Hitlers First Victims by Timothy Ryback

[peter]

This slim volume is so important, not the least because it forces us to contemplate the unthinkable. How many of us have wondered how it was possible for a culturally advanced and democratic nation to transform itself in but a couple of short decades, into the genocidal totaltarian nightmare that was Nazi Germany. Well the answers are all here and they make uncomfortable reading for any thinking individual.

Concentrating on the period of the early 1930's and centered on one mans fight to expose the developing horror within the Bavarian district of Munich, we learn of the first extra-judicial killings in the newly constructed Dachau 'protective custody' camp and how they were concealed by an emergent Nazi beurocracy under the blanket of 'rubber-stamped' explanations of suicide and failed escape attempts. Shocking as this is [and the tales of torture and abuse are shocking - deeply so] almost more frightening is the broader tale of how, between the early 1920's and the mid-thirties, the National Socialist party, with broad popular support, rose from tub-thumping rants in the Munich Beer-Kellers to a multi-headed hydra that infiltrated every aspect of German life, political, administrative and social.

What makes this such an un-nerving read is when you start making the parralells with our own situation [at least in Europe] and begin to realise just how far down the same road we may have unwittingly travelled. We have elections coming up where the proprtionate power of relatively minor political groups is elevated by the ability to maintain or depose the larger parties by granting or withholding support. We have detention camps run by non-state bodies where already rumors of maltraetment and abnormally high suicide rates are being reported [Channell Four News ran one such undercover expose in the last few weeks where privatly employed officers wher heard refering to 'inmates' in less than human terms]. We have mooted sugestions of privitising our State law enforcement bodies - effectivly the establishment of non-state contelled police and para-military style groupings. We have rising tides of nationalism, anti-semitism and far-right thinking amongst the populace. The more, alas you read, the more alas you think, "My God - This could happen again".

[michaelm]

Also I would thoroughly recommend Ian Kershaw's two volume biography of Hitler. I thoroughly enjoyed reading something that does a good job of being objective about someone who doesn't particularly engender objectivity from others.

[peter]

I have thought about reading this biography michaelm, but ridiculous as it sounds, I'm not sure I have the courage. It might be just that I like my monsters to be monsters and don't want to run the risk of putting a human face into the picture that I might empathise with. Silly I know but.....

[michaelm]

I have thought about reading this biography michaelm, but ridiculous as it sounds, I'm not sure I have the courage. It might be just that I like my monsters to be monsters and don't want to run the risk of putting a human face into the picture that I might empathise with. Silly I know but.....

I think I came away with the opposite view - what I realized after reading it was how much we focus on Hitler and how little we focus on those that were in many ways more responsible for some of the attrocities of the Third Reich.

It wasn't that I was trying to put a human face to a monster, it was more that I was trying to look beyond the veil that history places over the facts. I didn't at any point find any sympathy in myself for him, but I did realize that we are very wrong in the 'fact' that Hitler was solely responsible for the things attributed to him.

[peter]

I absolutely get this point, michaelm. Hitler, like Churchill, was very much a 'man of the times' and as you say the spread of guilt over that atrocious period of history requires a very broad brush indeed. Just to cite one other example, Heydrich's bloodstained hands can be found somewhere at the back of nearly every grim story coming out of the period - without his particular 'skill-set' the story may have been a very different one indeed.

[michaelm]

It speaks volumes that he was singled out by Britain for an assassination attempt (by French assassins if I remember correctly?).

Also, I think most people are unaware of how little direct involvement Hitler had in the Holocaust other than approving the various plans that Himmler brought before him.

There's a long list of people who enabled Hitler and even took the reins from him. When you really dig into it, there are a ton of names that aren't necessarily well known that come up consistently in association with some of the worst atrocities of the period leading up to and during WWII.

[peter]

Heydrich's assasins were two Chez resistance fighters who were recruited and prepared in London, before being parachuted into occupied Checkezlovakia. There is a book entitled Hhhh that I cannot reccomend highly enough telling that story - it's amazing!

[michaelm]

OK, wrong country. For some reason remembered it as being in France.