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After the Reich
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$32.00
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Manufacturer: Basic Books
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 943.0874
EAN: 9780465003372
ISBN: 0465003370
Label: Basic Books
Manufacturer: Basic Books
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 656
Publication Date: 2007-07-02
Publisher: Basic Books
Studio: Basic Books
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Editorial Reviews:
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When the Third Reich collapsed in 1945, the Allied powers converged on Germany and divided it into four zones of occupation. A nation in tatters, in many places literally flattened by bombs, was suddenly subjected to brutal occupation by vengeful victors. Rape was rampant. Hundreds of thousands of Germans and German-speakers died in the course of brutal deportations from Eastern Europe. By the end of the year, Germany was literally starving to death. Over a million German prisoners of war died in captivity, where they were subjected to inadequate rations and often tortured. All told, an astounding 2.25 million German civilians died violent deaths in the period between the liberation of Vienna and the Berlin airlift. A shocking account of a massive and vicious military occupation, After the Reich offers a bold reframing of the history of World War II and its aftermath. Historian Giles MacDonogh has unearthed a record of brutality which has been largely ignored by historians or, worse, justified as legitimate retaliation for the horror of the Holocaust. Drawing on a vast array of contemporary firstperson accounts, MacDonogh has finally given a voice to tens of millions of civilians who, lucky to survive the war, found themselves struggling to survive a hellish peace.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: This book is definitive about Germany under allied control
Comment: I read this excellent book, here in Brazil.This book is definitive about german's suffering, under the allied control between 1945 and 1948.Please, I'm not a nazist.The author of this excellent book, also isn't a nazist or a racist.
For me, this book is excellent but I must tell that this book really, isn't for everyone.To example on page 167-the numbers are from the citations- the author writes:
"There were plenty of books in the ruined houses, and literature was consolation for some, but there was next to no food.Cases of cannibalism were reported, with people eating the flesh of their dead children.Of the Köningsberger alive in june 1945, only 25,000 survived the experience.20 Hermann Matzkowski, a communist sawmill worker the Russians installed as mayor of the Köningsberg suburb of Ponarth, reported that 15,000 Königsberger had disappeared or died in the main prison during May.On 20 june 1,000 people were beheaded before his eyes.21"
Customer Rating:
Summary: not for the faint hearted
Comment: This is a brave and challenging book. Other reviews have done admirable service relating the contents of the book as well as the editing shortcomings. In my review I would like to address my reactions as I read the book and how reading this book has benefitted me.
This book is not for the faint hearted for two reasons: it is full of grusome details, and, more importantly, it may challenge all you have been led to believe.
I read the book in four nights so as not to lose the momentum of the story. At first I was put off by the endless pages of atrocities and wondered why MacDonogh has started out with them. I knew most of it anyway although a few of the stories moved me, such as the man who returned home at last, only to find the skeletons of his family hanging from the trees. But I realize in retrospect that MacDonogh was trying to create the feeling of Chaos, indeed the first part of the book is called such.
As MacDonogh moves on to describe life for the Germans in the individual national zones, a more concrete picture of the degree of insanity he is portraying begins to emerge. Every nation was in confusion and turmoil as reflected by the impossible situations in the camps. There seemed to be no way forward.
MacDonogh moves on to the the years of 1945-46 and the black markets and horrific winters that all, conqueror and conquered, had to endure. His inclusion of the attempt to reestablish arts is a welcome addition to knowledge of this time period, something I did not know.
The covering of the trials was a bit patchy and hard to follow, perhaps written by a different researcher. I enjoyed the ending and thought it brought a lot together. Concluding with the air lift and the establishment of the Cold War was the obvious place to end.
I am glad I bought and read this book along with other books on the subject. It is a story that has needs to be heard more often, lest we forget. It is not about anti-Americanism. And for those looking for context, did you not read the introduction? Indeed, you probably did not even read the book.
Patton was right, America fought the wrong enemy. There is so much more to the story that may never be made public. But this is as good a starting place as any.
The book benefitted me in several ways. To know someone is seeking the true story is always positive. I was interested to know more about Truman's and Churchill's participation and the information on Morganthau was new. This book does not try to avoid anyone's guilt, rather in seeking greater understanding of a fiendish, little understood, catastrophe in human history, it lets us all see a little more of ourselves. Most importantly, it enables us to analyze current events with a clearer knowledge of historical precedents. Thank you, Mr MacDonogh, for your efforts.
And thank you Amazon for allowing us, the average reader, an opportunity to share our thoughts publicly.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Where was the editor?
Comment: I have no doubt that much of what Mr. MacDonogh has researched is true. A friend who lived in Danzig before, during, and after the war talked about much of the same type of brutality.
If you're going to pick up this book be prepared for a few things:
- frequent descriptions of rape (mass rape, gang rape....)
- utterly pretentious language mixed with the most peculiar colloquialisms (to the point of simply not understanding the author's meaning,) and sentences with multiple pronouns and no antecedents making many passages somewhere between incoherent and just damned frustrating.
- paragraphs that mix so many bits and pieces of different barely related stories or facts that one thinks the 'return' key was used purely at random.
