Germany Books

Saboteurs, by Michael Dobbs is a very well written story, about what I consider to be a little known chapter of WWII, namely, the German plan to land two groups of saboteurs on America's shores. Once here, these men were to operate an "extensive campaign against the United States to disrupt the production of tanks and airplanes and blow up bridges and railroads." Luckily for America, the Germas sent probably the most inept group of spies that was ever assembled, dooming this mission from the start. What transpires during the course of the story would be comical if not for the fact that the majority of the saboteurs were executed. Also, luckily for America, we were able to catch these men despite ourselves. This is a very enjoyable read.

Truth is certainly stranger and more entertaining than fiction in this case. This fast paced account of the 8 man team of Nazis sent to sabotage the US railyway system during WWII is so colorfully told, it's like a movie. The fact that it's a true story makes it all the more fascinating.

Famous figures like FDR and J Edgar Hoover and not so famous ones like Atty General Biddle and the German conspirators, all come to live and the stories (in this age of the Patriot Act, public paranoia and prisoner abuse scandals) are especially relevent in today's political climate.

Thoroughly enjoyable and informative read for buffds of both history and spy stories.

One of the first actually enjoyable nonfiction books I have ever read. A moving, suspenseful, accurate tale by Michael Dobbs - totally worth reading no matter what!
After reading it, I changed the subject of my paper to Operation Pastorius because of the wealth of knowledge I had about it from reading this enjoyable book!

I'm still not quite sure why I liked this book so much. Let me just say Dobbs does a terrific job (aided by some very detailed sources) of outlining a story that is bizarre, funny, and strangely compelling. It's one of those books where you keep coming across events so strange you have to tell someone about them. Also, it's quite timely, as some of the legislation that came out of the Operation Pastorius trials is currently being used to the hilt by the Bush administration, even though the key Supreme Court justice in those decisions later said he regretted them.

If you like it, I would also recommend "In Harm's Way" by Douglas Stanton, about the Indianapolis disaster. That's more of a horror story than a comedy, but it also is filled with historical ironies and well-delineated characters.

In June of 1942, two 4-man teams of Nazi saboteurs exited U-boats onto American beaches in Florida and Long Island, NY. All of the eight had previously spent time in America. Indeed, one had spent twenty years in the U.S., and another, a naturalized American citizen, had spent seventeen since the age of five. Returning to the Third Reich for various reasons, they volunteered to return to the U.S. and sabotage that country's war effort by striking at its aluminum production plants. Each team hit the beach with a supply of explosives and $90,000 cash for expenses. Two weeks later, they were all in FBI custody. All were tried by a military tribunal and found guilty. Six of the eight were quickly executed by electrocution; two were imprisoned for the war's duration and eventually returned to Germany.

A friend of one of the saboteurs, who'd also been offered the chance to join the mission but declined, said:

"In Germany ... everything was rationed. Nobody in his right mind was going to go from a country like that to a country with everything, like America, and start blowing things up. You'd have to be nuts."

That statement just about says it in a nutshell because even though Hoover and his FBI trumpeted their foiling of the plot as the greatest victory for America since Yorktown and the former just about wet his pants in an effort to grab all the credit for (chiefly) himself and his G-men, the eight conspirators resembled more an expanded clone of the Three Stooges, and their fourteen days on the loose were a farce. Glad to be free of Germany's wartime belt tightening, they started spending their cash on food, clothes, drink, women, and, in one case, a new car. A couple of them looked up family members, wives, and former girlfriends. There didn't seem to be any great urgency to get down to the business of "blowing things up". In the meantime, the leader of the Long Island four, George Dasch, was off spilling his guts to the Feds. Though SABOTEURS: THE NAZI RAID ON AMERICA is well written and documented, one wonders why author Michael Dobbs bothered. Perhaps a clue lies in Michael's assertion that:

"One of the lessons of the saboteur affair is that it is very difficult to fight a war and respect legal niceties at the same time."

In the seventy-six pages of the book dealing with the invaders' trial and punishment, Dobbs goes to commendable lengths to describe how the accused were denied the right of habeas corpus, an abridgement not seen since Abraham Lincoln suspended such during the Civil War. Oh, and by the way, the handling of the saboteurs' case by the U.S. government is apparently the legal basis for its trying of al-Qaeda terrorists before military tribunals post-9/11.

SABOTEURS seems less about the abortive "raid" on America than an essay on its legal system when severely stressed - or perceived to be stressed - by outside forces. Perhaps the lesson to be learned is reflected in the statement by Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist in a 1999 speech, and which is quoted towards the end of this volume:

"While we would not want to subscribe to the full sweep of the Latin maxim INTER ARMA SILENT LEGIS (In a time of war, the laws are silent), perhaps we can accept the proposition that, though the laws are not silent in wartime, they speak with a muted voice."

What a man! He is a real fighter and hero. At least people can see the truth about the Germans now, and can also admire such a hero whose hand of G-d made him a survivor.
This book is wonderful, it deserves to be the best book about the Holocaust. Very moving, well written, and a real story.

