Book Description
Masters of the Air is the deeply personal story of the American bomber boys in World War II who brought the war to Hitler's doorstep. With the narrative power of fiction, Donald Miller takes readers on a harrowing ride through the fire-filled skies over Berlin, Hanover, and Dresden and describes the terrible cost of bombing for the German people.
Fighting at 25,000 feet in thin, freezing air that no warriors had ever encountered before, bomber crews battled new kinds of assaults on body and mind. Air combat was deadly but intermittent: periods of inactivity and anxiety were followed by short bursts of fire and fear. Unlike infantrymen, bomber boys slept on clean sheets, drank beer in local pubs, and danced to the swing music of Glenn Miller's Air Force band, which toured U.S. air bases in England. But they had a much greater chance of dying than ground soldiers. In 1943, an American bomber crewman stood only a one-in-five chance of surviving his tour of duty, twenty-five missions. The Eighth Air Force lost more men in the war than the U.S. Marine Corps.
The bomber crews were an elite group of warriors who were a microcosm of America -- white America, anyway. (African-Americans could not serve in the Eighth Air Force except in a support capacity.) The actor Jimmy Stewart was a bomber boy, and so was the "King of Hollywood," Clark Gable. And the air war was filmed by Oscar-winning director William Wyler and covered by reporters like Andy Rooney and Walter Cronkite, all of whom flew combat missions with the men.
The Anglo-American bombing campaign against Nazi Germany was the longest military campaign of World War II, a war within a war. Until Allied soldiers crossed into Germany in the final months of the war, it was the only battle fought inside the German homeland.
Strategic bombing did not win the war, but the war could not have been won without it. American
airpower destroyed the rail facilities and oil refineries that supplied the German war machine. The bombing campaign was a shared enterprise: the British flew under the cover of night while American bombers attacked by day, a technique that British commanders thought was suicidal.
Masters of the Air is a story, as well, of life in wartime England and in the German prison camps, where tens of thousands of airmen spent part of the war. It ends with a vivid description of the grisly hunger marches captured airmen were forced to make near the end of the war through the country their bombs destroyed.
Drawn from recent interviews, oral histories, and American, British, German, and other archives, Masters of the Air is an authoritative, deeply moving account of the world's first and only bomber war.
Customer Reviews:
A "must read" for all those interested in WW II........2007-10-10
This monumental work covers the bomber war in Europe in a more complete way than any other book I have read including anything the great Martin Caidin has written. Mr. Miller tells the story from the perspectives of the tail gunners, waist gunners, radiomen, bombadiers, navigators, co-pilots and pilots as well as the generals who devised the strategys. All aspects of the war are covered from the original construction of the air bases to airplane maintenance to training to missions to time-off at local village pubs. Unlike other books, this one covers the POWs and their horrendous plight especially as the war is winding down and the Nazis more them from location to location ahead of the advancing Allies. Miller also includes stories about Capt. Tibbets of Hiroshima fame and a fascinating story of Chuck Yeager's escape from occupied Europe through Spain and his subsequent return to combat, something almost never allowed because re-patriated flyers knew too much about the french underground that would jeapordize lives if they were shot down a second time. Also of interest was information about what happened to crewmen who elected to land in "neutral" Switzerland in wounded ships. I recommend this book highly.
Masters of the Air.......2007-09-11
A marvelous story about the WW II air war over Europe. Full of interesting details and descriptions. I have shared it with friends that did their 35 missions, and they concur.
The Story of the "Mighty Eighth".......2007-09-08
This well-written and exhaustively researched book chronicles the rise of the American Eighth Air Force from its early days in England to VE Day in 1945.
At the outset of the war, the British believed that night bombing was the best way to attack German cities and industry. However, once America entered the war, they chose a philosophy different from that of the British. The Americans believed that daylight precision strategic bombing was the only way to defeat the Germans. The British, on the other hand, still favored nighttime area bombing. This difference of opinion between the Americans and British was never really settled, but by combining the "round the clock" attacks of American planes during the day and British planes at night, the Germans faced an unending stream of planes and bombs.
When the Eighth flew their first mission in the fall of 1942, they could barely muster thirty planes, but at the end of the war, they were putting up well over one thousand, with several hundred fighter escorts as well. The German Luftwaffe could not match these incredible numbers of planes, and, despite such tactics as underground production and introducing the world's first jet fighter, there was little they could do to stop the Allied bombing.
Differences also existed between the British and Americans regarding target selection. The British favored carpet bombing Germany's cities with little or no regard for civilian casualties. The Americans favored targeting German industry (synthetic oil production, ball bearings, and transportation hubs). The Americans believed that the systematic destruction of the German economy would bring about surrender quicker than the British belief of "terror attacks" designed to break the will of the German people.
An interesting point made by the author is whether or not strategic bombing was effective against the Germans. A preponderance of the evidence would suggest that the answer to this question is "yes", but there are some compelling counter-points made in the book.
This is a fine work of aviation history. The book is well-researched and is easy to read and understand. Every aspect of the Allied bomber offensive in Europe is covered in great detail. The author also includes many personal testimonials from the men who flew the B-17s and B-24s against the Germans. An interesting chapter is also devoted to the Swiss government and how they treated "captured" Allied fliers. The terrifying incendiary raid on Dresden as well as the horrific destruction of Berlin is also told in vivid detail.
I give this fine book my highest recommendation. If you're looking for information on the Eighth Air Force and the air war over Europe, this is the book to read.
Does anyone at Simon & Schuster proofread?.......2007-09-04
Mr. Miller's book includes not only substantial research into prior publications but very interesting research based on letters and interviews he's found on his own. It's a good book. But if you're a member of the word police you'll be annoyed by the many proofreading errors. Here's a sample: "In the heavily defended Ruhr, with its permanent cloud of industrial smoke, the number was only in ten." (p.54) Should have been "within ten miles." Some errors are so simple a spell checker would have caught them: (p.199) "spining" for spinning. And there are some factual errors as well. Miller attributes contrails to wingtips. They're created by engines. It's much easier to criticize than to write. Still, S&S should have, with the several editors listed in the acknowledgments, caught the errors. I have no idea whether they have been corrected in the paperback.
The Unsung Heroes of The Eighth Air Force.......2007-08-26
This is an overdue tribute to those young men who gave their lives, in great numbers, fighting the air war over Germany in WWII.To those who think WWII was fought without major tatical errors, this book will be a revelation. In tribute to the kids who lost their lives in this bloody effort, everyone should be required to read this story. If you thought that service in the Air Force was a cake walk read this book.
Book Description
In this groundbreaking new history, Adam Tooze provides the clearest picture to date of the Nazi war machine and its undoing. There was no aspect of Nazi power untouched by economics—it was HitlerÂ's obsession and the reason the Nazis came to power in the first place. The Second World War was fought, in HitlerÂ's view, to create a European empire strong enough to take on the United States. But as The Wages of Destruction makes clear, HitlerÂ's armies were never powerful enough to beat either Britain or the Soviet Union—and Hitler never had a serious plan as to how he might defeat the United States. The Wages of Destruction is an eye-opening and controversial account that will challenge conventional interpretations of the period and will find an enthusiastic readership among fans of Ian Kershaw and Richard Evans. BACKCOVER:
Advance praise for The Wages of Destruction:
“One of the most important and original books to be published about the Third Reich in the past twenty years. A tour de force.”
—Niall Ferguson, author of Colossus
“Unputdownable epic history . . . Transforms not only our reading of HitlerÂ's sordid regime, but the history of the twentieth century itself. Brilliantly written, its original scholarship is telling and lightly borne on every page.”
—John Cornwell, author of HitlerÂ's Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII
Customer Reviews:
An enlightening analysis of economic factors behind the Third Reich.......2007-10-08
Tooze occasionally mentions in passing how companies or individuals benefited from fueling the Third Reich's war effort, but his real topics are far broader and more interesting: showing how economic factors drove Hitler's war goals and timing and how the continual feedback between industrial needs and war goals drove war strategy.
