Wolfgang Benz. A Concise History of the Third Reich. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006. 331 pp. $35.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-520-23489-5.
Reviewed by James Konecke (Teacher Education Department, College Misericordia)
Published on H-German (November, 2006)
When the National Socialist German Worker's Party (NSDAP) came to power in 1933, Adolf Hitler sought to renew Germany following the model of a strong man who led and masses who obediently followed (pp. 14-15). Between 1933 and 1941, Hitler received credit for pulling Germany out of the Great Depression, regaining territory through diplomacy, and then, once the war began, leading the Fatherland in a number of quick, decisive victories. Hitler trampled over the Versailles Treaty, transforming Germany back into a world power; he gave the masses a strong country to be proud of and little to fear. However, this string of diplomatic and military successes camouflaged the true nature of the Nazi regime, a brutal totalitarian state. Minorities were actively discriminated against, persecuted and murdered. When the tide of the war turned in 1942 and destruction began to seep into their own backyards, the masses who had spent the previous years cheering lost faith in their Führer. The strong man and the obedient masses ceased to exist. In other words, rhetoric very often did not come to terms with reality in Nazi Germany. In his latest work, Wolfgang Benz stresses this point repeatedly as he takes the reader through a detailed tour of Hitler's regime from its struggle for power to its monumental downfall. In a mere 281 pages of text, Benz successfully blends political, social, military and economic history (with a little biography as well) to touch on almost every major aspect of National Socialism.
Benz relates the history of the Reich through fifteen chapters, with a prologue and an epilogue serving as bookends. But the English edition begins with a brief background of German history from the French Revolution to the First World War, mainly to highlight the existence of antisemitism in German lands well before the Nazi Party ever formed and a desire for unity and a strong sense of nationalism that inundated German minds for over a century. After the disastrous end of World War I for Germany and the crippling Treaty of Versailles, the German masses longed for a revival of strength and unity. Hitler provided both.
The prologue and chapter 1 highlight the beginnings of Nazism, from the founding of the Party by Anton Drexler and Karl Harrer in 1919 and Hitler's attempted putsch in 1923 to the seizure of power in 1933 and the coordination (Gleichschaltung) of Germany according to Nazi "principles." The rest of chapters 1 and 2 catalogue how the NSDAP consolidated its power, by either eradicating or bringing into the Nazi fold political opponents, labor unions, the church and the press. Chapter 3 then describes the completion of that takeover, as Hitler eliminated Ernst Röhm and the rest of the SA leadership during the Night of the Long Knives, won the loyalty of the Reichswehr, and, after Paul Hindenberg's death, joined the offices of president and chancellor to give himself absolute power.
Through the utilization of radio, print, film, and art--the subject of chapter 4--the Nazi Party used propaganda to manipulate the masses and make up for the hardships of everyday life. Next, chapter 5 explains how the NSDAP created a state based not on ideology or political philosophy, but instead on propaganda, nationalism, anti-capitalism, the "Hitler myth" and a mixture of racist, völkisch and xenophobic attitudes. The result was not a "rationally operating machine for the implementation of programmatic goals," but rather a "personal absolutism" in which every underling competed for the approval of Hitler, whose word was law (p. 87, 95). Such a system, Benz astutely concludes, could only have survived as long as Hitler did.
The next section details the economic and social policies of the Third Reich. Upon taking power, Hitler quickly geared his nation for war in an effort to make Germany self-sufficient and avoid a repeat of the Allied blockade, which had proved so costly during World War I. Hitler revitalized the economy and pulled Germany out of the Depression through massive rearmament measures. To prevent the masses from rebelling in the face of another war and keep the war machine rolling, the Nazis relied on terror, directed at both the resistance and the "socially undesirable." The apparatus used to enforce this terror centered on the person of Heinrich Himmler, head of the concentration camp system, the SS and the Gestapo. These are the subjects of chapter 7.
Naturally, not everyone purchased what Hitler sold. Benz makes opponents of the regime the theme of chapter 8. German Communists, Social Democrats, certain members of the clergy, farmers, labor and a host of other small groups tried to stand up to the heavy hand of Nazism. And while passing out political leaflets, adorning the streets with anti-Hitler slogans and holding meetings to espouse their hatred of the Nazi regime served as an annoyance to the government, such resistance proved largely ineffective.
Such ineffectiveness, unfortunately, did not characterize the NSDAP's ability to persecute the Jews, the theme of the following chapter. Although Benz is quick to point out that antisemitism certainly did not begin with the advent of the Nazi Party, this prehistory does not in his view absolve the National Socialist oppressors. Antisemitic organizations and political parties that existed before World War I merely paved the way for Hitler to turn his anti-Jewish obsessions into state policy.