I read this first as a child and have recently re-read it. It is as intense as it was when I discovered it at 13. This one IMHO is THE holocaust memoir and I say this as a big fan of Anne Frank's Diary. I wish I could say never again, but Rwanda made it clear that this stage in history is not an aberration. Silence doesn't exist. Revisionism is easier than truth and unless truth is passed on there will be no alternative.

The Survivor of the Holocaust, by Jack Eisner, is not just a story of camp survival, although the book does deal with Mr. Eisner's time in various camps. More importantly, it is the story of one man's attempt to fight back, to make a difference, during a time when the life of a Jew was worth less than that of an animal. In that, Mr. Eisner succeeded. Although, as one review of this book stated, some of the events may, and I emphasis the word may, have been embellished with time, I find little fault with this based upon the fact that it was written well after the events occurred. Additionally, the subject matter is so horrific that it is only natural that, with time, some of his experiences might have taken on a different light. In my opinion, this in no way detracts from the quality or importance of the story. We owe it to Jack Eisner and all of the others like him to read his story. I recommend this book.

One of the leaders of the Jewish resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto said " We must fight them (the Germans) as a symbol for posterity to show that even in the face of certain death, with hardly any weapons, a handful of Jews had the guts to stand up to the mighty German Army."

I read this book this past year, my sophmore year in High School. This book told pieces of the hell Mr. Eisner had to go through and how he managed to survive. I was told by my teacher (and several other students in my class) that this was a "hard read" and it would take a little while to finish. I, however, was so entranced by Jack's words that I had to keep on going and finished it in over a course of a day. Not only did I get to read Jack Eisner's book, but I got to meet him in person when, not only did he come to the university (where I attended his first speech), but at my High School, where I again attended his speech and even got to shake this man's hand. To actually get to meet him was something all together and made the book even more wonderful. Soon everyone who lived during that time, who actually fought or survived the horrors of that world, will be gone, but through Jack's book, and other's like his, we will never forget. That is one thing that Jack said, we must never forget. I guarantee anyone can like this book ... it shows you a first hand prospective of how things actually went on in the Ghetto and the camps, although it just barely skims the surface of some of the things that happened.

At the end, the author wrote, "Everyone who had a chance to read the manuscript in progress expressed disbelief that all these experiences could have happened to one person and yet he survived." This is how I felt reading this book. His will to live and his resourcefulness were amazing. What guts he had, for example, to plot and to rescue his mother from the Nazi hospital! He came so close to being killed by the Nazis so many times and managed to escape so many times. It's hard to imagine that there really are people in the world with such courage. I didn't want to read another WWII book, but I picked this one up (my wife had bought it)while waiting for my next book to arrive, and once I started it I couldn't put it down. If you can stand to hear the horrible realities, read this book.

In this slender volume, Fr. Lee not only provides a neat summary of Wagner's epic, but an ample and insightful look at the political and philophical underpinnings of the opera's genesis. His discussion of Schopenhauer's influence, albeit a surface treatment, never overwhelms the reader. Nor does the discussion of the leitmotives bog the reader down and detract from a lively and personal narrative. Highly recommended.

I found Father Owen Lee's interpretation of Wagner's Ring concise, beautifully written and coherent. I was utterly mesmerized and could not put the book down until I had read it.

Father Lee's book is essentially a fleshing out of some radio commentary given on the Ring cycle. While it is a short book and a quick read, it is insightful, deep, and well worth study and discussion.

There is no single 'correct' way to interpret Wagner's giant gesamtkunstwerk, one reason why so many books of interpretations and analysis of the pieces struggle for shelf space. This one makes a worthy addition to the pile.

Readers new to the Ring will find the synopsis and discussion of each opera informative and most valuable in getting them started to a basic understanding. Those more familiar with the Ring should find much to think about and compare with their own or other interpretations.

Supplemental to the text are suggested recordings, short reviews of additional books worth investigating, and a brief list of some of Wagner's more well-known musical motifs. There are more complete such lists and references available, but again for the novice these will all be of great help.

I found Lee's book informative, fascinating, and useful.

This little book is an excellent introduction for folks like myself who have tried for years to make sense of the cycle. The narration gives a plot synopsis followed by the author's view of the meaning behind the drama. I have always been fascinated by Wagner's Ring Cycle though I do not know German. I have been very intrigued by the music. Well this book gave me a tiny little bit to get me going.

Much of Father Owens' analysis may not meet with everyone's interpretation of the cycle but it does make one think.

There is a section at the end that contains written music. My knowledge of reading music is very scant so I just ignored that section. It is not germane to the narrative because one can get these examples by listening to the work. For good examples get An Introduction To Wagner's Der Ring Des Nebulungen by Deryck Cooke on CD. Mr. Cooke's CD gives audio examples that one can appreciate without knowing how to read music.

to one of the most multi-layered works of art in existence.

