The Nazis

Title: The Nazis – A Warning from History

Author: Laurence Rees

Publisher: BBC Books, 2005 (First published 1997)

ISBN: 9780563493334

Pages: 399

There are some aspects of human nature which we find it difficult to concede exist in us. At the slightest opportunity they well up from the depths and overflow, making us hugely embarrassed. In the next instant, we are ashamed of it all, and wonder at the very fact that such a thing had happened at all. This analogy on the personal level can be extended to international politics in the case of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party that ruled Germany for twelve dreadful years in which the most heinous atrocities were committed by the German regime against fellow human beings. Hitler was instrumental in goading Europe into a global war which ended up killing about fifty million people. In areas controlled by the Nazis, six million Jews were exterminated in gas chambers and torture rooms – for absolutely no fault of theirs! Even with hindsight, it is extremely troublesome to imagine that such a grave crime could’ve been committed in such a civilized country as Germany. Of course, there are apologists who suggest that the Nazis constituted less than five per cent of the population and that it was unfair to put the blame for the deeds of such a small minority on the entire populace. At first glance, this argument is plausible, since the coercive measures of the Nazi autocratic administration brooked no discontent or disobedience from its subjects and forced them to toe the party line. This was the general consensus which possessed a corollary – it saved the analysts from explaining why such a devilish project went uncontested for so long. Laurence Rees approaches the issue from a different perspective. This book examines the culpability of the German public from first-hand accounts obtained from memoirs, notes and diaries surviving from that era. The analysis is not at all rosy for Germany as it clearly established that all the horrendous acts the Nazis had committed were performed with active connivance of the public, if not outright encouragement. The author is a writer, as well as a film producer who had made many films on World War 2 for the BBC. This book is a byproduct of his television series on the War. A large number of survivors of the Nazi rule in Germany, Poland, Lithuania, Ukraine and Russia have been interviewed for the research related to this book.

As noted by the author, the book aims to penetrate as deeply as possible on the essential nature of Nazism. The Nazis had no ideology other than misconceived notions of racial superiority and the belief that the Jews were to blame for all troubles Germany was facing as a result of losing World War 1. Lack of a coherent plan of action was compensated by chaos in Nazi administration. Officials played within the broad policy guidelines dictated by Hitler, coming up with ingenious ways of achieving the targets. This initiative was called ‘Working towards the Fuehrer’ and demonstrates the complicity of ordinary people. Much freedom of action and overlap of jurisdiction was guaranteed in this way, often ending up with turf war between officials when the fuehrer himself intervened as the arbiter. It was simply not sufficient to follow orders, they had to be anticipated. When it came to repressive measures, subordinate officials competed among themselves to invent inhuman measures to be forced on the hapless Jews and other conquered people.

Rees is immensely successful in bringing out the shocking details of how the Nazis mowed down their enemies. We know that they treated Jews as sub-human, but it is revealing to learn that they extended this policy to all Slav people in the countries they conquered in the east. Even though they were not exterminated in large numbers in concentration camps, Hitler wanted them to remain as slaves to the German people. The intelligentsia among them were isolated and killed off in a bid to control the rudderless society. University professors were brutally murdered. The war against Soviet Union was especially bloody since Hitler wanted it to be a ‘racial war of annihilation’ against a ‘sub-human people’. Out of 5.7 million Soviet soldiers taken prisoners, 3.3 million died of disease and starvation. Rees mentions that the treatment meted out to British and American POWs captured on the western front was radically different, as they belonged to the ‘superior’ race to which the Germans themselves belonged. The British POWs were housed in relative comfort while the Soviets were corralled in open fields and enclosed with barbed wire. Recently, we saw Iranian hardliners appreciating Hitler for killing Jews apparently to express their anger against Israel’s supposedly ruthless putting down of Palestinian uprisings. These ignorant zealots are woefully unaware of the Nazi racial policy that placed the Asians even lower than the Jews or Slavs! The book also notes the meeting between the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and Hitler in which the former expressed his approval for the racial program of the Reich.

Being closely associated with visual media, Rees’ verbatim accounts of the killing fields send a chill down the readers’ spines. The description of the Treblinka camp in occupied Poland is very instructive. People were directly herded to gas chambers. Women’s heads were shaved before they were killed and the hair was used to stuff mattresses! Nazis designed mechanized extermination plants to wipe out racially inferior people. German engineers carried out the leadership’s plans with characteristic efficiency. Carbon monoxide was used as the killer vapour in gas chambers, which was derived from the exhaust smoke of the combustion engine of a battle tank. But if the engine was just allowed to run idle, the quantity of smoke produced would be very low and unable to kill many people. So, to fully load the engine to produce more smoke, they coupled a power generator whose output was used to provide electricity to the camp. While the innocent were suffocating in closed chambers with no ventilation, the German soldiers enjoyed the comforts provided by the same machine! This plainly illustrates the sad fact that sophistication and culture is no bar to atrocity. Rees ruefully remarks that ‘indeed they can be an aid, for once the intelligent mind devises a justification, and there is no limit to the consequent brutality’ (p.161). The conquered people sometimes sided with the Nazis to persecute Jews as seen in the streets of Kaunos in Lithuania. The local public was persuaded to lynch their Jewish neighbours with wooden clubs. Before killing them, the tormentors extracted a written letter from their victims asking their surviving family members to send them money and clothes as if they were still alive. These letters were then used by the killers to steal from their victims’ families.

The book is an eye opener to the modern world who settles for accommodation with extremist elements in the political and religious domains. When a person claims that only his political ideology is viable, or that his religious belief is the only true faith, we must stop and take note of a potentially disastrous train of events germinating. The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria came close to replicating the Nazi pogrom in terms of intolerance and cruelty. We saw them killing followers of other religions indiscriminately, often by devising clever technical innovations. We also spotted them selling chained women as sex slaves in the open market, bargaining with potential buyers. It is by sheer luck that their rule could be brought down with military power before its tentacles could spread far and wide. Even then, they appear in the news again and again by shooting down unarmed shoppers or by ploughing a heavily laden fast moving truck into the midst of a crowd of people enjoying their vacation. So, what does the example of Nazis really teach us? Precious little, if what is on display is fully accounted for. The author does not offer his insights in this regard and stops content with explaining what had happened. It is left to the reader to learn the lesson and not repeat the mistakes.

The book is amenable to easy reading, though macabre portraits of torture, death and suffering are painted with words. Many monochrome plates are included that reflect the horror of Nazi domination. This book is a very fine example of good journalism, with the facts reproduced in as faithful a fashion to the original, but the author’s analysis is sorely missing.

The book is highly recommended.

Rating: 4 Star