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Title: Backing Hitler: Consent and Coercion in Nazi Germany by Robert Gellately ISBN: 0-19-280291-7 Publisher: Oxford Press Pub. Date: May, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.25 (8 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: How The Germans Accepted Nazism And Hitler
Comment: Robert Gellately's "Backing Hitler" may be the most thought provoking, extensive study as to how and why the German people ultimately embraced both Nazism and Adolf Hitler during the course of the Great Depression and World War II. Gellately makes the startling claim that most Germans were aware of Nazi atrocities - though not necessarily the worst - and yet found them tolerable as a means to combat crime. Indeed, he notes how Germans embraced Nazism as a succesful antidote to the financial and cultural corruption they'd seen in the 1920's and early 1930's during the Weimar Republic. With the notable exception of the Holocaust, Nazi goverment officials and agencies such as the Gestapo and the SS did not hide the existence of concentration camps and torture from the general public, but instead, allowed them to be published both in Nazi popular journals and daily newspapers (And the Holocaust itself was not hidden, except for its most virulent, deadly phases, in which Jews were dealt with via "special handling", the Nazi euphemism for genocide.). Only towards the end, during the final months and weeks of the war, did the German public see the most brutal aspects of the Nazi regime. Yet surprisingly, many Germans continued to support the regime until the very end. Gellately's premise may seem unoriginal in light of Daniel Goldhagen's popular book indicting the entire German nation for the Holocaust, yet unlike Goldhagen, Gellately offers substantially more persuasive evidence to demonstrate how a social consensus was reached within German society in support of the Nazi regime. Gellately's book may be the seminal work looking at how the Nazis successfully used the media in disseminating their philosophy to Germany.
Rating: 5
Summary: Interesting and Thought Provoking!
Comment: In this excellent book, Gellately (Holocaust studies, Clark Univ.) builds on his earlier The Gestapo and German Society (CH, Oct'91) to examine the extent of popular support for the Nazi regime. He focuses not only on the "ordinary German's" cooperation with the Gestapo, but also on their relationship to the criminal police (kriminalpolizei) and concentration camps. Gellately puts to rest the myth that most Germans were cowed, pliable objects of Nazi propaganda and oppressive policy. Through extensive use of Gestapo, police, and court records, as well as the Nazi press, he shows how many Germans came to actively support, or at a minimum, tolerate, the regime. If some Germans were ready to denounce fellow citizens as well as foreigners for racial, political, and other "crimes" out of ideological conviction, far more acted for opportunistic, personal reasons. Thus, popular assistance benefited the terror regime, while many citizens, in turn, tried to use the system for their own narrow aims. Although the text is occasionally repetitious, Gellately writes well, handles the historiography deftly, and provides detailed notes and a useful bibliographical essay. The book deserves wide circulation. Upper-division undergraduates and above.
Rating: 4
Summary: Interesting and Thought Provoking
Comment: Backing Hitler: Consent and Coercion in Nazi Germany by Robert Gellately is a interesting and thought provoking study of what the German people knew and when they know it. Gellately does a fine job delving through the historical achieves, especially old newspapers, to give the reader an insight into what information was available to the German public.
What is fascinating about the book is the insight which the author only touches on concerning the need of the Nazi Government to form firm a basis of popular support and their decision to take drastic steps to insure that the support did not falter. While the Nazi could act with ruthlessness maybe only equaled by Stalin in dealing with foreigners or subhumans, when it came to its reflation with its Aryan brethren, the Nazis were sure to only go as far as they believed that their policies would be accepted. While this limitation may have ceased with the end of the war, it does not mitigate against the fact that the German public by backing the main polices of Nazism facilitated the regimes evils deeds.
The fact that the Nazi publicized the formation of the concentration camps and the marginalization of the Jews and Gypsies speaks volumes about the anticipated public reaction. Gellately points out that most Germans saw these steps as part of the larger Nazi law and order campaign as well as moving Germany toward a more wholesome future. What is terrifying about the book is not only that the German public bought in to the Nazi propaganda, but the chance that if they had not that millions upon millions of people might have lived through the war.
The down side of the book is that at times it is repetitions and it could have used a good editing. The subject matter is dense, but that may not have been able ti be avoided. This is an important book, and even with the above limitations it is a worthwhile read.
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Title: Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland by Christopher R. Browning ISBN: 0060995068 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 17 March, 1993 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Hitler's Willing Executioners : Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen ISBN: 0679772685 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 28 January, 1997 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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Title: Interrogations: The Nazi Elite in Allied Hands, 1945 by Richard Overy ISBN: 0142001589 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: October, 2002 List Price(USD): $17.00 |
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Title: What Difference Does a Husband Make? Women and Marital Status in Nazi and Postwar Germany (Studies on the History of Society and Culture) by Elizabeth D. Heineman ISBN: 0520239075 Publisher: University of California Press Pub. Date: 03 February, 2003 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: Hitler's Justice: The Courts of the Third Reich by Ingo Muller, Deborah Lucas Schneider, Detlev Vagts ISBN: 067440419X Publisher: Harvard Univ Pr Pub. Date: February, 1992 List Price(USD): $27.95 |
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