TEUTON AND SIAV

In his introduction to this scholarly history of Teuton-Slav relations on the east German borders, the author, a German historian, writes: ""To understand the German past it is necessary, among other things, to see the German east with new eyes."" In this book, a brilliant translation of the third edition of the original study, the author explores the complicated relations of the peoples in the German east from the first wanderings of skin-clad tribes to the mass migrations and murders resulting from Hitler's wars of aggression and the ""hellish perfection of the German policy of extermination."" Stating that ""it is the duty of the historian to remember the fate of exiles ... and to investigate the reasons why those exiles left home,"" the author writes of migrations and retreats, of brutal invasions and peaceful infiltrations, of religious persecutions and of industries, farms and cities blotted out by wars; of the rise and fall of countries and peoples. Critical of England and the U.S. for failing to understand Germany and the plight of refugees, he even more bitterly denounces the Nazis for losing the war -- and German honor -- by their policies of exterminating whole peoples for German ends. Written with wit and vast knowledge, this important but difficult book will appeal to students and teachers with a basic interest in the subject. It is not for amateur historians.