Tooze starts by describing the quandary which faced Germany in the late 1920's. Germany was not self sufficient in either food or raw materials and needed to be able to export in order to finance essential imports. Germany also needed to be able to sell its exports in order to obtain hard currency to pay the reparation demands from the World War I victors. Despite these difficulties, the German finance ministry was managing to navigate Germany through a slow and painful recovery from WWI. Then disaster struck with the Great Depression. First there was an inevitable shrinking in export markets and then, much more seriously, there were conscious protectionist decisions in America, Britain, and France to block German exports in order to protect home employment.
Before reading The Wages of Destruction, I had loosely understood how the Great Depression had been a key factor in Hitler's rise to power, especially due to widespread unemployment. But Tooze clarifies that Germany was facing a much deeper strategic dilemma than a simple economic depression. Germany was dependent on the goodwill of other powers for its export markets and for its essential food and material imports, but those powers were demonstrating that in a crisis they would look entirely to their own interests and would quite cheerfully close their markets and let Germany suffer. Given this behavior, the long-term economic and political future for Germany looked extremely grim. Hitler offered a radical solution to this problem: Germany needed to expand to the East and become self sufficient in resources in the same way as the British Empire or America. Given the depth of Germany's problem, it becomes easier to understand why many thinking Germans either enthusiastically or reluctantly accepted Hitler's solution.
In succeeding chapters, Tooze describes how Hitler rapidly switched the Germany economy to focus on rearmament. He argues that while the Nazi propaganda machine emphasized efforts to increase employment and visionary projects such as the autobahn system, this was really mere window dressing and the regime was massively focused on military preparations for war. More interestingly, he also highlights how the continual shortages of hard currency (and thus of key materials) continually constrained and shaped rearmament. By 1938 lack of currency and other economic constraints were limiting further military expansion. Hitler was thus faced with a situation where Germany could see its own military abilities peaking and simultaneously see other powers starting to accelerate their own rearmament, weakening Germany's relative advantage. Hitler being Hitler, this drove an impatience for war, while Germany had its best relative position. As the war progresses, Tooze revisits this theme from several angles. Hitler was continually faced with situations where enemy military production would quickly eclipse Germany's and he reacted by trying to knock particular opponents out of the war quickly.
Tooze's major focus is on the operations and outputs of the German wartime economy. Overall, he shows us an economy that was reasonably well run and efficient but where production was dominated by shortages of key resources, especially steel and skilled manpower. By making high-level decisions about reallocations of these resources the Reich leadership could cause major leaps (or declines) in production in target sectors such as aircraft or tanks or munitions. Typically these resources shifts would take about six months to work through the system. The lucky Nazi bureaucrat who happened to be in charge of a target sector at the end of the six months would then happily boast of his productivity miracle as his sector suddenly produced startling jumps in output.
Tooze does not shy away from describing and condemning the many darker aspects of the Third Reich's war economy. A major aim of the expansion to the East was to improve Germany's food supplies. But that land was already inhabited and that food was already being consumed. So the Nazi solution was the "Hunger Plan" which quite casually assumed that food would be diverted from Poland and the Western USSR to Germany and that many millions would be deliberately starved. Tooze argues that this appalling plan was widely circulated, understood and accepted among the German political and military leadership in 1941. Thankfully, it proved difficult to execute and while there was widespread suffering, the East avoided the systematic mass starvation called for in the plan. However, in subsequent years the same desire to remove what were seen as "useless mouths" and free up food supplies was one of the many input factors towards the holocaust. In parallel, Germany manpower shortages led to large drafts of forced labor from occupied countries to German factories. Tooze illustrates both the appalling conditions of the laborers and the folly of a regime that for ideological reasons oppressed and starved the very labor it was trying to exploit.
Overall, I found this book a very enlightening read. Tooze's thorough analysis of the details of exports, imports, and production constraints provides a convincing base for his explanation of how the constraints and limits of the German economy drove high level German economic and military planning.
A PROFOUND AND FAR-REACHING STUDY.......2007-09-17
I certainly agree with other reviewers who give "Wages of Destruction" highest praise. The only wonder is why it took so long to get the story out. We've been reading histories of the war for more than sixty years, and yet I cannot recall reading anything that lays out the economic choices and consequences as well as Adam Tooze has done here. My only criticisms in this regard would be that Tooze tends to look through a lens of economic determinism, as though weight of resources would inevitably result in Germany's defeat, no matter who was in charge. What Tooze does not delineate with any degree of specificity is Hitler's confidence in the risk aversiveness, if not downright cowardice, of the Western democracies. That was certainly the case with France, which went to war profoundly divided, and whose failure of leadership echos to this day. Great Britain under Nevelle Chamberlain was hardly better. As late as May, 1940, members of the Cabinet were still debating whether to try to cut a deal with Hitler. As for the Soviet Union, the idea that Germany could defeat the Red Army in the field and expect to hold onto captured territory was wishful thinking at its worst; even if Moscow had been captured, which Napoleon did in 1812, Hitler had to know that in Stalin he faced a man as ruthless as himself. The idea that he could repeat the German Imperial Army's success against Russia in 1917, and then confront the Western Allies, throws all rational calculation to the wind. The only other comment I would make about Wages of Destruction would be that Tooze tends to summarize the events between the Summer of 1943 and May, 1945, as though that 18 month period simply followed on what had been in the pipeline before.
Profound Analysis of Nazi Germany's Economic Situation.......2007-09-11
Recently, there has been a spate of excellent books arguing that Germany was a much weaker state than it has generally been thought to be, and that the tactical brilliance of its military obscured economic inadequacies and strategic incompetence. Isabel Hull's "Absolute Destruction," Ian Kershaw's "Fatal Decisions," and now Adam Tooze's "Wages of Destruction" all make a similar point in their very different ways. They also suggest something very interesting -- that given the insane premises that Germany should be a hegemonic power and that war and conquest were the means to attain that power, Germany's military decisions in World Wars I and II made sense.
Tooze points out in convincing fashion that not only was Germany an economic basket case compared to the United States (capable of produing perhaps 1,000 warplanes at the same time the United States could produce perhaps 50,000), but that even if it were matched against the British Empire alone, its long-run prospects were little better than 50-50.
Tooze goes on to show that after France fell and Britain would not make a separate peace, Hitler faced an economic and strategic dilemma. The United States was not likely to stay out of the war indefinitely; when it inevitably entered the war on the allied side, Germany would be grossly outnumbered and outproduced.
The only possible answer was Russia, either as an ally or as a colony. As an ally, the Soviet Union was unreliable, opportunistic, and probably treacherous. Moreover, Germany would have to bend a great deal to Stalin's wishes to keep the Soviet Union happy. As a prostrate colony, Russia might just provide the material to resist Britain and the United States. So, Tooze suggests, Hitler was not so irrational when he invaded Russia (provided, of course, one does not ask the question "If Hitler faced such a daunting situation even after France was unexpected defeated, how could he ever have figured on winning the war while France was still in the allied camp"?)
If anything, Tooze suggests, Germany got lucky -- it had no business being as successful as it was by June 1941. Even at that, so many things had to go right for Germany to come out of the war in any decent shape that total victory was an impossibility. Could he successfully invade England? Little or no chance. Could he starve England out? Not with the United States on Engalnd's side. Even if he had conquered Russia where would he be -- Facing the United States across a narrow strait with his army streched from the Bering Sea to the English Channel. This was not a winning hand.
Tooze presents plenty of evidence to show that the Nazis ran a miserable war economy; that it had no idea how to put together a coherent economic or military strategy; that its solutions were ad hoc, duplicative, inefficient, and ultimately monstrous. The famous "German efficiency" takes a terrible hit, at least on the strategic level. In sum, Tooze concludes, absent a complete collapse of allied will, Germany never had a chance. But given the fact that it never had a chance and chose to take one anyway, its seemingly irrational moves made a certain kind of mad sense.
Wages is Scholarly Blut Dull.......2007-07-21
Adam Tooze has made a great contribution to the history of Germany under Nazi party rule, breaking into territory trod by few hisorians. His scholarship is superior. Few have found a way to enliven economic history and Toonze has failed to break that barrier. This along keeps the book from a five star rating.
great book.......2007-07-07
Germany lost the Second World War was because the allies out-produced them. I've known that for a long time -- but until I read The Wages of Destruction I never really understood what that statement meant, and all that it entailed. The Wages of Destruction explains, in gripping, readable detail, how the Nazi war machine worked, how it failed, and how it shaped the strategy and some of the worst crimes of the Third Reich.