Chapters 10, 11 and 12 deal with the Second World War, specifically preparation and diplomacy before the war, the home front and the actual war itself. Chapter 13 then traces the evolution of the Holocaust, from the forced emigration and ghettoization to the imprisonment and extermination in the camps. The next selection focuses on resistance to National Socialism. Benz describes how individuals such as the students of the White Rose, Carl Goerdeler, Ludwig Beck, and of course, Claus Graf Schenk von Stauffenberg attempted to resist and topple Hitler and his regime. While Hitler and his regime survived these attacks, they could not outlast the armies of the Allied powers. Benz contends that the Third Reich was doomed long before the final collapse of the German military and political structure. As Hitler became increasingly isolated from his ministers and generals, confusion and competition dominated the Nazi leadership. Benz ends this chapter by describing what happened to the major Nazi leaders at the end of the war and how the outside world quickly began to learn of the gruesome crimes these men inflicted on minorities throughout Germany and the occupied territories. In the end, as Benz points out in his epilogue, the world paid a heavy price for twelve years of Nazi control: a war costing the lives of some 50 million people, "loss of freedom and autonomy by the majority" of Germans, and the persecution and attempted annihilation of minorities (p. 281). Civilization truly seemed to collapse throughout the tenure of National Socialism.
The book also includes an index, a select bibliography, a glossary, a chronology and a short preface, in which Benz attempts to justify putting another history of Nazi Germany on the already crowded shelves. What makes Benz's work unique? According to him, the fact that he sets out to provide "concise but reliable information" to allow people to make "their own judgments" sets his book apart from the mountain of one-volume histories of Nazism (p. xvii).
Overall, Benz manages to squeeze a tremendous amount of detail into not much space, making this work a quick, convenient reference for many of the main facets of Hitler's regime. The book, however, has a lopsided feel to it. For instance, the SS was a giant, chaotic hierarchy of offices and officials. Benz repeats the by-now trite observation that it was a state within a state--while nowhere providing any detail on this massive organization. Bits and pieces of information on the SS appear on a number of pages but Benz never devotes a sizeable section to this huge, confusing topic. In fact, the chapter in which the most information on the SS appears is the shortest of the book (chapter 7). However, in such a small work, a lack of detail is understandable given Benz's area of expertise--resistance to the Nazi state. And it is on this topic that Benz excels.
Even though Benz cannot include a full bibliography and a section for notes, he cannot resist the opportunity to criticize the revisionist Daniel Goldhagen (a popular pastime among Holocaust scholars). In Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust (1997), Goldhagen argued that the German masses were ready and willing to carry out the Holocaust, thus making German antisemitism wholly unique from that in other countries at the time. Benz disagrees but does not provide any evidence to support that contention. If anything, Benz actually supports Goldhagen's remarks. Despite disputing Goldhagen's argument, Benz fails to include any information to show how violent and extreme antisemitism was found in countries other than Germany. Instead, he merely catalogues the vile, pathological rants of Hitler, Julius Streicher, Himmler and the rest of the German leadership. Here, Benz missed an opportunity to contribute to the ongoing debate regarding the guilt of the German masses.
But Benz does not miss a chance to contribute to other questions and dispel a few myths (mostly among popular audiences) in the field. With regards to the former, Benz sheds light on why many German Jews did not flee the Reich as soon as they realized Hitler's destructive intentions; how the Nazis hoped to export antisemitism to other countries; and how the economic troubles and anti-Jewish rhetoric in Germany prior to the Third Reich created fertile ground for Hitler's totalitarian state. With regards to the latter, Benz dismisses common misconceptions that the decision to "exterminate" the Jews was made at the Wannsee Conference; that the Nazis invented antisemitism; and that Nazi Germany was run like a well-oiled machine based on a specific party program.
The twenty-six year history of the Nazi Party can be characterized as chaotic, turbulent, violent, competitive and hateful. Readers who wish to understand this period of German history would best be served by reading a voluminous, detailed work.[1] But for those looking for a compact yet authoritative version of the Third Reich's story, look no further than Benz's newest addition to the field. This small, fully illustrated work packs an enormous amount of detail into only a few hundred pages, making it a quick, accessible read for anyone interested in the main aspects of the history of Nazi Germany.
Note
[1]. Some of the most helpful histories of Nazi Germany are Michael Burleigh, The Third Reich: A New History (New York: Hill & Wang, 2000); Michael Burleigh and Wolfgang Wippermann, The Racial State: Germany 1933-1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991); Michael Kater, The Nazi Party: A Social Profile of Members and Leaders, 1919-1945 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1983); Ian Kershaw, The Nazi Dictatorship: Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation, 2nd ed. (London: Arnold, 1989); Dietrich Orlow, The History of the Nazi Party, 2 vols. (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1969, 1973); and Klaus P. Fischer, Nazi Germany: A New History (New York: Continuum, 1995).
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Citation:
James Konecke. Review of Benz, Wolfgang, A Concise History of the Third Reich.
H-German, H-Net Reviews.
November, 2006.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=12485
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