The best book I read last year.
Was Adam Tooze's economic history of the Third Reich, called "The Wages of destruction". It's a monumental, comprehensive survey of Nazi economic policy and the links between them. He's a master of the subject, and shows with chilling detail how the racial ideology, the imperialist strategy, the industrial fundamentals and the agricultural basis interacted to drive the Nazi state.
He shows how they were linked.
More arms and ammunition meant more use of chemicals.
More use of chemicals meant less fertiliser
Less fertiliser meant reduced food production
Less food drove the need to loot Europe.
That meant that supplies had to be taken from occupied countries by force.
So they starved.
And the surplus was eliminated by any means necessary, including teh Final Solution.
Yes, it was the vilest regime in history. And every organ of the Nazi state was involved, from the central bank down to the company of soldiers stealing food. They were indeed the "willing executioners" of the Reich.
Best thing we did was to hammer that state into unconditional surrender. Negotiation - even towards the end - had to be out of the question. They had nothing to negotiate about.
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I have not read the book, but from the authors words I understand, what it is about. I agree with the most written in here. And as a descendant of a pursued Czech-Jewish family I appreciate this:
" Yes, it was the vilest regime in history. And every organ of the Nazi state was involved, from the central bank down to the company of soldiers stealing food. They were indeed the "willing executioners" of the Reich."
This can't be mentioned often enough, even today!
But let me add another point of view, a Czech one, when it comes down to this passage:
" Best thing we did was to hammer that state into unconditional surrender. Negotiation - even towards the end - had to be out of the question. They had nothing to negotiate about."
No, it wasn't the best thing, it merely was the last possible thing to do, after Europe, and the World, including Great Britain, failed to fully recognize and react early enough to the Nazi-Regime that came in power 1933.
From a Czech point of view Word-War II didn't start 1939, it began September 29 in 1938, when the Munich Agreement was signed by Great Britain, France, fascist Italy and nazi Germany. The two democracies involved, represented by Arthur Neville Chamberlain and Édouard Daladier. We call the Munich Agreement 'Munich Dictate' and often enough 'Munich betrayal' – for good reasons. There were alliances and treaties between Czechoslovakia, France and England, that were broken. After sellling the Sudetes to the Nazis for the cheapest prize ever – that is the illusion of peace without any foundation - , the British and French delegations signaled already in Munich, that they wouldn't keep up alliance promises even if the "rest" of Czechoslovakia got occupied. Those two nations merely sold their ally to the worst criminals the world has ever seen, blinded by the illusion of a naïve appeasement policy without any founded political perspective. It might appear speculative, whether an earlier involvement against Germany might have speeded up the victory of 45 or even might have prevented the outbreak of WW II at all. I am sure it would have, many historians share this opinion. Hitler gained time and he gained the highly developed industrial infrastructure of Czechoslovakia without any losses. A nice gift by the governments of France and Great Britain!
Yes its true, that nearly in Germany everyone was involved in the barbarian Nazi-system. Everyone had the chance to know what the nazis are all about, only by listening to the countless speeches, by reading the propaganda, and last but not least, by merely reading Hitlers book "Mein Kampf"!!! It is sickening to read, but is shows clearly, how precise the plans of the Nazis actually were! But it wasn't only up to the Germans themselves to gain these informations. The whole of Europe was supposed to get them! When Great Britain and France went up to Munich, they should have known what would happen to a Slavic nation with deep common cultural roots with Jewish people, when getting under Nazi rule. Or did the English and French intelligence services just ignore the so open nazi propaganda? Daladier and Chamberlain actually signed up in Munich for Lidice and Theresienstadt. Just to get home and get the cheers of their population believing they just about escaped war. They didn't. It didn't last too long to 1939 and Poland. But only in those few months inbetween countless Czechs and Slovaks and Jews were murdered, humiliated, tortured, robbed or put into concentration camps for later annihilation.
No, the "hammering of Germany into unconditional surrender" wasn't the "best thing" you did! It was the necessary fight you had to fight in order to survive as a democratic nation in Europe, and you fought it side by side with the other allies, including the Russians. And the first victims of nazism, the so badly betrayed Czechs, Slovaks, and amongst them many Jews were then fighting on your side, 2.422 pilots serving the RAF during WW II.
I wish in a back regard, that Winston Churchill would have been in power 1938 already, instead of Mr. Chamberlain, who was convinced of appeasement even after the occupation of all Czechoslovakia.
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