I have wanted to see this opera series for over 20 years, ever since I saw an opera properly prepared by a Wagner fanatic. Finally, I was in a place where I could, so I turned to the various preparations that I could find.

This short book was indisputably one of the best, and it doesn't shy from bold pronouncements and interpretations. Lee is a classical scholar of great learning and brings together a huge range of sources in this 100plus-page book.

First, he gives a synopsis. Then, he interprets it, with full awareness that the reader may disgree. While the content is covered by other reviewers here, I wanted to say that this added immensely to my experience of this uniquely complex work of near-modern art. Plus, it is aimed that at erudite admirers, but to those (like me) desperate for an anchor as I approach the unique intensity of Wagner.

While it relies a bit too heavily on depth psychology, which places this interpretation at a certain time, it is never dogmatic and addresses many of the other philosophical ideas that underlie it. This is my only caveat. Truly great works of art are re-interpreted by every age, and this one will be too. In addition, it cannot be the only source one approaches - you need to listen to the music as well, so this is one supplement.

Warmly recommended.

This is perhaps the best and most relevant book about aesthetics, and their potential to influence people and history.

One of the hardest things as historians is to try and get into someone's head. The Book Hitler and the Power of Aesthetics do this but in away that other people have not tried. The book looks at Hitler from artist view point and sees Hitler from a different view which people has not looked at before. The person who decides to read this book will also learn how Aesthesis and be a powerful tool used by man. The book is now being sold at a very good price and I give it my personal seal of approval!

If there is any justice in the world, Spotts' book will go a long way toward eradicating from popular consciousness the facile descriptions of Hitler as not much more than a cross between a risible, Chaplin-esque, comic book character and an insane, incarnate demon.

Part of the first notion of Hitler includes the idea that he ought to be dismissed as a failed, lousy artist. As Spott points out, the truth is that Nazism, like all self-styled utopianisms, was something like a gigantic project in aesthetics using people rather than pigments or plastics, and control and murder rather than downstrokes and glazing - and Hitler was the artist behind that (very popular for some years in Germany) project; he therefore must be taken seriously as an artist in this sense (obviously a grotesque, genocidal one).

As Spotts notes, even his hatred of Jews emerges from this context: the Jews are "ruining all art" by embracing atonalism, cubism, jazz, dadaism, etc., as well as ruining all life by embracing "Bolshevism". But in his mind, there doesn't seem to be much difference there: Picasso, Marx, Alban Berg - all the same. Since, in Hitler's view, art can't be separated from culture, and culture can't be separated from the state, and the state can't be separated from life itself, the eradication of the Jews becomes, in Hitler's mind, nothing less than a matter of national survival, or, strangely, to say the same thing, the artistically appropriate choice.

Spotts does a good job of underscoring another aspect of all this by calling attention to the seeming homoeroticism in Hitler's taste, particularly as it expresses itself toward the human being: at bottom (pun intended), Hitler preferred, aesthetically, buff blond males with blue eyes, i.e., "Nordic" types. The Jews, in addition to being greedy, "Bolsheviks", destroyers of art/culture/life, etc., just...looked "wrong". And so in this sense, in Hitler's mind, ridding the proper-looking race of these improper-looking portions of it was as obviously a necessary decision as would be getting rid of a "wrong" piece of furniture cluttering up an otherwise beautiful living room. (Spotts even includes a contemporary German cartoon caricaturing the physical features of a "typical" Jew).

But what I started out to say was this. Spotts surveys how Hitler very consciously used colour, shape, rhetoric, size, proportion, angle, material, sound, light, symbol, rhythm, story, pageantry, texture, surprise, music, fire, sculpture, formation, etc., to, quite literally, achieve a truly terrifying degree of control over the minds of his subjects, even as a conversion tool over those who had resisted him. (Spotts describes how awed even American visitors were by the Nuremberg rallies.)

And page by page, one begins increasingly to get a sense of what it would have been like, to be a human being, subject to all the mental and emotional strengths and weaknesses we are, living in a country (our world, for all purposes) which only a year or two before had been totally chaotic and depressed...and then to be stirred, roused, when that world around us begins to change, prompted to feel different, pleasurable things, think different, exciting thoughts, and in the end, perform different - and ultimately - indescribably horrific actions. In every way, we are preyed upon by the mesmeric, sick genius of a man who was rejected by the art school in Vienna, and who sought his revenge for this affront by dominating human psychology through all those elements I mentioned above more totally than perhaps any other "artist" of the 20th century.

I saw a BBC documentary a couple of weeks ago, in which several elderly Germans candidly recalled with fondness Hitler's early years. What they said they missed most were the euphoric feelings they had, going to the pageants and rallies, seeing the flags, hearing the speeches and the music, those feelings of belonging, meaning, "specialness". And for the first time, reading Spotts' book, in a really disturbing way, I could imagine what that might have been like, imagine that I might have been just as susceptible to the manipulator as millions of Germans had been. For the first time, how the whole thing could have happened seemed imaginable. Scary.

