A lucid account of a spectacular if disheartening success story.
A history of the “stunning turn of events” that led to Hitler’s dictatorship.
That flamboyant men whom no one takes seriously become national leaders no longer surprises anyone, but Hitler’s rise shocked everyone, and Range’s lively addition to the groaning bookshelves on the Führer describes the critical years from 1919 to 1933. In 1919, a penniless immigrant from Austria but already a World War I veteran and fierce German nationalist, Hitler attended a meeting of the German Workers’ Party, a tiny Munich group whose extreme views appealed to him. He joined, and his dazzling oratory quickly made him the party’s leader and a Munich celebrity. By 1923, his party (now with “national socialist” added to its name) numbered over 50,000, and he launched his famous beer hall “putsch,” which failed but produced a great deal of publicity. Released from prison at the end of 1924, he resumed party leadership. For the remainder of the relatively prosperous 1920s, Nazis remained a negligible political force, but Hitler’s fierce anti-government, racist rhetoric kept them in the news. Matters changed when the Depression crushed Germany’s economy. To worldwide amazement, the Nazis received 6.4 million votes in the 1930 election (eight times their 1928 total) and over 100 seats in the Reichstag. Their vote doubled again in 1932. Germany’s leaders could no longer ignore the nation’s largest political party, but Hitler refused any government position except chancellor. Finally, after nearly a year of national paralysis, conservative figures convinced themselves that they could control Hitler from subordinate positions in the cabinet, and he took office on Jan. 30, 1933. Every reader beginning this lucid, provocative history will want to know how such a fringe character with views abhorrent to educated citizens could become a national leader. Range provides the answer: persistence, luck, and an ignorant establishment—all qualities as common today as a century ago.
A lucid account of a spectacular if disheartening success story. (8-page b/w insert; map; timeline; cast of characters)Pub Date: May 12, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-316-43512-3
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 29, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
An informed and gloomy appraisal of the prospects for democracy in Russia from the longtime Moscow corespondent of the (Manchester) Guardian, who concludes that the present political system may be one of the many revolutions from above in Russian history that end in failure. Steele (Andropov in Power, 1983, etc.) derives his conclusion both from Russian history and from his own experiences as a correspondent. He makes the telling observation that, when Yeltsin stood on a tank to proclaim his resistance to the attempted coup in 1991, the crowd that applauded him was fewer than 200 in number; only when the coup was safely over did huge crowds emerge. The coup failed, Steele says, not because of mass resistance but because the plotters lost their nerve and the Army commanders split. Nor is he impressed by the ability of Russians to run a democratic system. Yeltsin's contempt for the Supreme Soviet—the majority of which originally supported him—was such that he refused for almost a year to appear before it or to meet with its leaders. He believes that Yeltsin deliberately provoked the hard-line faction in the Parliament into an injudicious response, which gave him an excuse to use the Army. Yeltsin also manipulated the constitutional referendum held at the same time as the election in 1993 to prevent opposition to its approval and to increase his own power. Steele's conclusions are not entirely pessimistic: He believes that considerable freedom has already been established and that the gains that have been made cannot be entirely reversed. Overall, however, he sees Russia as a ``society without law'' and he questions whether the country will not take ``a long time to evolve towards genuine democracy, if ever.'' Steele is better on contemporary events than on history, and better on politics than on society at large, but his deep knowledge of Russia over the last three decades gives his conclusions great and worrisome authority.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-674-26837-7
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Harvard Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1994
A fast-paced account of a little-known POW experience.
The journalist and bestselling popular historian returns with the story of an American soldier who survived Nazi terror.
Generally, Allied POWs in Germany fared better than those in Japan—but not the group that included fighter pilot Joe Moser, Clavin’s subject for this scrupulous, squirm-inducing account. The author narrates from Moser’s point of view, and his sources include Moser’s 2009 memoir. Raised on a farm and fascinated by flying, Moser enlisted in May 1942, underwent the 21 months of training required for the P-38 fighter jet, and flew his first mission in April 1944. Moving back and forth between the big picture and Moser’s 44 missions, Clavin delivers a workmanlike account of the war that ends in August, when Moser’s plane was shot down over France and he was captured. It’s significant that he was taken to Fresnes prison near Paris, where Allied airmen were held, instead of being sent to POW camps. After liberation, in the scramble to evacuate Germany’s high command, a group of soldiers were labeled “terror bombers.” They were crammed into boxcars and shipped to Buchenwald, Germany’s largest concentration camp; by fall, they were starved and disease-ridden. However, when he learned about their plight, a Luftwaffe officer, offended at this illegal treatment of fellow flyers, arranged their transfer to a POW camp. Readers relieved that their ordeal was over will be shocked by what followed in January. With the Red Army approaching, authorities evacuated the camp, forcing prisoners to walk across Germany in a freezing winter with only the food they carried with them. More died than at Buchenwald before arriving at another camp far worse than the one they had left. With Nazi Germany on its last legs, they expected a short stay, but two months passed before liberation. Readers can then enjoy Clavin’s traditional concluding description of the remaining years of the lives of Moser and other major figures.
A fast-paced account of a little-known POW experience.Pub Date: Nov. 2, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-250-15126-1
Page Count: 320
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2021
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