Finally, at long last...

... after working on it for most of the summer, I finished William Shirer's
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. It was recommended to me for the chapter dealing with the withering of German culture under Nazi party rule, and I decided to read the whole damn thing.

There's simply too much material to discuss here, except for a few points. First, is how pusillanimous the French were in the face of Nazi aggression, using the method of dealing with evil as an ostrich putting its head in the sand. That is a pattern that continues to this day. Which, since they hold a veto on the UN security council, why talking with the UN to authorize military action is a total waste of time.

Second is the chapter on Hitler's New Order. For you young 'uns who may not have studied about Nazi Germany, these were some of the most vile and disgusting actions, and men, ever to stink up our planet. Our language is not wide enough to adequately describe the awful things these excuse for people did.

Last, a bully is ultimately nothing more than a coward. it may be a cliche, but there's reasons why cliches exist.

 

Well, a couple things.. Maginot Line aside.. on the French. Is that the tome where I got that a lot of the public sentiment for the Nazi's was due to the French punitive attitude toward the Germans? {They talk big when someone with a big gun is standing behind them}
Int he end, though, the French are the French. All the way to 2002/ early 2003.
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And have you emailed Pat Buchanan recommending it to him?

heh...

 

I've yet to read that book, although I've heard it's good.

If you're up for another weighty WWII read you might want to check out Catherine Merridale's "Ivan's War: Life and Death in the Red Army, 1939-1945"
It's a fantastically in-depth look at pre-war, war-time and immediate post war Russian society, culture, government and (most importantly) psychology.

This is a lesser discussed theatre of the war and this book has been the single greatest reference and wealth of information that I've found to date. I'd read about the astronomical casualty reports and about how brutal the war was on the Eastern Front, but never really understood how or why a front of that kind of sustained verosity could exist. Merridale's research or pre-war Russian psychology was quite possibly the most fascinating WWII reading I've done to date. I think that this book clears up a lot of the fog surrounding the Eastern Front and could very easily change every perception that one might have about Russia, eastern-front Germans, what turned the eastern front and where exactly it turned.

Teaser ... something interesting I learned from this book was that pre-WWII Russian military strategy did not include retreat or strategic withdraw. This goes beyond the brutal Russian policy of shooting those who desert or retreat ... it's to say that pre-WWII Russian military doctrine was that Russia could not be defeated and there was therefore no reason to learn retreat.
It's mind-blowing!

 

Re: RE: Finally, at long last...

To quite a degree, yes. Hitler used the French peace treaty as any demagogue does -- to make them a focal point for all that ailed Germany.

I made a joke to a German after the Iraq war started that if his country wanted to take France again, we wouldn't stop them this time. Hang the German flag from the Eiffel Tower for all we care! Of course, they would have to forego the brutal torture and concentration camps this time around, but we could work something out and it's there for the taking.

You know, on this point there is a lot in common between Pat Buchanan and the Holocaust deniers. Neither one looks at anything that might challenge their views, and both are capable of denying plain facts.

Before I saw the error of my ways and when I was a Democrat, sometimes I was embarrassed that Pat Buchanan was part of my country. Now that I am a Republican, not only do I still feel that sentiment, but now I can add to it that he ais a member of my political party. Ah, partisanship...