Bravo to Spotts for his brilliant and disturbing book. I would love to see him now do a documentary on this, using real footage.

Highly recommended.

There is an incomplete list of sources for photographs and sketches based on page numbers in the Acknowledgements section of this book. The photographs and sketches are not individually numbered. I also think the references are unsatisfactory. For example, the author makes a number of assertions about a boyhood friend of Hitler in the Introduction but there is no background material to support these 'facts'. The book is interesting for its shift in focus (aesthetics) but there is an impression of sloppiness that affects credibility in my opinion.

It's easy to accept a good vs. evil mentality. It simplifies things a lot. However, this book is amazing in how it exposes you to a very different way of viewing the man Adolf Hitler. To see and understand his master plan without the barrage of foaming mouths calling him satan is truly a reason to check this book out, if only for the pure intellectual curiosity to understand. Destruction comes with every act of creation. Though he instigated the destructive waste of humanity that was WW2 by invading and retaking the part of Poland that was stolen from Germany after WW1, after which England and France officially declared war to begin WW2, he intended to create a beautiful Germany and rid the nation of all that was base. Hitler apparently observed, enough to his conviction, that Jewish people and Communists were the chief promotors of this degeneracy, the modern artists and modern art gallery owners. As an analogy, it is as if Hitler was simply a man on the street who saw a bunch of hoodlums destroying a beautiful sculpture or work of art, and he wasn't going to stand by and let it be destroyed. Instead, he would destroy those hoodlums and resurrect not only a new beautiful work of art but an entire nation filled with the aesthetic ideal, of people, of architecture, of music, of art. It may be Hitler's aesthetic ideal, but a lot of people with good taste share it as well, and it's hard to admit, but there has to be something fishy going on to enable artists such as Jackson Pollock and Franz Kline to become famous. Neat book to own, nice cover also.

There are many strengths to this book- one of the main strengths is the variety of uses that it has. It's obvious purpose is to relate the history of German Jews from the rise of the Enlightenment to the rise to power of the Nazi party. But it serves other purposes as well. I came to it for an understanding of the intellectual background of both Leo Strauss and Hannah Arendt. It could serve as background reading for anyone interested in Einstein, Benjamin, Adorno, Horkheimer, Freud, Adler, Fromm, Marcuse, Mannheim, Popper, Bernstein, Cassirer, Schoenberg, Husserl, Weill, among other German-Jewish intellectuals to numerous to mention. Which brings me to my third purpose. I have never read anything that made me realize just how badly Germany damaged itself intellectually during the rise of the Nazis. It serves as the primary example of politically ripping your heart out because your brain commands it. Who knows what the country could have become if it had embraced it Jewish citizens? Finally, for me, this book makes me understand why Zionism became such a political force. At some point, when you are treated like the Jewish citizens of Germany were, what else can you do? Elon makes it clear that their suffering began long before the twentieth century.
I want to talk about Elon's methodology. His book is basically a series of well chosen capsule biographies of prominent German Jews whose lives and struggles for emancipation and assimilation serve as to tell the stories of all German Jews. His focuses on people like Moses Mendelssohn, Rahel Varnhagen, Heinrich Heine, Ludwig Borne, Ludwig Bamberger, Gershon Bleichroder and Walter Rathenau. Along with this main biographies are several dozens of shorter ones. Elon then surrounds these stories with a certain amount of sociological history (two of his favorite statistics are to look at the rate of conversions from Judaism to Christianity and the rate of intermarriage). He tries to relate those stats to larger historical events. Finally, he also uses a bit of cultural history,e.g., he sees Goethe's idea of Bildung as having an even larger impact on German Jews than on the rest of the German population.
This methodological approach to his story has some drawbacks. Non-intellectual and/or lower class German Jews remain in the background in Elon's book. I am not sure how this could be avoided. There may be some sort of historical record that would tell us more about this part of the population but it is hard to imagine what that record would be. It is also easy to imagine that life for the poorer and less literate parts of the German Jewish population would have been even worse. Most careers were closed to them, all civil and political rights were denied to them and many times, entire cities or districts were closed to them. In most cities they lived in ghettos and were not allowed to go out into the rest of the city on Sundays or Christian holidays.
Elon also makes it clear that in many ways, Germany was one of the most liberal countries toward its Jewish citizens. I found myself sometimes reading this book wondering when the revolution was going to start. As I said earlier, reading this book makes the appeal of Zionism easy to understand.
I have a few other minor laments about Elon's book. I would have appreciated much more of a history of both Zionism and reform Judaism within the context of his history. I would also have learned from a history of how the understanding of the galut changed over time. But this is a minor quibble. Elon's books fulfills its own purpose and many other purposes magnificantly. There are other books that can tell the story of the missing pieces.
I came to this book from my reading of Strauss. It makes me appreciate Strauss's ideas about the theological-political problem so much more. Strauss basically used the place of the Jewish citizen within a liberal polity as his basic metaphor for the challenge of the other to a community/state. He also saw it as a metaphor for the role of the philosopher in the community/state. In both cases, it stands for an outsider who can never be other than an outsider. Strauss felt that this issue tears at the core of the liberal state. It is one that we can never run from and must always face with all our wisdom and humanity. Reading Elon argues strongly that Strauss may have been right. But mostly, reading Elon leave you with a sense of how much all of us have lost from what happened to the Jewish population of Europe during the thirties and forties. The Pity of It All is right.

