Reviews

• part3のperspectivesだけ読めばいいのかも。

  もうこの種の作品は読むまいと誓っていたのですが、controversialという評と著者の過去の作品 Salonica, City of Ghosts: Christians, Muslims and Jews が面白かったので読んでみました。ドイツの植民政策への若干の言及を除くとたいした新奇さもなく、ナチズムの東方での残虐行為への話は進みます。ここで明らかにされるのはナチの人種をベースとした政策のはらむ本質的な矛盾です。もはやドイツからこぼれ出るドイツ人の人口圧力などないのです。その基本的な構図の中で、東方へドイツ民族の生存圏をも求めていくナチの政策の本質的な矛盾がこれでもかと描写されていきます。挙句の果てには占領地域からの外国人をドイツ本国へ労働者として流入させなければ立ち行かないドイツの戦争政策のはちゃめさです。そこに示唆されるのは現在のユーロ圏と重なる姿でもあります。 そこにあったのは、存在したかも疑わしい、牧歌的なドイツの中世的な理想郷へのイメージ以外何もないのです。ヒトラーの価値観は１９世紀の拘束を打ち破ることはなかったのです。広域の異民族の領域を占領しながらも、まともな対共産主義の政策さえ打ち出せないナチズムの姿は、日本の大東亜共栄圏構想と大東亜会議の開催がグランドデザインに見えるほどのお粗末さです。 いくつもの興味深い論点が呈示されますが、本書の性格並びにスペースの都合でしょうか、どの論点もあまり深くつめられることはありません。controversialな部分は最後の章に集約されています。著者はナチの民族政策が英仏の植民地政策とどの程度違っていたのだろうかというタブーともいうべき疑問を提示します。英仏の植民地政策の欺瞞を露呈させたのが、ナチの政策の意図しない効果だったとまで言い切るほどです。そしてナチの民族政策はその底流においてシオニズムそしてイスラエル建国と共通する部分があることを指摘します。

• Fassungslos...

  Ich lasse mich nur selten durch ein Buch aus der Fassung bringen, aber Mark Mazower hat das mit seinem Werk geschafft. Das Panorama, das er in wunderbar lesbarer Prosa vor dem Leser ausbreitet, zeigt das Dritte Reich in seiner ganzen Unfähigkeit: Beginnend bei einer Darstellung der völligen Planlosigkeit des faschistischen Regimes, welche durch den Sturm und Drang zunächst nicht sehr auffiel bis hin zum ständigen aktiven Wunsch, die eroberten Gebiete gegen sich aufzubringen. Dabei geht der Autor sehr detailliert vor und legt in einer schonungslosen Klarheit die Eitelkeiten und Inkompetenz eines Ribbentrops und Görings ebenso offen wie die Machtgeilheit eines Himmler oder den fast religiösen Rassenfanatismus eines Goebbels und Heydrich. Wenn aus bestimmten Kreisen immer wieder die Effizienz des Dritten Reichs gerühmt wird, so zeigt sich während der Lektüre hier ein völlig anderes Bild: Effizienz gab es im Dritten Reich ausschließlich bei der Vernichtung von Menschen (und sogar dabei gab es Probleme). Mazowers These, dass Deutschland ein Kolonialreich in Europa errichten wollte, und die eroberten Gebiete entsprechend behandelte, halte ich anhand der präsentierten Tatsachen für durchaus nachvollziehbar. Mazowers Portraits der Hauptpersonen Hitler, Himmler, Heydrich und diverser weiterer wichtiger Personen wie Frank, Stuckart, Ribbentrop, Speer und Jeckeln, aber auch ausländischer Führungspersonen wie Mussolini, Globocnik und Antonescu, die ihren Teil in der Geschichte hatten, sind in einer beeindruckenden Klarheit erschreckende Beispiele für den globalen Wahn, der in den dreißiger und vierziger Jahren des 20.Jh. die Welt erfasst hatte, jedwede humanistische Zügel zeriss und dem Wolf im Menschen die Kontrolle über alles gab. Es waren eben nicht nur Hitler und Himmler, sondern Bereitwillige auf allen Ebenen, die erst ermöglichten, Europa in den Untergang zu stürzen. Die erschreckende Wahrheit, dass die Welt ein Deutsch-Europa durchaus sogar akzeptiert hätte, wenn die Nazis nicht so übermäßig gierig und unkooperativ gewesen wären, bietet genügend Stoff, einmal darüber nachzudenken, wie die Welt dann heute aussähe. Darüberhinaus habe ich persönlich sehr viel über deutsche Geschichte gelernt und sehe nun vieles aus einer informierteren Position. Das Paperback ist typische Penguin-Qualität mit dünnem Papier. Es enthält einige Fotoseiten, die allerdings meiner Meinung nach zu unspezifisch sind und in dieser Form dem Text keinen Mehrwert liefern. Die 600 Seiten Text werden durch weitere 100 Seiten Endnoten ergänzt. Ein sehr dicht geschriebenes Buch, das dem Leser einiges abfordert, da jede einzelne Seite vor Informationen fast platzt; der lockere aber nüchterne Schreibstil Mazowers, der sowohl die Absurditäten des Regimes als auch die Schrecken emotionslos kommentiert, hilft dem Leser aber sehr. Akribisch recherchiert, brilliant formuliert: Äußerst empfehlenswert.