So let me add to the chorus of five-star reviews. I consider The Wages of Destruction required reading if you want to understand Nazi Germany, particularly if you have an interest in economics or business. Also, if you have read Albert Speer's Inside the Third Reich, you'll be interested in this book for the counterpoint it provides.
Book Description
The battles in Russia played the decisive part in Hitler's defeat. Gigantic, prolonged, and bloody, they contrasted with the general nature of the fighting on other fronts. The Russians fought on their own in "their" theater of war and with an independent strategy. Stalinist Russia was a country radically different from its liberal democratic allies. Hitler and the German high command, for their part, conceived and carried out the Russian campaign as a singular "war of annihilation." This riveting new book is a penetrating, broad-ranging, yet concise overview of this vast conflict. It investigates the Wehrmacht and the Red Army and the command and production systems that organized and sustained them. It considers a range of further themes concerning this most political of wars. Benefiting from a post-Communist, post-Cold War perspective, the book takes advantage of a wealth of new studies and source material that have become available over the last decade. Readers from history buffs to scholars will find something new in this exciting new book.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent general history of the Nazi-Soviet War.......2007-10-11
I read this book after reading a review of a number of books on the subject that was publiched in Atlantic Monthly. I am not an expert on this subject but I have read several dozen books on the Eastern War, and I found this to be an excellent overall review. Very readable and very thorough within the confines of a single book covering such a vast sequence of events across such a vast front.
Lacking.......2007-02-03
This book could and possibly should have been titled "Zhukov, Stalin, and the Stavka" because that is the overwhelming focus. Evan Mawdsley is a Russian historian, and it definitely shows here. It gives an in depth analysis of RUSSIAN strategy and wartime evolution, but very little of the German side. Look elsewhere if this is what you desire.
This is a CONCISE history. Concise histories are usually rather dry and skeletal. I slogged through the whole thing, but I fell asleep reading it many a night. Compelling reading it is not.
Be forewarned that this is a history of the war from a GRAND STRATEGIC LEVEL. Mawdsley covers army GROUP movements. An army group is just that--a whole number of various tank and infantry armies grouped together. DO NOT EXPECT TO BE DOWN AND DIRTY IN THE TRENCHES HERE. The cold and desperation at Stalingrad, the T-34 versus the Panther tank at Kursk, the Sturmgewehr versus the PPsh-1, Messerschmidt versus Yak, the morale of individual Soviet versus German soldiers as the war dragged on etc. etc. is NOT here. It's all senior generals, marshals, and supreme leaders stuff. You know, the guys with clean buttoned-up uniforms that move little flags around on a table map.
So much is omitted. Incredibly Mawdsley devotes exactly 3 sentences to the appalling behavior of the Red Army once it entered eastern Europe. The systematic wholesale atrocities committed by the Red Army in East Prussia, Pomerania, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary are not mentioned. The three sentences refer to Russian bad behavior only during the final battle around Berlin. Similarly, Nazi Einzattsgruppen activity is also barely mentioned. Why? This savagery made the Eastern front UNIQUE from the Western and Italian fronts and characterized the war between these two reprehensible regimes.
Most unforgivable of all are the woefully inadeqate maps. There are exactly 11 of them. Not nearly enough, and they are poor sparse black-and-white affairs with nothing more than front lines drawn on them. You will constantly need an atlas at your side to comprehend the army movements.
There are a very few photos--none memorable.
Only recommended if you are looking for a short history of Zhukov and Stalin's growth as war leaders, and grand strategic army group movements from the Russian point of view.
Now THIS is military history!.......2006-09-19
Beautifully written, extremely informative, and well-packaged by the publisher, this is another must have for the WWII buff's library. Using the info from the Russian archives which has come out in the past 10-15 years, Professor Mawdsley does a magnificent job of presenting an overview of the War on the Eastern Front. It touches on about every matter you can think of, and has quality footnotes taking you to leading secondary works on almost each subject. A good bibliography, but an annotated one would have been even better. It focuses far more on Russian matters than German, but also has some interesting information on the Nazi side of the hill. Not the only book you should read on the Eastern Front, but a great place to start.
WWII Eastern Front History at Its Very Best!.......2006-08-04
This is a brilliant book; incredibly well researched, organized and written. Having exploited the latest Soviet and German archival material, "Thunder in the East" provides new and important insights into the German-Soviet war on the Eastern Front. And unlike previous Eastern Front histories, which tend to focus on one side or the other, Mawdsley, a professor of Soviet and Russian history, tells the story from both sides. The result is a powerful and balanced narrative, which touches on every aspect of the titanic struggle between Hitler's Third Reich and Stalin's Soviet Russia.
World War II historians have attempted to provide different explanations for the survival of the Red Army in 1941 and 1942, despite horrendous losses, and then its reemergence and resurrgence in 1943, leading to the defeat of the German armed forces in 1945. Mawdsley shows that rather than a single explanation, a number of factors were at work, depending on the period of the war, including the quantity of troops and equipment, the quality of technology, and the industrial capabilities of Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia.
The author doesn't shy away from addressing the Holocaust in the Soviet Union and the deliberate elimination of Jews and Red Army prisoners by the German army working willingly alongside the SS. Accordingly to Mawdsley, some 500,000 Jews were murdered outright by mobile SS killing units and other Nazi police units, assisted by the German Army, in the first sweep of killing in the USSR.
In his conclusion the author discusses the cost of the war to the Soviet Union, noting that some 27 million Soviet citizens were killed, including 10 million Red Army soldiers. The war damaged the USSR more than it damaged Germany and cost the country ten years development. "It is probably also true," writes Mawdsley, "that the Soviet economy never recovered from the war." And he makes it clear that a Wehrmacht victory in Russia would have been far worse for both the Russians and the rest of Europe and the world.
"Thunder in the East" is World War II history at its very best!
A good start.......2006-05-12
If you are new to the Eastern Front this is an excellent new short history of the war. It concentrates a little on the military aspect, on the politics, economics, and of course the social intricacies of the war. The author uses a lot of newly released Soviet secondary sources, many of which I have at home and can vouch for, to present the war in a somewhat new light. There are a few mistakes and some omissions throughout the book but nothing too major. I like the authors conclusions about the purges in 1937-1938, while they were costly for the Red Army there is no reason to think that it crippled the officer corps, although it did create an atmosphere of fear and compliance with Stalin which in the end simply added to the disaster that was 1941. All the battles, offensive and defensive operations, are listed and gone through. Losses are given for the Red Army from Krivosheev's book for every operation, this book has become the standard use for Red Army losses in WWII although there are still some controversies about it. But in the end it's very interesting to see how Soviet losses (KIA, MIA, and POW) went down throughout the war. The author gives a good account of the Warsaw uprising and shows how impossible it was for the Red Army to do anything when it occurred, but something might have been done in late August or mid September. Then again the Poles wanted to take the city and use it as a bargaining chip against the Soviets, so it would have served no purpose in putting the Red Army in that kind of situation with no benefit to Stalin. Overall with the use of these new Russian sources from a variety of authors I have to say this is today the best short history of the war and I would gladly recommend it to anyone who wants an introduction to the Eastern Front.
Book Description
A brilliant analysis and history of the crucial role that German doctors played in Nazi genocide.
Customer Reviews:
"Physician, Heal Thyself" The Nazi Doctor and the Holocaust.......2005-05-24
In this detailed and well-researched account, psychologist Robert J. Lifton chronicles the Holocaust from a unique perspective: the role played by Nazi medical doctors. In doing so he explains the Nazi philosophy that formed the basis for mass murder: the necessity to heal the ills of German society by eliminating all its corrupting influences. Healing was and is the raison d'etre for the medical profession. Doctors were thus compelled to become killers in the application of this all encompassing "cure."