This is one of the best books I have read in a long time. It combines history with interesting narrative. It tells of the heartbreaking saga of the relationship between Jews and Germans for the 200 years preceding WW II. It spoke of histories of people and how devoted they were to the Fatherland....especially sad were the thousands of conversions, forced and voluntary, which in the end did the Jews no good. It is an enlightening read and not very flattering about the Germans and their anti semetic history of thought.

I had wanted to read something about Jewish assimilation in Europe after snippets and references from Goethe's biography by Nicholas Boyle, a musical essay on Mendelssohn that touched briefly on his grandfather, Moses, and the liner notes on several classical music CDs of composers who lived in the 19th century. When I saw this book at my neighborhood bookstore, I grabbed it and stayed up all night reading it. Since I want information when I read a history, I don't require great writing, and prose that's merely adequate can be forgiven if the research is thorough (and the author doesn't have an axe to grind). Elon is a good enough writer that I will seek out his other works. This book shed light on the ambivalence that must have been unbearable for so many. And as another reviewer mentioned, its nice to have a chapter of German/Jewish history that doesn't begin with Weimar. As one of the best histories I've read, I can't recommend it highly enough. Hopefully high-school and college courses on Europe in the World War years will use this book as a prelude.

This book depicts details of life of the Jewish people in Germany from the two centuries preceding the Holocaust, including well researched reasons for the assimilation processes and conversions that took place, details of the literary and scientific contributions, and the political and societal contexts surrouding Jewish life in Germany. Many fascinating facts abund that makes this a gem of historical detective work, well written, and difficult to put down. You know how it all ends, hence the title. This is the best non-fiction book I have read in a long time.

The author describes the history of German Jewry in such an eloquent, informed and story-telling way that is just fascinating. Easy to read too. Excellent buy.

Wow, a real surprise. This is a VERY good book. I am really enjoying it.

Very good book. Provided enough in the way of historical facts, maps etc to be informative but not dull. I cared about the main character and was always wondering what was going to happen next. I thought I was generally aware of the horrors of WWII but this was an education of how the victimizing and victimazation was dealt and endured back and forth by many different people of many different nationalities and how scary it is that under certain circumstance all human beings are capable of the very best and very worst treatment of one another. Makes me think twice about when I think I'm having a "bad day."

This is a captivating story about WWII told by an adult as she lived through it as a nine year old child in East Prussia, Germany. The author gives vivid pictures of the horrors of war on the innocent. It also gives a history of how countries get involved with demonstrating inhumane behavior. You will become totally enthralled and have a hard time putting the book down.

I bought this book having no idea how engaging it would be. I received the book yesterday afternoon, and today, the next day, I have finished it! I could not put this book down. This is an interesting book on a relatively unknown subject for most people. This is a part of history that many don't want to believe and have tried to sweep under the carpet. I would highly recommend this to anyone!

Abandoned and Forgotten is an amazing tale of survival during the last years of WWII in East Prussia. Told through a child's eyes, the author Evelyn Tannehill takes us on a journey showing us the horrors of war and the absolute cruelty that humans are capable of doing to fellow human beings, yet the compassion that we're capable of, as well. This book totally gripped me and broke my heart to read what this poor girl went through and survived. I met the author at a book signing and found her to be a lovely, gracious woman, so open to sharing her experiences.......no self-pity here. This book is a gift to us all and I highly recommend it

Amos Elon opens this book describing Moses Mendelsohn, a German philosopher's entry as an impoverished and uneducated teen into Berlin through a gate reserved for "swine, oxen and Jews," and ends it by describing how a famous Jewish writer left Berlin by train just hours ahead of the Gestapo.

Between these bookends you'll find the history of the German Enlightenment, the general acceptance and tolerance that Jews came to enjoy in Germany, of the significant role that Jews played in Germany's cultural, scientific, political and business worlds, and of the assimilation process that led to the specific identity of being a German Jew, and of most tragic suffering. What a pity!

