Tag: Adolf Hitler

Book Reviews

Book Review: The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich

The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich

Third ReichI first read this history of the Third Reich many years ago when I was a high school student. It was a fascinating book back then. I decided to read it again just a little while ago. It is an imposing book with 1280 pages. Since I have aged a bit since I read it last and my eyes are not what they used to be, I bought the book on Audible.com and listened to it instead. It is still imposing … 57+ hours of reading time.  It took several long distance trips to complete it.

History Unfolding

This book is packed with documented history,  William Lawrence Shirer was an American journalist and war correspondent who was present in Germany when the things he is writing about were actually taking place. He heard many of the speeches, read the newspaper articles, was present at press conferences and historic meetings, and talked to Nazi government officials.

One of the best things about this book is that it has a riveting narrative and does not simply present historical details to the reader. Shirer weaves them into an engaging narrative that really makes it hard to put the book down. The reader actually reads the notes from staff meetings, journal entries, battle orders signed by Adolf Hitler, and more. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich is a history of Nazi Germany that has been read by many and cited in scholarly works for more than 50 years,

Ignore History … And You’re Doomed to Repeat It.

Why did I reread this book? We are at a time in our country’s history where skin heads and white supremacists are battling with black clad. masked Antifa members. It bears an eerie resemblance to the National Socialists battling the Communists in pre-WW II Germany. We even have some people fanning the flames of racial discord and class warfare. American and its people are better than this. Reminding ourselves of what has occurred in the past can help us prevent it in the future.

Book Reviews

Book Review: The Last Battle by Stephen Harding

The war is over …

The Last Battle

It is May, 1945. Adolf Hitler lies dead and burned  in his bunker. The Third Reich is now little more than a smoking pile of rubble. American soldiers think about going home, now that the war is essentially over. Formal surrender is just days away.  Then something unbelievable happens. The  Last Battle is still yet to be fought.

The last battle begins …

According to John C. Lee, Jr, “Well, it was just the damnedest thing!”

Captain John C Lee, Jr. is in command of a small group of American soldiers, disheartened Wehrmacht soldiers and one ex SS officer. A startling  alliance forms to protect a group of VIP French prisoners from being executed at the end of WWII.

The stage is set …

German forces invade France in May of 1940.  Hitler’s troops round-up many French government officials and other VIPs, including   Wimbledon champion. Initially, these prisoners spend time in places like Dachau, Buchenwald and Sachsenhausen. Hitler decides to have some hostages on hand to exchange if things go bad.

As a result, this group of illustrious prisoners find themselves interred at Schloss Itter, a castle in northern Austria. The living conditions at Schloss Itter are much better than at the concentration camps.  However, the French prisoners were not out of the woods.  The commandant of the castle is a brutal, murderous thug who, at one time, was in charge of prisoner discipline at Dachau.

The German army is in compete disarray after Hitler’s death. Deserters are very common. A fanatical unit of SS troops receives orders to execute the French VIP’s before they can be rescued. The SS set out to carry out their last orders.

An unbelievable tale …

The Last Battle tells the unbelievable story of this unlikeliest battle of WW II.  This small group of American tankers, led by Captain Lee, who with the help of German soldiers, fight off these fanatical SS troops and protect the stronghold’s VIP prisoners. This is a tale of unlikely allies, real bravery and desperate combat between soldiers who just want to go home alive and fanatical Nazi killers.

While this is a great story., it is not a bang, bang, shoot-em-up!  It is a history and well-documented.  The story does start a little slow because of the great attention to detail. Beginning chapters contain biographies of the French prisoners and there is a great deal of historical background.  The battle comes at the end.

I did thoroughly enjoy the read and if you are a historian, you should enjoy it as well.  If you need not stop action … this might not be a book for you.  It is a fascinating and excellent story. I give it 4 Stars!

Political

American Conservative are Facists?

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I am forever amused by the claim by progressive democrats and other left-wingers that American conservatives are somehow the Nazis (or Fascists) of modern America.  While it makes good campaign rhetoric or a bumper sticker slogan, the facts really do not support that claim at all.  In fact, the facts support just the opposite. The truth is that Communism and Fascism  are really close cousins. Despite the progressive’s propaganda, both communism and fascism are statist (large, intrusive, centralized) forms of government where the people serve the government.  American conservatives believe in limited government based on the consent of the people and that the government should serve the people (See the U.S. Constitution).  That is why they tend to support and defend  the U.S. Constitution.  Obama is an authoritarian ideologue who believes in an all powerful statist government.  It does not matter whether you call him a communist, socialist, fascist or progressive.  In the final analysis, it all mounts to the same thing.

Both Communism and Fascism find much of their ideology in the works of Hegel.  Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was a German philosopher of the late Enlightment period and lived from 1770 to 1831.  Hegel’s philosophy was very influential to both Karl Marx and Adolf Hitler.  Marx would describe himself as a “Left Hegelian.” This meant that he adopted certain portions of Hegel’s views, such as Hegel’s views on alienated labor, the ideal state, and the “hero” of history, who Marx thought of as an engineer that could design society much like a master builder with a blueprint (Remind you of anyone?).

Hegel, along with Kant, Nietzsche and Wagner, also had great influence on Adolf Hitler vision for Germany. The “Right Hegelians” were more influenced by the necessity of “duty.  Hitler took from Hegel the notions that the state has supreme power over the individual and that historic progress demands conflict.  Hitler believed that Hegel’s “force within history” applied to the German people and he justified his invasion of Europe by using Hegel’s theory of ‘coming into being.

The only real-world difference between socialism, progressivism, communism and fascism is that in communism the state owns everything, while in socialism, progressivism and fascism, the individual can indeed own private property … the state just tells them what to do with it!