• Evil Empire

  It is easy to be shocked and shrink back in horror when reading about the atrocities committed by the Nazis and their allies in Eastern Europe during WW2. However, Mazover writes about this sinister subject in a descriptive and readable way that makes the book bearable to read for ordinary readers like me. This does not mean that he writes without empathy for the victims, but since most of us now know about Nazi attitudes and their treatment of Slavs, Gypsies and Jews - and Mazover does not underestimate his reader - he leaves the moral indignation to us by painstakingly accounting for what happened. Thus, if you are not completely morally perverted the book cannot but make an impact. For one like me who is no specialist on the subject, but who grew up in occupied territory during the war, this book is both informative and revealing as to how lightly we were treated here in Norway compared with for instance Poland. For all who are interested in this dark chapter of European history: This is the book.

• Must for those who are interested in Nazi Germany

  A very succinct yet brilliantly researched account of Nazi Germany/ It describes well how the Nazis ruled over conquered territories. Many details not written elsewhere are here in this book. Mazower is a brilliant historian. I will definitely read his other books. Balbhadra Rana

• A nice recollection of Europe under the Nazi regime.

  Mark Mazower tells the story of incompetence of the Nazi rule across Europe. After each military campaign, at the beginning quite successful, the administration of the conquered land was disastrous. Economically as well as logistically. Very clear book easy to read.

• Difficult, But Important Work With Implications For Today

  This work is about the short-lived empire that Hitler built, its guiding principles and how it was governed. As such, this is a study of governance, not military operations or even politics at the highest level, but nonetheless, this study is critical to understanding World War II and why Hitler failed in achieving his war aims. His policies decreed that a European Empire not only be constructed under German hegemony, but that four classes of citizens would be present: the German overlords; the "almost-Germans" (Danes, Norwegians, English, Dutch, Swedes, Finns and some Belgians; useful populations (French, Italians, Hungarians, etc.; and temporary slave or serf labor (Slavs and others.) The author points out that this was not the first time a state attempted to create a Pan-European empire -- normally Napoleon is considered the first creator of a world (European -- unusally considered synomous with "world" by Europeans) order, but actually one can go further back to Louis XIV and the efforts by the Roman Catholic Church during the Middle Ages to create a secular confederation subject to Papal control and direction. Assuming that Hitler's empire was the second, we are now experiencing a third rising of a world order centered again in Europe and staffed and controlled by many of the same individuals and their adherents who were present during Hitler's times. One need only look at the Bilderbergs formed by Nazi sympathizer Prince Bernhard, and the development of the EU by Bilderberg members supplemented by other groups such as the Trilateral Commission and the US Council for Foreign Relations to see this at work. There are differences with respect to what roles the various populations will fulfill, but the desire for world (European) domination controlled by a powerful unelected elite is present in the current movement like it was during Hitler's regime. In this respect, author Mazower's work is extremely instructive, both for showing what policies failed under Hitler (sometimes disasterously) and what worked. Fast-forwarding to the present day, the slave labor is present in 20 million Muslim workers in Europe (sort of), the governing elite is present in the EU bureaucracy in Brussels, and even "progressive" concepts like gun control and euthansia that Hitler introduced are alive and well in European states through gun control/confiscation laws and socialized health systems that ration health care to productive citizens first. Unfortunately, the US seems to be following Europe's lead into this same world order, suppressing individual liberty in favor of ever-intrusive government. If one changes the party from "National-Socialist" to Supra-National-Socialist" (SNAZI) it would be difficult to tell the difference between then and now other than in the racial policy against the Jews which has now abated in Europe (due in a large measure to the small numbers of remaining Jews), and in the citizenship classes by nationality instead of economic status. The author points out that had Hitler's policy in the Soviet Union been to promote Ukrainian, Belorussian, and ethnic republics (even possibly a Russian non-communist republic), Operation Barbarossa might have been successful. There would have been time to suppress the Slavic populations later after the Soviet Union had been defeated, but Hitler opted for ideological purity rather than a pragmatic strategy. Gee, rather sounds like Obama today where he is being driven by ideology rather than pragmatism. I could belabor many of these points, but suffice it to say the author does an excellent job of presenting Hitler's policies and actual implementations at length. In the long run they failed as populations were willing to support anyone fighting against the new and ultimate threat to liberty, even if they didn't see their struggle in those terms. In the very short run, harsh utilization of subject populations materially strengthened the war-making ability of the German Wehrmacht, and since Hitler expected a short war, that was what he wanted for the duration. Today we understand that a longer time horizon is necessary. Our elite understands that it is only necessary to create crises of sufficient magnitude, economic, financial or the threat of war, to panic a people and cause them to give up their liberties. Europe had been weakened by economic hard times in the thirties, then the threat of war weakens individual resolve still further. By the time Hitler attacked, the West no longer could manifest a will to resist. Only England, secure behind its moat, found the time to gather itself together and resist. But even then, it took the totalitarian regime in the Soviet Union to defeat another totalitarian regime (Hitler's), and it most likely would have happened without the participation of the US. So what totalitarian regime will save us from the threat of war with Islam? Why, the new world order arising out of the EU, of course. Read and comprehend. This is an important work.

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