Many books on this period of history sooner or later seem to become recitations of the same truisms. Elon's book doesn't; it's far more sophisticated. Not only is it a (brief) history of German Jewry, but also a brief history of German culture, politics and science. Elon believes that the Social-Democrats were far too weak, disorganized, and confused to have been able to maintain law and order during the Weimar Republic, and that the more conservative parties, which largely were extensions of churches, were too tied down by their religious affiliations to have been able to provide effective government. This, he believes, meant that the only form of government that could have saved Germany from the horrors that came to be would have been a military dictatorship. Expecting the Germans to smoothly transition from centuries of monarchic rule to a democracy during the depths of the Great Depression was not realistic. Democracies cannot exist without citizens who think for themselves, monarchies often raise people to follow orders without question. This is an interesting idea, and not what one hears from the sort of historians who write that the horrors arose because people weren't nice enough.

This is a hugely informative and highly moving book that is history sine ira et studio, history at its very best. I heartily recommend this book.

This book is truly one of a kind. It's detail and clarity is unprecedented and its topic very engaging as Elon does an amazing job in taking his readers through the 200-year journey and labyrinth of a mostly unexplored period of Jewish history. Awesome! Truly the best thing since sliced bread. Besides being a fabulous historical treatise, it answers many questions.......many many questions and problems and does it so wholesomely and so didactically and flawlessly.

My hat is off to you, Mr. Elon. I am silenced by the great amount of awe and respect I now harbor toward you. Thank You!

One of the best history books I read (and I read quite a few):
Well written, the past comes to life and what's more important you start to live it as if you don't know the future. One of the biggest problems in reading history is the fact you know "the answers" a privilege people don't have when they actually live and take decisions. This book gives you the feeling as if you almost are there with out knowing how things will eventually turn out.
Side bonus: a look in to the best of European culture of the 19th century.
A key for understanding lots of current issues, it will also help to understand the desires and nightmares of Jews in Israel today.

The book is very well written, and the author has a great talent for storytelling. It is almost like reading a novel, this is achieved without affecting the academic value of the work.

The book is referred to as the history of Jews in Germany between 1743 and 1933, in reality it is the history of intellectual jews in those years. There is little mention of poor jews, and for the most concentrates on the people who would have left a larger mark and legacy: mainly intellectuals. There is also some mention of how jews in neighboring countries lived.

I highly recommend the book to anyone who is interested in the subject.

Belief in the coming of the Messiah and a Messianic era of world peace is an integral part of traditional Judaism. Even secularized Jews, starting with Moses Mendelssohn and others, transfer this belief into an attempt to create a worldly utopia in the here and now while abandoning traditional Jewish observance. This explains why various universalist, utopian philosophies, such as Marxism, attracts secular Jews. Similarly, attempts to create an improved "Reform" Judaism, or a quasi-universalist Socialist Zionism attracted Jews who had abandoned belief in the Jewish religious tradition. Amos Elon, a Jew of this type, in this outstanding book, looks back at what seemed at the time, the most successful attempt of the Jews to shed their supposedly "parochial" traditions and to assimilate into what looked like a vital culture, Germany of the 19th and early 20th century which had such a flowering of music, literature, art, science and industry in which Jews played such a major role. Although most Jews abandoned religious tradition in the period, moving upward in the social and economic mileu of Germany, and felt that they were as German as any non-Jewish German, especially after having fought as good patriots in the wars of the 1870 and 1914-1918, the whole edifice of German Jewish assimilation came crashing down, dragging much of Europe into the abyss with it. Many Jews came into prominence in the highest levels of German society and politics, even into the Kaiser's entourage, and yet, when the crunch came with the defeat in 1918, the Kaiser and others blamed "the Jews" for the defeat, even though the Jews were the most loyal of all Germans. As Elon points out, many in Europe admired or feared the Germans, only the Jews loved them. And this love was totally unrequited, as the Germans, as a people, decided that the Jews were responsible for all their problems and that the Jews would have to be annihilated, even if it meant the destruction of their own country in the process.
Elon describes well the adoption of the "kulturreligion", the religion of culture that the German Jews adopted with their almost fanatical devotion to music, literature, art and philosophy, and their blind, fanatical patriotism that burst out in 1914 when even many who would later claim to be pacifists such as Martin Buber expressed bloodthirsty enthusiasm for war and German aggression. However, I don't agree with Elon's assertion at the end of the book that Hitler and the Holocaust "weren't inevitable" since he claims that Hitler came to power only through a shabby political deal and not through "irresistable historical forces". All the accounts I read of the period by Germans who were around at the time said most people, especially the young, felt that Germany's future was "either Red or Brown" (i.e. Communist or Nazi) and that democracy was discredited.
What is especially interesting is how Elon is expressing his own longing for such a secular messianic era. Once an ardent Zionist, who thought a similar Israeli society based on a similar "kulturreligion" would develop in Israel and people like him would be revered as national "philosophers", he, to his horror, saw the revival of traditional Jewish religious observance, bringing him to the decision earlier this year to leave Israel for good. As he stated in a newspaper interview, he used to be able to call the Prime Minister of Israel to arrange a personal meeting, but today, the political elite has no interest in him, so he sees no reason to remain in Israel.
At the end of the book, he express the despair of the good German Jews who loved their country so much. Instead of pointing out how tens of thousands of German Jews made "aliyah" (immigrated) to Israel and enriched the emerging society there, in spite of the inevitable hardships, he instead focuses on all the Jews who committed suicide, unable to live outside their beloved Fatherland which had foresaken them. Elon is giving expression to his own despair that the Jewish state is returning to its own Jewish roots and his alienation from them.
This book is a must for those who want to understand the tragic culmination of Jewish life in Germany and Europe as a whole, and the odyssey of the alienated Jew who simply wants to abandon his own people and tradition, something that the Germans and Europe proved is impossible.