The content is eye opening, disturbing, and controversial. It depicts a side of the late 1940s most of us have never learned - after all, history is written by the victors.
But there is NO excuse for a book of this magnitude to have been so poorly edited. In some areas it reads like a series of note cards taped together. In other places it reads like the harangue of an axe grinding blogger. The result: the book fails to shape an understanding of how or why such atrocities took place by 'the good guys.' The inconsistency of the writing not only makes the book difficult to read, but sometimes difficult to believe.
I'm curious if the problem was a poor editor - or a writer unable to take the advice of a good editor.
Read the book - be infuriated by the actions of the Allies ... but be prepared for a poor and confusing read.
Customer Rating:
Summary: The chutzpah of this author
Comment: The author would have been spared any negative reviewer criticism if he had included prominently the required acknowledgement that nothing is, was, or ever could be worse than whatever the Jews suffered in WWII. If he had gone further and stated that the Germans deserved to be starved, raped, abused, and millions killed off by neglect and design of their captors, he would have turned the criticism into praise, whatever else he wrote after that.
In this book, you'll find no hypocrisy or ignoring of known atrocities directed at the Germans after the war. The Germans were subjected to planned and obvious attempts to punish them, for the sole purpose of extracting retribution/vengenance. It could be argued that the abysmal sinking of humanity, displayed by those efforts, were even lower than the actions the Germans were accused of as having committed during the war. But that won't be found in this book because this book is about truth, not about convincing the reader that the Jews were the principal and only significant victim of WWII, the only acceptable thesis when discussing war atrocities.
If you like to read truth with no spin, this book is for you. If you're looking for a another book waxing poetic about Jewish suffering, you'll be sadly disappointed. Here, you'll find the true actions of people who claimed to be better than the Germans, then set about to prove that they could set new standards in brutality, eclipsing the worst the Germans ever dished out.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Introduction to Allied revenge, terrorism, and the doctrine of collective guilt
Comment: Minutes after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, a co-worker from Australia told me that the attacks were directed against "tax-paying citizens" who supported the "murderous" policies of the American government. Any individual who chooses to live and work in the United States is therefore, whether they are conscious of it or not, giving support to any action or policy of the government. They are thus implicitly guilty for any government actions and hence legitimate targets for those who have experienced repression or violence due to these actions.
This is the "collective guilt" hypothesis and has found many adherents throughout history, and as this book outlines in gruesome detail, was manifested in the aftermath of World War II. Confident of victory and bent on revenge, many commanders and soldiers in the Allied forces proceeded to take their frustrations out on whoever was left in Germany, with sex and age not being an impediment. It did not matter whether or not German citizens had consciously supported the Nazi government, or whether they did so out of fear for their lives and the lives of their families. As the author remarks, just the ability to speak German frequently was proof enough of this support. The carnage against Germans in post-war Europe was unrelenting, with rapes, crucifixions, hangings, forced starvation, and forced marches being widespread and taking place with great enthusiasm by Russian, British, and American troops of occupation. Having endured incredible hardships in battle they did not hesitate to take matters in their own hands and direct their anger towards those who "supported" the German government. Women were "responsible" for giving birth to German soldiers, so they must be punished accordingly. Male children could grow up to be German soldiers, so they must be prevented from doing so. Female children could grow up and produce more German soldiers, so they must be prevented from doing so. Nuns represented the Catholic "support" for the Nazi Reich, so they must be raped or beaten up without reservation. Even German Jews were subjected to mistreatment, as if they had not suffered enough: many were prevented from immigrating to Palestine due to British fears that they would join a movement to overthrow British control of Palestine.
This is a book that cannot be read during eating time. This reviewer attempted this and failed. There is too much horror inside its covers to allow any vestige of peace of mind during its perusal. But it is a book that should be read by anyone insisting upon a true picture of history, no matter how it perturbs their emotional or mental equilibrium. The reader will learn that the Soviet Red Army "raped wherever it went"; of fifty thousand citizens of Hamburg who in two days in 1943 were slaughtered by British and American weapons of mass destruction; of the rape of almost three thousand women by French soldiers in Stuttgart; of the Brno death march, wherein over twenty-five thousand Germans were forced by revengeful Czechs to march several miles, beaten, harassed, and starved along the way; of the estimated 240,000 German Bohemian and Moravian deaths by the Czechs; of the beheadings of over a thousand people in Konigsberg by the Russians; and of the famous `Operation Paperclip' that involved the seizure of scientific equipment and kidnapping of German scientists by American occupation forces.
The actions of the Allied soldiers who participated in this carnage were reprehensible, with no moral justification whatsoever, and one could go on forever in condemning these actions. Needless to say these events are not reported in American textbooks used in elementary, middle, and high schools. For the most part they are ignored in college history classes also. It would seem that there is an attempt to forget they happened, which is ironic considering the penalties that one can obtain in some European countries for denying the history of the Holocaust. But like the horror of the Holocaust the carnage of the Allied occupation must reside in historical memory for all time. The alternative is a distorted and therefore useless picture of what actually happened during that time, with the horrific possibility that these actions be emulated in the future.
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