Lifton traces the evolution of the Holocaust beginning with the "euthanasia" projects of the 30's. Anyone incapable of being a productive member of society was consided, "life unworthy of life" and euthanized. Initially this was confined to the mentally challenged and the old/infirmed. Later even severely wounded German soldiers were not spared. Execution technology perfected here formed the basis for the mass executions conducted later.
Lifton interviews many physicians in this work including some former Nazi's and many Jewish doctors forced to work at Auschwitz. Here, the inner conflicts of persons trained to heal but actively involved in killing reached its apex. Reactions varied from the cold, view of inmates as "laboratory rats" and nothing more by Josef Mengele, to the tortured acceptance of the necessity of doing his duty of Eduard Wirths. Coping mechanisms included sending others to do the "dirty work" when possible, excessive use of alcohol, and in some cases, suicide. Still, the work went on, despite any internal contradictions.
This is the first work I have seen that explained the Nazi philosophy and its impact on the Holocaust. Because it was the stated goal of National Socialism to cleanse German society of all its ills, the participation of healers was essential. The Nazi's never wavered in this twisted belief. Would the Holocaust have occurred without the doctor's participation? Undoubtedly, yes! However doe's this excuse their participation? You the reader must decide. A great read. Five stars!!
Harold Y. Grooms
In our own time..........2005-03-14
This book is relevant to our nation and society in the present time. With the Terry Schiavo case in the forefront of the news, one can only reflect on the position of the courts, and the doctors, in Germany in the 1930's. The book carefully shows the slippery slope which can confront a society that fails to protect the least among us. It is not a book about another place and another time. It is a book about us, in our own time. Strongly recommended that one reads this with open eyes and and open heart to the decisions we make today.
Robert W. Smith, MD, MBA
Fascinating.......2005-01-11
This is a fascinating look not only at what the Nazi doctors did during the reign of the Third Reich but also how they perceived what they were doing and the legislative precedents that culminated in the general acceptance of medicalised killing by many German doctors.
The book is easy to read. Whilst it is a factual account, it still flows with the continuity of a novel making it hard to put down.
Informative and fascinating. Well worth a read and makes you realise the importance of global medical ethical debate as its absence in pre-war Germany, most certainly contributed to the precedents that allowed legalised genocide.
Fascinating insight into the darkness of war........2003-12-22
Fascinating looks at the psychological make up of some of the most infamous people who, in absolute hatred of Jews and other so called undesirables, committed unforgivable crimes against humanity during the Second World War. The author gives a good case study of each of these doctors, and attempts to give an explanation as to why they believed their experiments were in the name of medical research. Chilling but real.
Not deep enough.......2003-07-20
This book is based on direct interviews with a number of Nazi Doctors, but rarely quotes from them. It covers a wide range of issues, but delves deeply into few of them.
It purports to be a pyschological insight into why the Nazi doctors did what they did, and how the psychological mechanisms worked that allowed them to operate. Though Lifton is a Professor of Psychiatry and Psychology, I didn't find his explanations particularly insightful. He repeats a few key ideas often, without going into how these mechanisms work. Instead, he fills the book with detail of what they did.
On balance, it added little to my understanding of the subject. The detail of what the Nazi Doctors did is readily available elsewhere.
I was hoping to find first hand accounts, of which very little was included, and psychological insights. Perhaps it would have been more useful if he had covered fewer people and situations in more depth, with more analysis.
He actually spoke to these people, but the book mostly reads as drily as any history book.
Disappointing.
Book Description
The sheer magnitude of the Holocaust has commanded our attention for the past sixty years. The extent of atrocities, however, has overshadowed the calculus Nazis used to justify their deeds.
According to German wartime media, it was German citizens who were targeted for extinction by a vast international conspiracy. Leading the assault was an insidious, belligerent Jewish clique, so crafty and powerful that it managed to manipulate the actions of Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin. Hitler portrayed the Holocaust as a defensive act, a necessary move to destroy the Jews before they destroyed Germany.
Joseph Goebbels, Minister of Propaganda, and Otto Dietrich's Press Office translated this fanatical vision into a coherent cautionary narrative, which the Nazi propaganda machine disseminated into the recesses of everyday life. Calling on impressive archival research, Jeffrey Herf recreates the wall posters that Germans saw while waiting for the streetcar, the radio speeches they heard at home or on the street, the headlines that blared from newsstands. The Jewish Enemy is the first extensive study of how anti-Semitism pervaded and shaped Nazi propaganda during World War II and the Holocaust, and how it pulled together the diverse elements of a delusionary Nazi worldview. Here we find an original and haunting exposition of the ways in which Hitler legitimized war and genocide to his own people, as necessary to destroy an allegedly omnipotent Jewish foe. In an era when both anti-Semitism and conspiracy theories continue to influence world politics, Herf offers a timely reminder of their dangers along with a fresh interpretation of the paranoia underlying the ideology of the Third Reich.
Customer Reviews:
The Jewish Enemy:Nazi Propanda during WWII and the Holocaust........2007-10-11
Although I haven't as of yet read the book(due to being a Finailst at Uni.), it arrived in an immaculate condition, just like it's brand new!
Only problem is cost of having to pay shipping when buying from abroad!If, however you're like me and don't mind paying that little extra as long as you get that book you really want, then this isn't that much of a problem!
Arresting, scholarly and profoundly unsettling .......2007-03-18
There are so many interesting and revealing facts and analyses in this work that it is hard to approach a review without leaving large chunks of information aside. On a personal note I found this one of the most interesting books I have read on the anti-semitism of the period. Moreover, many of the illustrative examples dredged up by Herf still echo sharply today.
The book charts a gradual adaptation of anti-semitism to lubricate the goals of Naziism. Traditional charges of racial impurity and economic shiftiness were reshaped to meet eugenic and planned economy policies. What comes across very strikingly is the sheer amount of anti-semitic propaganda produced by the Nazis. Jews were aligned with Bolshevism, the Allies, International Banking, etc. Typically the enemy was associated directly with any threat to Nazi hegemony.
Herf's very careful annontation of instances was disturbing at times, and as a reader rather than a professional historian of the period, it was hard to set aside one's emotional and ontological revulsion. Very troubling, in the light of Israel's modern travails, is Herf's extended acount of the propagandistic support given by Grand Mufti al-Husseini for the Nazi machine. Herf cites his address at the opening of the Islamic Institute in Berlin in December 1942. The Mufti, consistent with his Nazi hosts' anti-semitism, lays the blame for all evils at the door of Jews. In 1944, Goebbels, having noted the Grand Mufti's "absolutely Nordic appearance", was puzzling over how to the get the "right" propaganda into the Mufti's hands. While the Mufti's intimate collaboration with the Nazis is despicable and shocking it is worthwhile recording that the vast majority of those staffing the extermination programmes were of Christian origin.
After Stalingrad, anti-semitic propaganda ratcheted up a gear - hard to imagine - and Jews were routinely blamed fro the war (even though at this point the Nazis had eliminated half their final total of Jewish victims).
In the end, Herf concurs with other historians that the true extent of knowledge in German society of the Holocasut will probably never be known. It seems that most Germans were indifferent to the fate of Jews, and presumably as the reich fell in on itself that indifference increased. One can't however leave this book without the nagging suspicion that all too often people failed to ask the right questions.
Just superb!!!!.......2006-07-25
Jeffrey Herf's THE JEWISH ENEMY is a masterpiece. It is meticulously researched, beautifully written and solidly argued. Above all, it is a true original in that it tells us something genuinely new about the much-researched world of National Socialism and the Nazi genocide of the Jews. To be sure, age-old anti-Semitism DID play a major role in framing the Nazis' singular crime. But as Herf shows irrefutably, the REAL reason for the Nazis' decision to commit what has come to be known as the Holocaust and/or the Shoah, had less to do with their being part of a Europe-wide anti-Semitism, and everything with their viewing the Jews as their number one enemy that had to be destroyed. This is a great book. Kudos to its author.
Suggestive New Interpretations.......2006-06-05
Herf's materials are powerful and unsettling, even to readers who are well acquainted with the literature on Nazism. He shows, in detail that has not previously been seen, how the Nazi war-time hate propaganda combined verbal attacks against Jews with attacks against the Allies. To these Nazi propagandists, the Jews were the overall enemy, standing behind and stage-managing the Allies.
