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THE RISE AND FALL OF THE THIRD REICH

A HISTORY OF NAZI GERMANY

This is an extraordinarily interesting piece of the history of our times, made possible first by the fact that an excellent reporter was on the scene and lived through much of it, second by the wealth of primary source material secured at the time of the defeat and fall of the Third Reich. Hitler is, of course, the focal point, a "person of undoubted if evil genius". Shirer destroys some of the legends of his youth but traces the steps by which he came to power through the instrumentality of Eckhart, who found him a tool for his own ends. National Socialism was founded by misfits; by 1920 Hitler's talents as agitator, organizer and propagandist had brought most of the associates of stature to its ranks. The Nazification of Germany- forecast by Hitler- in Mein Kampf, consolidated in the lean years out of power, infiltrated into the armed services, engineered by a group of brilliant, ruthless opportunists, became a fait accompli before the world took Hitler seriously. All the facets are explored:- the racial laws, the persecution of Christians as well as Jews, the control of press, education, the arts, the abolishing of the separate powers of the states, of free trade unions, the steps to war while talking peace, the wizardry of Schacht's economic policy, the fooling of the people. And then, chronologically, the march of victory, while Chamberlain fumbled:- Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, the deal with Russia — and World War II. To this reader this part of the book, perhaps the first two thirds, was more provocative and interesting reading than the war years. But even in the war years, Shirer injects a revealing picture of Hitler's duality. The record shows decisions made while statements to the contrary were issued; it shows division in the ranks,- between Hitler and Molotov, Hitler and Mussolini, Hitler and his own general staff, Hitler and Japan. America's part in the war was his final and fatal miscalculation. Throughout, sharp pen pictures of what life in the Third Reich was like should help keep the world from forgetting. A book not only for reference, but for absorbed reading. As November choice of the Book-of-the-Month, it should be an immediate success.

Pub Date: Oct. 17, 1960

ISBN: 1451651686

Page Count: 1249

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: May 23, 2012

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1960

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KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON

THE OSAGE MURDERS AND THE BIRTH OF THE FBI

Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.

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Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.

During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorker staff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.

Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.

Pub Date: April 18, 2017

ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6

Page Count: 352

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017

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NIGHT

The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...

Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children. 

He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions. 

The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the sphere of suffering shared, and in this case extended to the death march itself, there is no spiritual or emotional legacy here to offset any reader reluctance.

Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006

ISBN: 0374500010

Page Count: 120

Publisher: Hill & Wang

Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006

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