"During my whole life, I have not found a happier hunting ground than that in the course of the Somme River." That famous sentence begins the chapter on the Battle of the Somme in Manfred Von Richtofen's autobiography, The Red Baron, first published in 1917 and available in a reprint by Pen & Sword with additional new material. In this edition, Norman Franks summarizes Richtofen's air battles and gives us a fine summary of the life of Richtofen. N. H. Hauprich presents a list of the aircraft flown by Richtofen.

That this work is of historical value cannot be denied. It is, after all, the autobiography of one of the truly great flying aces of World War I. That it is a fascinating portrayal of a gentleman officer in a world long gone cannot be denied. That it is a very entertaining read cannot be denied.

And yet, to the modern reader there is something uncomfortable in Richtofen's describing combat in such a way as to read like the adventure books for boys so popular in his time: "I advised him to fly around the smoke cloud. Holck did not intend to do this. On the contrary. The greater the danger, the more the thing attracted him. Therefore straight through! I enjoyed it too to be together with such a daring fellow."

Richtofen died young, of course, and he died in a fight in the Valley of the Somme, his happy hunting ground. We are not likely to see his type again, and that may not be a bad thing.

--David Lang at Advance Book Reviews

I saw a biography about the Red Baron on tv and thought that he had an exciting life so I wanted to read his book that way I could read about it straight from the person that lived these events. The book is fairly short and you could easily read through it very fast without any trouble. He writes about his childhood,entering the cavalry and the war, then how he became a piolet and the rest of the book talks about his many victories as the best fighter piolet. There are a bunch of black and white pictures of the Baron, other German aces and a few planes. There is also a list of all his victims including the plane type, date, times and piolets and there is also a list of the planes he flew and which victims he shot down in which plane.

I liked the book because it's an easy read, it has some funny parts and exciting moments and in a way you get a feel for the man himself. However there are some things I didn't like such as he doesn't go into much detail through the book it's like he just breezes through some of his fights in a few sentences or so which kind of makes it anti climatic. One example is how his brother just shows up out of nowhere and is fighting along side him and not much is said about him. I'm also sure that there was some propaganda thrown in since this book was released during the war. I bet he would have wrote a far better book after the war had he lived but as we all know he was shot down.

This isn't the book to read if you want to know everything about the Red Baron but if you want to read what he experienced first hand then get this autobiography because it's a good read and it's coming straight from the horses mouth that.

I wonder if some of the fatherland stuff was added by one of the Kaiser's goons. This guy is a wild boar hunting nutcase. A great book if you wonder why Germany keeps starting wars.

This is a fantastic autobiography, because Von Richthofen was an amazing person. Very real (he devotes as much attention to his cousin and him climbing the spire of the local church, as he does to some of his aerial battles), full of good-natured humor and a zest for life. I particularly loved how the early fighter pilots were known as "Knights of the Sky", and kept to the chivalric code, including following downed pilots to ensure that they were all right.

Great book! Great photos and an amazing life told by The Red Baron himself (translated into English, of course!).

"During my whole life, I have not found a happier hunting ground than that in the course of the Somme River." That famous sentence begins the chapter on the Battle of the Somme in Manfred Von Richtofen's autobiography, The Red Baron, first published in 1917 and available in a reprint by Pen & Sword with additional new material. In this edition, Norman Franks summarizes Richtofen's air battles and gives us a fine summary of the life of Richtofen. N. H. Hauprich presents a list of the aircraft flown by Richtofen.

That this work is of historical value cannot be denied. It is, after all, the autobiography of one of the truly great flying aces of World War I. That it is a fascinating portrayal of a gentleman officer in a world long gone cannot be denied. That it is a very entertaining read cannot be denied.

And yet, to the modern reader there is something uncomfortable in Richtofen's describing combat in such a way as to read like the adventure books for boys so popular in his time: "I advised him to fly around the smoke cloud. Holck did not intend to do this. On the contrary. The greater the danger, the more the thing attracted him. Therefore straight through! I enjoyed it too to be together with such a daring fellow."

Richtofen died young, of course, and he died in a fight in the Valley of the Somme, his happy hunting ground. We are not likely to see his type again, and that may not be a bad thing.