Herf's interpretation differs in some respects from previous work by others. He holds that the Nazis' anti-Semitic propaganda in wartime was essentially different from what they had done in the pre-war period: this war-time propaganda was, in his view, a deliberate incitement to commit the Holocaust, while previous campaigns had been no more than "traditional" anti-Semitism.
Since the Nazis were never explicit in their propaganda about the mass killing of Jews, Herf's assertions about their intentions in this propaganda cannot be proven. Nevertheless, I find his interpretations highly suggestive, if not conclusive.
Other aspects of Herf's interpretations of the war-time Nazi materials can be checked systematically. For at least fifty years, scholars have practiced and developed methods of content analysis, which, unfortunately, Herf does not use in this work. At least two of his claims should have been subjected to such analysis:
1) The relative prominence of anti-Semitic themes as compared to other themes, in the period in question, is a textbook example of the kind of problem for which content analysis is appropriate.
2) The periodization that Herf proposes -- the new themes that he sees in the wartime period -- can and should be tested by systematic methods.
Despite these shortcomings, the book is highly suggestive. It will no doubt influence the scholarly work of the future.
Book Description
In the 1890s Blacks were tortured in German concentration camps in Southwest Africa (now called Namibia) when Adolph Hitler was only a child. Colonial German doctors conducted unspeakable medical experiments on these emaciated helpless Africans decades before such atrocities were ever visited upon the Jews.
Thousands of Africans were massacred. Regrettably, historians neglected to properly register the slaughter—that is, to lift it from the footnote in history that it had been relegated to—until now.
In an attempt to give the incidents their rightful recognition in the historical context of the Holocaust, Dr. Firpo W. Carr has authored a new book entitled, Germany's Black Holocaust: 1890-1945. In it, he reveals the startling hidden history of Black victims of the Holocaust. The mayhem and carnage date back to the turn of the 20th century, many years before there were ever any other unfortunate victims—Jew or Gentile—of the Holocaust.
Carr conducted three incredibly revealing interviews with: (1) a Black female Holocaust victim; (2) the Black commanding officer who liberated 8,000 Black men from a concentration camp; and (3) an African American medic from the all-Black medical unit that was responsible for retrieving thousands of dead bodies from Dachau. (White medical units were spared the gruesome task.)
"Kay," the Black female Holocaust survivor, laments: "You cannot possibly comprehend the anger I have in me because of being experimented on in Dachau, and being called `nigger girl' and `blacky' while growing up."
Testimonials from the Black commanding officer and African American medic are memorialized, for the first time ever, in Carr's book. The research is based on voluminous documentation, and more.
If you are like most people, you simply have never heard the unbelievable story of Black victims of the Holocaust. You are invited to read about the human spirit's triump over events that occurred during this horrible piece of hidden history.
Customer Reviews:
Creating a New Holocaust Curriculum.......2007-08-06
This book is superb, and is an excellent resource for teachers, in particular. Teachers are required to teach about the holocaust at least twice a year (January and April). The information from this book can be inserted into the curriculum at these times.
There are many ways to do this in interdisciplinary thematic units on the Holocaust. English, History, Social Studies, Black Studies, Black History and Creative Writing teachers can all collaborate to produce based on this information during either Black History month or in January when the Holocaust is typically taught.
School libraries can also purchase this book, so that it is available for students to use for book reports. It can even be used as the basis for teaching students to write and produce plays based on the content of the book. Finally, the books content can be used for exercises in conducting research on various aspects of the topic on the Internet.
Again, it is a great resource!!
Fantasy not truth.......2007-05-15
There are so many false statements and outright lies. This is just a lump of anti-semitic filth. Who ever heard of a German tiger-shark tank? What German tank regiment in 1944 had 135 tanks? German tanks with 10-12 men? There is no documentation, only write what you like. Most sources are anonymous or crack pots who are listed here. German General Rommel was sent to North Africa to take back the WW1 German colonies! What utter nonsense. The author has little knowledge of history. Perhaps the author wants to jump on the law suit band wagon.
Important topic but not well - presented........2006-09-06
This information is extremely important and mostly unknown except to historians. The problem is that the author jumps around across time, continents and topics. If one were to stick to the atrocities committed by colonial Germany in Namibia alone, it would have been enough to fill a book . Unfortunately, the author rather chose to cover this topic as well as: 1) The fate of Black citizens in Nazi Germany, 2)The Black experience in Nazi death camps, 3) The treatment of Black GI's in World War II and 4) The Tuskegee Airmen ! He might have been able to cover all of this if these topics were organized into chapters or even time periods but alas they are not. As such the book is very difficult to follow and digest. One can feel the enthusiasm of the author as he tries to convey important facts but it is much too much to assimilate. It deserves a re-write with more facts, less emotion and a more organized approach. All of these stories must be told but not in one book.
A Major Contribution.......2006-02-07
This book tells about the largely unknown victims of Hitler's holocaust, Blacks. It also explains in clear language a major reason for the holocaust (especially pages 102-1310). In one word, a central factor was Darwinism. As support for his conclusion, Dr. Carr quotes from the Holocaust Memorial Museum report (page 196-213) which makes it clear how important Darwinism was as a causative factor. Eugenics was not then regarded as a pseudoscience, but was fully accepted by most all scientists. The Nazis just applied the then orthodox science to government, and went far beyond the United States. That Blacks were regarded as inferior by Darwinists is obvious (just look at modern pictures of our primitive ancestors on the cover of National Geographic, Time and other popular magazines. They typically look very much like African Americans, rarely like Swedes). Carr does a good job exposing the racism in Darwinism eugenics and the harm it has caused historically. He includes many case histories. Carr's book makes a major contribution to the area but much more needs to be done in this field.
A Long Overdue Revelation.......2003-12-10
With the release of more and more information concerning the African American contribution to past military actions involving the United States, one issue that has been overlooked by many is the issue of the Black involvement in the Holocaust. Not only from a point of view of the liberation of the Nazi death camps by Black U. S. soldiers, but the deaths of Black German citizens in some of those same camps.
A new work released earlier in 2003 might turn out to be a major point of discussion among historians in the New Year and beyond. "Germany's Black Holocaust 1890-1945: The Untold Truth!" by Firpo W. Carr, PhD is going to keep you turning the pages with interest, curiosity, and wonder (2003, STIR Inc. Publishing, 254 pages).
It has long been an established fact that there were other peoples and nationalities and political prisoners who were held in camps such as Dachau. However, there have been two things missing from some of the discussions: 1) How many of these individuals were of African/German-African backgrounds, and; 2) How did the Nazis treat Black U.S. Military personnel as Prisoners Of War.
Carr set out to fulfill a quest, which, in turn, filled a rather large hole in the historical issues involved in the Holocaust: What of the impact and suffering extracted by the Nazi war machine on other peoples--especially peoples of color--who were rounded up and imprisoned by German authorities during World War II? Carr, based upon his research, noted that some 8,000 Blacks were liberated from the death camps--some of the liberating forces were Black US soldiers.
Carr scanned the historical records available to him in various Holocaust museums, visited Germany and other parts of the world, and talked with those who are still alive, including Black soldiers who helped to liberate some of the death camps, who had previously NOT been interviewed, on the record, by US or other World War II participants. What may be of particular interest are Carr's inclusion of some of the WW II Nazi propaganda photos, along with history of the famed 761 Tank Battalion and their involvement in the Battle of the Bulge.
"Germany's Black Holocaust 1890-1945" gives one another portrait of our involvement in World War II and the Holocaust. This work makes it clear that others suffered during those war years, and their stories are finally starting to come to light.
