The Rise of the Third Reich: The Takeover of the Continent in the Words of Observers

davidbfpo · Mar 13, 2023

I have read a few of Robert Lyman's books, on the British Indian Army, and recently took a free subscription to his Substack offerings.

Today he comments in an email on two themes, this thread refers to his 2019 book:

The debate about the comparison of UK public policy with 1930s Germany (in which I assume the debate was about Nazi rather than Weimar Germany) has a very deep resonance with me, as a couple of years ago I wrote a book on the subject. It was a conversation with my agent, Charlie Viney, in about 2015 that started it all. There are lots of excellent books on the market about the Nazi era in Europe between 1933 and 1945 (Frank McDonough is the place to start if you are new to the subject), though few look at how ordinary people enabled the Nazi horror to emerge. The more I study it the more I realise that history is less about institutions per se than it is about humans and their agency. The Nazis were people, and those who helped their rise were also people. I told Charlie that as a soldier I once lived with my young family at Lager Bergen-Hohne, the old Wehrmacht barracks complex that sits next door to the site of the notorious transit camp of Bergen-Belsen, where the Dutch teenager, Anne Frank, lost her life. Scores of thousands of Untermenschen, the human detritus of a Nazified Europe, died of neglect in the human garbage dump that once lay hidden amidst the towering silver birches of these remote forests in Lower Saxony. Standing at the entrance to the Bergen-Belsen memorial today is a sobering experience, the bleak surroundings bringing a rush of melancholia triggered by the thought of so many lives wasting to death on the cold, grey sod amidst the terror of starvation, disease, loneliness, and deliberate, criminal neglect. The shadow that invariably passes over my soul on these occasions is made worse by the realization that this horror came about as the result of human design and political purpose. Men—some men—wanted this to happen, and many men, and women, allowed it to be so. Horror did not take place of its own accord but was the result of action by some—a few perhaps—and inaction by many. Bergen-Belsen today stands mute but terrible testimony to human evil and the failure of people to recognize malevolence for what it was, and to act, in a timely manner, against it.
The Rise of the Third Reich: The Takeover of the Continent in the Words of Observers', I thought it worth quoting as the issues appear regularly here.
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From: How - and why - did the Nazis get to power?

The book on one distributor's website:

A vivid social history of Europe, as the Nazi menace casts a shadow over the continent. The Rise of the Third Reich is a poignant and powerful portrait of the years 1939 to 1941, which witnessed the march towards the greatest manmade catastrophe the world has ever experienced. The narrative follows events from 3 September 1939, when Britain and France declared war on Germany, to Pearl Harbor and America’s declaration of war in December 1941. It is told from the fresh perspective of expatriate Americans caught up in the exploding conflict. Uniquely, the book uses their contemporary accounts, to record a time when British and other nationalities were barred from Nazi-occupied territory, but US citizens could travel and report what they saw. They describe the foreboding, fear and suffering caused by the Nazi invasions. These were years of increasing calls for American intervention, as Britain faced its darkest days, and held off the Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain, yet remained vulnerable. Meanwhile, European nations fell one after another, and Hitler’s power extended from the Mediterranean to the Baltic. Acclaimed historian Robert Lyman brings together a wide range of encounters, conversations and memories. The individuals range across the social spectrum, from the great singer, dancer and activist Josephine Baker to young volunteers in the RAF, such as aces James Goodison, Art Donahue, and the wealthy playboy Billy Fiske - the first American volunteer in the RAF to die in action during the Battle of Britain. The story unfolds as the war drags the whole of Europe and a reluctant United States into the maelstrom.
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From: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Rise-Third-Reich-Continent-Observers/dp/1445687267/?

WW's Recall? · Jan 23, 2024

What is main prob between A state, A democracy and time?
What is the main lie about germanys past?
How can i close up with germanys past?
Or do we live in the past life?

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