Even though done as a part of the mandatory exercise, I succumbed to the temptation of writing!!
Book: The Rise and Fall of The Third Reich
Author: William. L. Shirer
Publishers: Random House Publishers UK
Everybody has desire for power, but only few have the guts to grab it. Hitler is a peculiar character in history that exactly has those guts. No study of modern world history can be completed without mentioning him. People’s perceptions towards him are always extreme as was his ideology. There are some sections in German society, who literally laid down their lives to support him but the other side of the spectrum there is a section of people who are still witch-hunting the erstwhile Nazi party supporters. People are not able to have moderate feelings about him, same as Hitler could not be moderate in his ideology. But this book of William .L Shirer (An American Correspondent in Germany for Chicago Tribune) traces some of the positive traits of Hitler’s Spectacular journey towards the reins of power. His intense desire to power, his organizing skills, and his propaganda style (partly attributed to contribution of Gobles). Whatever main stream books that are available (at least what I have read) expose the events by considering Hitler as a person. I was kind of mesmerized by the author’s presentation of Hitler as an Organization with seemingly incredible self confidence. His narration exposed Hitler’s attitude of a go-getter and the way he presented made me feel that Hitler wants to do nothing short of conquering the world.
But the folly of the author lies in the second part of the story i.e fall of Nazi party after the successive losses in the World War 2. Author over emphasized on hypothetical reasons such as Hitler’s love story; his personal affairs to be the main reasons for the losses in the wars. But wide spectrum of historians believe that Hitler’s planning failures such as underestimating Russian Strength, his blind belief in Mackinder’s Heart land theory for planning his war, his naivety in estimating the war conditions, dynamics of world politics which forced the allied powers to unite, disunity among Axis powers etc as the main reasons for his fall. The author is inconsistent in his way of reasoning the things. It would be difficult to understand or rather incredible a man of his popularity, the most favorite blue-eyed boy of the German society, supposedly having millions of die-hard supporters could just die such a lonely death in the middle of nowhere in a Bunker getting his mangled body battered with bomb shells for nearly 5 days, if he could not give the proper account of the history. Probably the reason may be, it is the end result of the war which determines who is right and who is wrong, and history is written by the winners. Or Author could not come out the American trait of obsessive hate towards Hitler.
Another lesson which particularly Indian society can learn is “It is not the common man’s angry, but the intellectual’s silence that will handle the reins of powers to the dictators”. Indian society’s condition is something (if not exactly) similar to the conditions in Inter war period -German Society. The sympathy for Maoists on the pretext of the injustice to disadvantaged sections, The Islamophobia sweeping the world has Ideological predecessor in the form of anti Semitism. Space limitations and inappropriateness for the purpose will not allow me further elaboration. But certainly people can learn something from this historical lesson so that they are not swayed by the extremist ideologies.
Conclusion:
Hitler is more like sex, you can debate him, differ with him, oppose his deeds, hate his Ideology, But certainly cannot avoid him. So, for people who want know him, or interested in world politics or “Real PolitiK” this book can be a good feast (given its bulky volume).
K.V.Krishna Reddy
Roll Number: 78
AFP 02/10
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