Book Description
This meticulously researched biography creates a complete and balanced picture of Reinhard Heydrich. A leading figure within the Nazi Party, he was responsible more than Himmler for the planning and execution of the Holocaust. Having joined the Nazi Party in 1931, Heydrich rose quickly through the ranks of the SS. By the age of twenty-nine he had become an SS Brigadier General, and his ruthless ambition led many senior Nazis to believe that he was the natural successor to Hitler. It was Heydrich’s initiative to create the Einsatzgruppen, paramilitary units which were established before Operation Barbarossa to murder Jews and political operatives of the Communist party. In 1941 Heydrich was made Protector of Bohemia and Moravia. Supremely confident of his authority within the province, he would often drive alone in an open-top car. British-trained Czech partisans took advantage of this gesture, and in 1942 carried out a daring assassination attempt. Heydrich was mortally wounded in the ambush and died a week later in hospital. The reprisals that followed were brutal: more than 15,000 Czechs were murdered and the town of Lidice was razed to the ground. This book examines Heydrich’s meteoric rise to power, his complex personality, and the aftermath of his death: Hitler’s vengeance and the postwar fortunes of Heydrich’s widow and descendants.
Customer Reviews:
Reinhard Heydrich: One of the Chief Architects of Genocide.......2007-09-19
Mario Dederich traces Heydrich's life from his early years in the Nazi Party, through his views on resettlement of Jews (p. 100) which evolved into extermination of the same, his assassination by Czech partisans, the ghastly German reprisals, and postwar issues. Heydrich is described as a man who was ruthless even by Nazi standards. Certain neo-Nazis have hailed him as "the Naziest of the Nazis." (p. 177)
Was Heydrich of Jewish ancestry? Dederich shows that he was commonly regarded, in Nazi circles, in that light (p. 37, 54-55). The evidence itself is inconclusive. The ancestral list, used by the SS to prove Aryan ancestry at least as far back as 1648, was "very superficial". (p. 54). The Suss (Suess) lineage, according to the ancestral list, was Lutheran (p. 37). But does this eliminate the possibility of conversion from Judaism? Furthermore, one of Heydrich's great-great grandmothers, Johanna Birnbaum, may have been Jewish, and, significantly, her name doesn't appear in the documentation (p. 56).
Heydrich held very strong anti-Christian views (p. 72, 74-75). "As did Heydrich, [Professor Alfred] Six identified the main enemies of the Reich as being the freemasonry, the Jews, and the Churches." (p. 99). In addition, Dederich notes: "...Himmler's allegation that medieval witchcraft trials were actually an attack by Roman Catholicism on German womanhood." (p. 100). Interestingly, some modern feminists have followed in Himmler's footsteps by leveling a similar accusation against the Church and calling it gynocide.
Not only the Einsatzgruppen but also the Wehrmacht had been involved in shootings of large numbers of civilians (p. 111). Dederich puts the subsequent Wannsee conference in perspective: "The Wannsee conference was not the beginning of the genocide; Heydrich had initiated that with the Einsatzgruppen in Poland in 1939 and in the Soviet Union in 1941. The death camps...had been in existence for some time." (p. 134)
As for the postwar war-crimes trials in West Germany, Dederich discusses how Pole-killers and Jew-killers such as Werner Best and Bruno Streckenbach escaped justice through various medical-related technicalities. Furthermore, he adds: "Not a single head of the RSHA Polish Division IVD2 ever came before a court." (p. 183)
Finally, Dederich concludes: "It is clear that of all the direct Heydrich descendants, not one has ever uttered publicly a word of regret about the crimes committed by their ancestor. Never have they furnished a gesture towards the Jews, Poles, or the survivors of Lidice." (p. 189).
Good book but could be better.......2007-09-01
This is without a question a very good book even if lacking in detail. Heydrich was such a complicated man that one would expect a book on his life to be more detailed, include more photos and even more authors speculations on this brutal character. 4 stars.
A Very Good Book but Lacking Photos and Length.......2007-07-14
I am a huge collector of books on the Third Reich and I found this one very interesting Heydrich definately was a complicated personality who did more harm than good for his country well mostly to the average citizen in his country, I often wonder what would have happened had he not been assassinated now thats a scary thought!! But all in all a really great book very detailed although very short and no photos in it thats why Im only giving it 3 stars, I understand that the auther died while writng it thats probably why it came out the way it did, but for those who want an intimate look into Heydrich's life this is the book to read.
THE EYES OF A RUTHLESS, EVIL HENCHMAN.......2007-06-17
While his face was not attractive, though many a woman found him so, it is the eyes that truly reveal Reinhard Heydrich. Piercing and cold, evil itself looks out forever in the extant photographs: Hitler's man with the iron heart, nothing seemed too much for Heydrich. He was the worst of the worst, more ruthless than all the others. And that is quite a statement.
On page 23 a partial explanation for the flaw in Heydrich may have been something biological: "To what extent the encephalitis damaged the mind and soul of the young Heydrich it is impossible to know." Could his evil truly have its roots in this such illness?
It has been some time since a biography of Heydrich has appeared and this book, finished by a friend due the author's death, is a well composed work, and an interesting, revealing study of a totally evil man, but a man of whom neither his wife or blood kin would ever say or write a bad thing. And to top it all off, though he led the group that wanted to kill all Jews, the one thing always troubling him, keeping him humbled before both Himmler and Hitler, was Hydrich's deep-seated fear that he himself had Jewish blood.
While I have Charles Whiting's study of Heydrich on my library shelf, I find this an up-to-date study and a worthy one. Even The Military Book Club chose it as selection. If you have stomach to face evil head on, then this WWII study will no doubt interest you.
Semper Fi.
Wow!.......2007-04-10
If you ever want to appreciate what evil is truly about, please read this book. We do not need to conjure up images of a devil with human beings like Heydrich roaming the face of the earth. Unfortunately, they still do occupy the space we all share. The man was truly ruthless and cold blooded. Read it and you will come away with a better understanding of the suffering and death that was needlessly inflicted on mankind by this horrible man.
Amazon.com
Was IBM, "The Solutions Company," partly responsible for the Final Solution? That's the question raised by Edwin Black's IBM and the Holocaust, the most controversial book on the subject since Daniel Jonah Goldhagen's Hitler's Willing Executioners. Black, a son of Holocaust survivors, is less tendentiously simplistic than Goldhagen, but his thesis is no less provocative: he argues that IBM founder Thomas Watson deserved the Merit Cross (Germany's second-highest honor) awarded him by Hitler, his second-biggest customer on earth. "IBM, primarily through its German subsidiary, made Hitler's program of Jewish destruction a technologic mission the company pursued with chilling success," writes Black. "IBM had almost single-handedly brought modern warfare into the information age [and] virtually put the 'blitz' in the krieg."
The crucial technology was a precursor to the computer, the IBM Hollerith punch card machine, which Black glimpsed on exhibit at the U.S. Holocaust Museum, inspiring his five-year, top-secret book project. The Hollerith was used to tabulate and alphabetize census data. Black says the Hollerith and its punch card data ("hole 3 signified homosexual ... hole 8 designated a Jew") was indispensable in rounding up prisoners, keeping the trains fully packed and on time, tallying the deaths, and organizing the entire war effort. Hitler's regime was fantastically, suicidally chaotic; could IBM have been the cause of its sole competence: mass-murdering civilians? Better scholars than I must sift through and appraise Black's mountainous evidence, but clearly the assessment is overdue.
The moral argument turns on one question: How much did IBM New York know about IBM Germany's work, and when? Black documents a scary game of brinksmanship orchestrated by IBM chief Watson, who walked a fine line between enraging U.S. officials and infuriating Hitler. He shamefully delayed returning the Nazi medal until forced to--and when he did return it, the Nazis almost kicked IBM and its crucial machines out of Germany. (Hitler was prone to self-defeating decisions, as demonstrated in How Hitler Could Have Won World War II.)
Black has created a must-read work of history. But it's also a fascinating business book examining the colliding influences of personality, morality, and cold strategic calculation. --Tim Appelo
Book Description
IBM and the Holocaust is the stunning story of IBM's strategic alliance with Nazi Germany -- beginning in 1933 in the first weeks that Hitler came to power and continuing well into World War II. As the Third Reich embarked upon its plan of conquest and genocide, IBM and its subsidiaries helped create enabling technologies, step-by-step, from the identification and cataloging programs of the 1930s to the selections of the 1940s.