--David Lang at Advance Book Reviews

I saw a biography about the Red Baron on tv and thought that he had an exciting life so I wanted to read his book that way I could read about it straight from the person that lived these events. The book is fairly short and you could easily read through it very fast without any trouble. He writes about his childhood,entering the cavalry and the war, then how he became a piolet and the rest of the book talks about his many victories as the best fighter piolet. There are a bunch of black and white pictures of the Baron, other German aces and a few planes. There is also a list of all his victims including the plane type, date, times and piolets and there is also a list of the planes he flew and which victims he shot down in which plane.

I liked the book because it's an easy read, it has some funny parts and exciting moments and in a way you get a feel for the man himself. However there are some things I didn't like such as he doesn't go into much detail through the book it's like he just breezes through some of his fights in a few sentences or so which kind of makes it anti climatic. One example is how his brother just shows up out of nowhere and is fighting along side him and not much is said about him. I'm also sure that there was some propaganda thrown in since this book was released during the war. I bet he would have wrote a far better book after the war had he lived but as we all know he was shot down.

This isn't the book to read if you want to know everything about the Red Baron but if you want to read what he experienced first hand then get this autobiography because it's a good read and it's coming straight from the horses mouth that.

I wonder if some of the fatherland stuff was added by one of the Kaiser's goons. This guy is a wild boar hunting nutcase. A great book if you wonder why Germany keeps starting wars.

This is a fantastic autobiography, because Von Richthofen was an amazing person. Very real (he devotes as much attention to his cousin and him climbing the spire of the local church, as he does to some of his aerial battles), full of good-natured humor and a zest for life. I particularly loved how the early fighter pilots were known as "Knights of the Sky", and kept to the chivalric code, including following downed pilots to ensure that they were all right.

Great book! Great photos and an amazing life told by The Red Baron himself (translated into English, of course!).

One third of this book is standard heroic stuff. A non-Jew in a position of some authority takes steps to create a haven for Jews and -- in the midst of annihilation -- saves a lot of them. You have to find your way to this by navigating the first third of the book, which tells a different story: how to find someone using multiple information sources and documentation, both scattered and (some of it) sequestered. The last third of the book is given over to appendices and afterwords, original documents that only become compelling provided the heroism of the man has taken hold with the reader.

Karl Plagge was a courageous individual in a time and place when individual courage was in short supply. His example, of a person who saw terrible things happening and took the initiative to stop them from happening within his purview to the extent he could, gives a glimmer of hope in the midst of the overwhelming despair of the Holocaust. That he had been a National Socialist very early on in its history is his initial credential as an unlikely hero, but the unfurling of his identity reveals this to be ultimately of little consequence in defining him. Yet Plagge was circumspect to a fault. Were it not for the documentation of his de-Nazification trial, there would be very little to show him revealing himself. One hopes it was not an overwhelming sense of guilt over what he could not do that made the man seem to place so little importance on what he did do (which did and does matter).

Plagge's story does not have the razor's edge of Wallenberg's. Michael Good is not primarily a writer. But all in all this is a compelling new chapter in the story of the Holocaust. Vilna was of as much consequence as Warsaw for the Jews, and its story is not as well known today. And written from the viewpoint of one who only lives thanks to Karl Plagge, this is a book worth reading.

The Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum, located in Jerusalem is the largest holocause museum in the world. As you would expect it describes the terrible inhumanity the Germans imposed upon the jews and leaves you with a feeling of hoplessness. But in the museum there is one shining glory, the wall whereupon is inscribed the names of those considered to be 'Righteous among the Nations.' This term is used to describe non-Jews who risked their lives during the Holocaust in order to save Jews from extermination by the Nazis. There are people of all nationalities listed on the wall. Among the names are some 380 germans. Among these is the name Karl Plagge.

A low level officer in the Wehrmacht he commanded a military vehicle repair unit in Vilna, now Vilnius, Lithuania and he saved the lives of at least 250 jews, including the author's mother.

This is the story of Major Plagge, who as usual for heros would admit to no special courage.

This is a remarkable book both for its deeply moving story and for its underlying message of how a day-to-day battle of moral choices can be waged with the strength of conviction. It begins with an existential question most people never have to ask and ends with the satisfying feeling of a debt repaid as completely as life can allow. I recommend this book to anyone.

a superb and engrossing investigation of a nazi who tried to protect jewish people from certain death by setting up a factory not unlike oscar schindler. the son of a survivor who always told the story of the mysterious major plagge who saved many tried to find this man and his motives. spellbinding and heartening unlike so many other holocaust stories.

There is so much evil when Governments attack their own people as has happened throughout history. The Nazi Government in Germany was especially evil as it attacked many millions of its own people and neighboring peoples. The Nazi Government which was, as is always the case in evil governments, run by a relatively few number of people with awesome power, was on a murderous rampage in Europe. A very few courageous people stood up in opposition. One of these people is Major Plagge. It is thrilling to read of his courage, bravery and success. Everyone should read this book. Hopefully, then more persons could stand up against evil governments before its too late. Why is it that of all the species on the Earth that Man is the most evil? It is because of the accumulation of power in the hands of a few people. That is always a recipe for disaster.