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Title: Seduced by Hitler: The Choices of a Nation and the Ethics of Survival by Adam Lebor, Roger Boyes ISBN: 1-57071-845-8 Publisher: Sourcebooks Trade Pub. Date: February, 2004 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.95

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Average Customer Rating: 3 (2 reviews)

Rating: 2
Summary: Not worth the time
Comment: To say that this book is a valuable work of historical scholarship on the Third Reich would be a fairly grandiose lie.

Presumably Seduced by Hitler is supposed to deal with the unethical compromises that the Germans made which allowed for the rise of Hitler and his evil regime; and since Germans did so willingly, they were therefore complicit in all that the Hitler regime perpetrated.

There is no denying the fact that many Germans, to one degree or another, made choices that unethical to survive; and there were certainly a large number who embraced the Nazi regime and its ideology--such people exist in every society, whether Monarchies, Stalinist or Democratic.

However, one derives from this book, that it is yet another one of these works that presumes that the Germans, and what the Germans did, is different and unique. But anyone with any knowledge of history knows that this is malarky. The only thing different and unique about what the Nazis orchastrated was the manner in which it was carried out. And that has certainly been covered by vast amount of legitimate scholarly literature.

At some points the hack-journalistic nature of this book swerves into the absurd. At one point, the authors claim that "even the ecological principles espoused by the present-day environmentalist parties were first put forth by the constructors of the autobahn." Oh really!? Try telling that to any member of the German Green Party (Die Gruenen/Bundnis 90)! In fact, the Greens were very conscious of the affinity that the "Blut und Boden" relicts of the Third Reich Era (called Browns) would have for them, and made every attempt to exclude them. The Greens are a product of the post-1968 era in which the Nazi past of the previous generation was finally questioned and criticized. To suggest that they were somehow hold-overs from the Nazi era is just plain stupid.

There is a wealth of scholarly work on the Third Reich available; my suggestion would be to refer to those works, and avoid books like Seduced by Hitler.

Rating: 4
Summary: Seduced by Hitler thought-provoking and engaging
Comment: Boyes and LeBor have very skillfully taken up the debate over the responsibility of everyday Germans (and others under the Third Reich)in the Holocaust.

Although the book strays from its study of Germany--spending much of its energy on France, Hungary and, indeed, on the ethical choices Jews were also forced to make--it is a powerful account.

In the introduction the authors make a point lost in many studies of the Third Reich: that tyranny relies as much on concensus as terror. They go on to document with depressing detail how everyday Germans under Hitler were not simply cowed into accepting and watching the Reich's crimes, but had far great choices available to them in how they might resist or collaborate. Sadly, many collaborated zealously with little persuasion necessary, and frequently simply for personal profit.

This phenomenon, of course, is not unique to Nazi Germany, and it may be this book's highest achievement that it prods the reader to ask the question: "What would I have done?"

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