Only after Jews were identified -- a massive and complex task that Hitler wanted done immediately -- could they be targeted for efficient asset confiscation, ghettoization, deportation, enslaved labor, and, ultimately, annihilation. It was a cross-tabulation and organizational challenge so monumental, it called for a computer. Of course, in the 1930s no computer existed.
But IBM's Hollerith punch card technology did exist. Aided by the company's custom-designed and constantly updated Hollerith systems, Hitler was able to automate his persecution of the Jews. Historians have always been amazed at the speed and accuracy with which the Nazis were able to identify and locate European Jewry. Until now, the pieces of this puzzle have never been fully assembled. The fact is, IBM technology was used to organize nearly everything in Germany and then Nazi Europe, from the identification of the Jews in censuses, registrations, and ancestral tracing programs to the running of railroads and organizing of concentration camp slave labor.
IBM and its German subsidiary custom-designed complex solutions, one by one, anticipating the Reich's needs. They did not merely sell the machines and walk away. Instead, IBM leased these machines for high fees and became the sole source of the billions of punch cards Hitler needed.
IBM and the Holocaust takes you through the carefully crafted corporate collusion with the Third Reich, as well as the structured deniability of oral agreements, undated letters, and the Geneva intermediaries -- all undertaken as the newspapers blazed with accounts of persecution and destruction.
Just as compelling is the human drama of one of our century's greatest minds, IBM founder Thomas Watson, who cooperated with the Nazis for the sake of profit.
Only with IBM's technologic assistance was Hitler able to achieve the staggering numbers of the Holocaust. Edwin Black has now uncovered one of the last great mysteries of Germany's war against the Jews -- how did Hitler get the names?
Download Description
'IBM and the Holocaust is the stunning story of IBM's strategic alliance with Nazi Germany - beginning in 1933 in the first weeks that Hitler came to power and continuing well into World War II. As the Third Reich embarked upon its plan of conquest and genocide, IBM and it's subsidiaries helped create enabling technologies, step-by-step, from the identification and cataloging programs of the 1930s to the selections of the 1940s. IBM and the Holocaust takes you through the carefully crafted corporate collusion with the Third Reich, as well as the structured deniability of oral ageements, undated letters, and the Geneva intermediaries - all undertaken as the newspapers blazed with accounts of persecution and destruction. Just as compelling is the human drama of one of our century's greatest minds, IBM founder Thomas Watson, who cooperated with the Nazis for the sake of profit. Only with IBM's technologic assistance was Hitler able to achieve the staggering numbers of the Holocaust. Edwin Black has now uncovered one of the last great mysteries of Germany's war against the Jews - How did Hitler get the names?
Customer Reviews:
IBM and the Holocaust.......2006-12-08
I did not want to read this book.
My grandfather worked for International Time Recording (ITR) in Endicott, NY before IBM was formed and Mr. Watson came on board. My father's first job, at the age of seventeen, was caretaker of the Watson Homestead. My family has had a hand in virtually every product that issued from the IBM manufacturing effort since its inception in 1924. I have deep affection for the company my family labored to build.
I approached "IBM and the Holocaust" with a high degree of skepticism. The book sat on my nightstand for two months before I opened it. Finally picked it up for the sake of completing my 14-book IBM historical reading cycle.
This book is astounding. It is impeccably researched, artfully written, highly detailed, painstakingly documented, remarkably objective and thoroughly engaging.
"IBM and the Holocaust" has finally exposed the undeniable truth: IBM became the world's most powerful corporation largely because it assisted in identifying, cataloging and exterminating millions of innocent people for Hitler. The evil that lurks in IBM history was not exposed previously only because IBM management was smart enough and powerful enough to "hide its tracks" in Nuremburg. No investigator has ever dug deeper into IBM history than Edwin Black.
A close reading of the book makes it absolutely clear that Mr. Watson (IBM CEO) knew the exact purpose, goal and expected outcome of the IBM solution in Europe. The book details the fact that unlike previous IBM engagements for the Third Reich that were completed by Dehomag (IBM's German subsidiary), the engagement in Romania (1941) was conducted directly under the management of IBM New York. That engagement resulted in the swift identification, transportation and extermination of hundreds of thousands of innocent Jews. All in the name of "IBM."
As a result of reading "IBM and the Holocaust", I no longer view Mr. Watson as the glamorous benevolent industrial icon depicted in hollywoood newsreels. Though the affectionate "shop talk" tossed through the air when I was young still captures my imagination, Mr. Watson is no longer the focus of my unqualified admiration.
Watson, for me, now stands beside Carnegie, Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, Mellon, Jeffrey Skilling, Kenneth Lay and all the other American Industrialists throughout history who had many fine qualities yet are outrageously flawed--so good yet so very, very bad.
This book is remarkable. Have since read "Internal Combustion", Banking on Baghdad" and "War Against the Weak."
Edwin Black is "the bomb."
If you have an interest in history, corporations, corruption, good, bad, evil or fine nonfiction; you will appreciate the works of Edwin Black.
NancyRae Kjelgaard
Tallahassee, FL
December 7, 2006
a tale of two maniacs.......2006-08-03
Once upon a time in America there was a tabulating company executive who had almost done time for illegal business practices. This executive believed that the only way that he could stay in business was by selling the best tabulating machines on the market, and mercilessly crushing his competitors. Unfortunately for humanity, this maniac was doing business in a country run by another maniac, who had come to power by fomenting ethnic hatred. Even as things went down the drain, and the persecution of the Jews and other minorities reached loathsome heights, the American business executive didn't want to terminate his activities in Germany, and was supportive enough of the Nazis to accept the highest medal the Nazis could give him.
Even worse, by the time the war was in full swing, and the Nazis began the Holocaust the maniac of which I write, Tom Watson of IBM, saw no need to terminate IBM's business relationships with the Nazi governments, and, provided irreplaceable services in organizing the Holocaust. In France, where a courageous IBM employee refused to cooperate, the Nazis were "only" able to murder 25% of the Jews. Where IBM cooperated, as in the Netherlands, rates of 75% resulted. Life isn't fair; the brave Frenchman who refused to cooperate died at Dachau, the company that gladly cooperated wasn't punished. The horror, the horror.
Edwin Black has done a superb job of documenting (most of) this horror story in indisputable detail. Nevertheless I suspect that he doesn't tell the entire story, particularly when he claims that nobody guessed what was going on. Anyone who understands just how indispensable IBM's punch card machines were to the Allies during the war, "our ability to organize wouldn't have been remotely near what it was without them" to paraphrase one mathematician involved, must have wondered how the Germans were able to coordinate the logistics of their Blitzkrieg. Anyone in the punch card industry would have known of IBM's presence in Germany.
All in all this is a great book illustrating the banality of evil.
This book is chilling, and is a "must read".......2006-04-21
Reading this book, and the knowledge that IBM had during WWII and the genocide of millins of humans puts a face on cooprorate greed and hate unjlike any of the comparisions given to Halliburton today. IBM aided Hitler in his termination of the Jews, and others, and it has never, to my knowledge owned up to this, nor have they done any actions to make changes in the way companies help with genocide. Great book, great writer.
An Extraordinary Work.......2006-03-18
As proud as I am to be an American, this thoroughly documented, utterly revealing book, has for the first time made me look at the extents to which U.S. corporate greed and the amorality of one man, Thomas J. Watson, chairman of IBM, will go to satisfy there lust for money and power.
It is hard to believe that it took from the early 30's to 2001 before anyone, anywhere, put it all together. How could an American icon of business turn out to be a war criminal and go on to preside over, and build on to, a company which most of us used to consider as a proud example of American business ingenuity and integrity.
A shocking, sickening, and gut wrenching account of the most vile group of humans ever assembled, the Germans of the Third Reich, and how they could not possibly have achieved the sheer numbers of murders during the holocaust, had it not been for day to day involvement, and complete knowledge, of IBM and Thomas J. Watson.
I highly recommend this book.
Painful but needs to be exposed.......2005-08-14
I recently finished reading your extremely interesting book "IBM and the Holocaust" and want to commend you for a thorough investigation of the subject. Several years ago I too had been to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and seen the exhibit of the Dehomag Hollerith machine and wondered what was the entire story. Now I know, and I no longer view IBM the same way as I once did. Thanks for a well researched and interesting, if depressing, examination of when corporate loyalty and profits are placed above human suffering and survival.
