würde, aber er widerlegt sie auch nicht. Beide Ideologien führen ihre Wurzeln auf den Sozialismus zurück, beide haben sich verschränkt, bekämpft und von Vernichtungswillen getrieben einander anverwandelt. Der Bolschewismus kam zuerst, der Nationalsozialismus ahmte nach, überflügelte dann, wurde zerschmettert; der Bolschewismus blieb übrig, aber verwandelt da auch er nachahmte und anverwandelte. Das ist sozialistische Dialektik im Weltmaßstab und das hat Nolte nicht gesehen, Snyder aber durchaus.

Dies relativiert nicht den Holocaust, aber es historisiert ihn, setzt ihn in Beziehung als eine Funktion einer gescheiterten sozialistischen Utopie die sich gegenüber einer anders gelagerten sozialistischen Utopie nicht durchzusetzen vermochte.

Das Schicksal der Juden war allen egal. Sowjets, Engländer und Amerikaner wussten von der Vernichtungstaten der deutschen Nationalsozialisten aber es spielte keine Rolle in einem Ringen in dem es um Vorherrschaft ging. Und so saßen denn in Nürnberg, Mordbrenner, Massenmörder, die Architekten ethnischer Säuberungen und (im Falle der Sowjets, die Betreiber von Konzentrationslagern) über Mordbrenner, Massenmörder, Architekten ethnischer Säuberungen und Betreiber von Konzentrationslagern zu Gericht.

Dir Urteile von Nürnberg die in der Erinnerungspolitk der BRD den Rang von Gottesurteilen einnehmen, erscheinen als eine Farce von Justiz und die in Nürnberg aufgestellten Grundsätze sind heuchlerisch als sie nicht auch gegen diejenigen angewandt wurden - und werden - die nicht wehrlos waren bzw. sind. Göring et. al. hatten nur das Pech das Ringen um Vorherrschaft verloren zu haben.

Snyders Werk ist ein revisionistisches Werk und daraus erklärt sich wohl auch die kühle Aufnahme die dieses Buch in Deutschland gefunden hat. Revisionismus ist in Deutschland von tonangebenden Eliten (die allesamt bolschewistische Vergangenheiten und anhaltende Sympathien haben) negativ konnotiert worden. Dabei ist Revision lediglich das Fortschreiten der Geschichtswissenschaft. Die Einordnung von neuen Erkenntnissen in einen historisch-sozialen Kontext.

Die Revision des Zeitalters der Ideologien ist noch lange nicht abgeschlossen und die auf den post-Nürnberg blühenden Mythen und ihren eigenen Geschichtslügen aufbauende Bundesrepublik erscheint zunehmend unglaubwürdig in ihrem Beharren auf ahistorische Schuldbezeugungen und der Einzigartigkeit des den Deutschen innewohnenden All-Bösen. Diese Lügen könnten sich noch als Stolperstein des "besten Deutschlands aller Zeiten" erweisen.
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Graeme Webster
5.0 out of 5 stars A Dismal Reminder of A Period of the Grossest Inhumanity
Reviewed in Australia on February 14, 2022
I purchased this book (quite old now) after striking its author on YouTube.

He extensively documents the suffering of large populations in Poland, (then Soviet) Ukraine, Belarus and the Baltic states during the period between the two World Wars and just afterwards. The detail is at times a little dry and almost boring, until one reminds oneself that these figures represents millions of individuals, rather than a mass of people that can be ignored. As Stalin said, one death is a tragedy, one million a statistic (not a direct quote), and he ought to have known, given how many of the deaths he was directly responsible for. Snyder attempts throughout his narrative to prevent this tendency by introducing vignettes of individuals whose voice has been preserved beyond their deaths by a variety of methods; a diary entry, witness testimony, final messages scratched on walls etc. Some of these were very affecting, and in several places I was on the point of weeping.

All in all, this is a difficult read due to subject matter, but not due to style; any intelligent non-specialist would be able to follow the arguments and also follow the citations. Not all of these are readily available, but such as I have checked, are accurate. I was generally aware of the history of the area, but this book has deepened my understanding and introduced me to some things of which I was either unaware or had misunderstood. I recommend it wholeheartedly.
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