Book Description
In 1945, a mysterious Nazi secret weapons project code-named The Bell left its underground bunker in lower Silesia, with its project documentation, and the 4-star SS general Hans Kammler. Taken aboard a massive six engine Junkers 390 ultra-long range aircraft, The Bell, Kammler, and all project records disappeared completely, along with the gigantic Junkers 390 carrying them. It has been speculated that it flew to Argentina. As a prelude to this disappearing act, the SS murdered most of the scientists and technicians involved with the project, a secret weapon that, according to one German Nobel prize-winning physicist, was given a classification of decisive for the war -- the highest security classification. Offered here is a range of exotic technologies the Nazis researched, and challenges to the conventional views of the end of World War Two, the Roswell incident, and the beginning of MAJIC-12, the government's alleged secret team of UFO investigators.
Customer Reviews:
The Nazis are still here??!!.......2007-09-02
It starts with a rambling history of the Nazi experiments with levitation, atomic power, and zero point energy. I say rambling, because in contrast to the book that got me started on this subject was "The Hunt for Zero Point" by Nick Cook, which is a very grounded (no pun intended) and less fringy take on the subject. Very well written, too.
Now, back to the book by Farrell:
Okay, the Nazi scientists emigrated to the US to work on our space program. Okay, I buy that. He goes into a lot of speculation about stealth technology (again, see Cooks book for a better take) and the physics of levitation generated by Mercury spinning really really fast, which was mentioned in some ancient Sanskrit text... THEN, Farrell drops some hokey documents on our lap and says that the Nazis helped orchestrate the JFK assassination and, by the way, we may already have a base on the Moon and Mars.
Huh? You have to read it to follow the chain of information. It IS compelling, but it just makes the author sound like a maniac, who, in his acknowledgements, thanks his parents for letting him set up camp in their basement to write this book. Obviously a book meant for the subculture of people who are convinced the Chupacabra is the pet dog of the Grey aliens, and he got lost on his way to Bigfoot's house.
Yeah. He also acknowledges David Hatcher Childress, who... well, just do a search for the books he is attached to to see where HE is coming from. Fringe-o-philes...
Interesting pile of ideas in here to fuel some comic book writer somewhere. If taken for what it is, it reads like a weird espionage alternate history sci-fi. For that point along, I give it three stars.
good book.......2007-08-23
If you are interested in weird ideas about world war II, this book is definitely worth the read.
Very little in this book seems to be supported by hard evidence, and yet the information is useful.
This book is NOT just a list of usupported claims like many books about the weird side of the Nazis are.
Full course dinner plus dessert.......2007-07-13
This book is one big meal of a read. I read it a few years back and it remains one of my favorite in the field of alternative technologies and history. Not only is it well written (I enjoy Farrell's writing...see Giza Deathstar series) but it keeps the mind buzzing. If you have a feeling there is more to history than what you got in high school this is a great place to start an investigation. I would feel confident in offering an expanded review once I reread the title to refresh my memory so for now, trust me, this is a great book. Not for summer reading unless this is what you usually read. Not for the light hearted.
Amazing Connections.......2007-02-26
Where the author of this book has had to take some venturous assumptions on, he uses a lot of very well documented 'finds' to substantiate them - amazing finds that will astound those unfamiliar with how far really the Reich was able to go before the war's end in 1945.
The logical conclusions Joseph Farrell comes to, and the amazing substantiated technology that a secret few in the brotherhood were privy to gives you a wide open door for any UFO researcher, armchair or otherwise to be better equiped in debunking possible alien myths, and/or truths we are living in these very days.
Be spellbound, entertained and gripped by this amazing book. Where it has a ton on what was going on 'back then'(and therefore fills in a lot of blanks our history books left us), you will find it relates to everything going on today, right now, right before your very eyes!
Joseph Farrell shares his expertise in the science world giving the reader a huge leg up on how these events relate to modern science/phenomena; the findings in this work clearly interleaves well with other researchers who have written about the 'spiritual side' of our political world and their unique attachments to the 'other side'.
An excellent read and I heartily recommend it - some of it is 'open minded', and after you see what he is writing about, you can understand how it all fits! The rest is pure 'connect the fact-dots!' and you definately get the same picture...
Revelations of a global conspiracy - truth or untruth?.......2007-01-09
Joseph P. Farrell's The SS Brotherhood of the Bell continues the author's work - brought out in the so-called Giza trilogy and the "Reich of the Black Sun" - advocating that the general public has been deceived by its leaders for the better part of the 20th Century, and that the deception has been exacerbated in the new century. Mr. Farrell's contention is that there is an alternative doctrine of physics that - if studied and understood by experts and laymen - provides a general set of explanations for a variety of "mysteries" in our world such as UFOs. At the risk of grossly mis-stating the author's explanation, it seems to me that this "ether physics" is based broadly on the notion that our very environment is alive with energy rather than objects within the environment being the source of energy. The most notable result of this theory is that an object would be able to move through the environment by creating shifts in the ether. Call it whatever you wish, but this caused me to simplify the theory down to magnetic power...
Central to his premise is also the need to accept that - if ether physics are valid - then there has been a systematic and prolonged effort by those in power to hide this information from us. And, further accepting the credo that "knowledge is power" as the justification for such actions, one is directed by the author towards the conclusion that a worldwide entity larger than any single government is manipulating our lives.
Farrell contends that while ether physics is not a new theory. In fact, in his earlier books on the pyramids at Giza being sources of ether-physics-related power, this science is virtually antediluvian. It was, however, Nazi Germany and its links to the occult that caused resurgence in experimentation into ether physics in terms of its military potential. While discussing various technologies - as he did in his earlier book Reich of the Black Sun - the center-piece of this book is an alleged experiment that is more-or-less eponymous with the title of this book.
The bare details are this: the Germans were experimenting with high speed magnetic rotation of various elements. The results of these experiments are mysterious, deadly and, in some cases, contradictory, depending upon references. Core to this part of the story is published material from a Polish research named Igor Witkowski. He claims to have accessed documents that were held in the former German Democratic Republic but are now being accessed with the collapse of Communism. It is Witkowski's work - also cited heavily in Nick Cook's The Hunt for Zero Point - that is the basis for the bell-related information in Farrell's book.
All concerned conclude their stories with the scientific equipment and records being taken by SS Obergruppenfuehrer Hans Kammler, a real person who had virtual total control of the German secret programs in the 1944/1945 timeframe. But, with Witkowski and Cook are somewhat vague about what happened with the end of World War two, Farrell is adamant in his belief that Kammler and other former regime members were able to cut deals with all the allied powers and, in doing so, were able to establish themselves as an extra-national entity that operates to this day. This entity has been able to maintain itself by nefarious actions that, Farrell implies, may have included the assassination of John F. Kennedy!
As part of this startling allegation, Farrell continues on to presents his view that the entity that is controlling and manipulating the post-modern world is dominated by a "next-generation" Nazis who have taken over the older more established behind the scenes New World order groups such as the Illuminati, the Council and Foreign Relations and Skull and Bones. Thus, the author states that Bush, pere and fils, along with John Kerry are either willing accomplices or subjugated dupes.
What is true and what is not true in this book is a matter of personal choice. While one can say, "You cannot make this stuff up!" it is also clear that one could. In light of this, The SS Brotherhood of the Bell falls into the same literary/historical niche as such events as The Philadelphia Experiment and Roswell, where it is certain something happened but the details and the actual accuracy of those details is extremely unclear.
As I implied, it is up to each and every reader of this book to make his/her rational decision about whether or not to believe all or some of what is contained in this book.
Average customer rating:
- Get it From the Horse's Mouth
- fascinating memoire by one of Hitler's sycophants turned adversary
- Best Nazi CYA Autobiography.
- "My sanitized memories"
- a little dry
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Inside the Third Reich
Albert Speer
Manufacturer: Simon & Schuster
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
 General
| Biographies & Memoirs
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Germany
| Europe
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| Books
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