Unfinished Book Review - The Rise and Fall of Third Reich

The rise and fall of Third Reich
By William Shirer

My biggest accomplishment for a furlough week given by my employer has been to finish this mammoth book - over 1100 pages written in a smallish font.  Shirer was there when it happened. He couples his personal observations with documentary evidence made public at Nuremberg trials along with diaries of key people of Third Reich.

The book covers the whole saga in three parts - The rise of Hitler and Third Reich, this section ends when Hitler has established a totalitarian regime by dismantling all democratic structures in the government. The next section covers the war - how it started from Austria and then goes by one country after another. The last section is on how the war ended which includes mistakes made by Third Reich and entry of USA.

Section 1 - The rise of Third Reich aka how it parallel with our times. 

Hitler had confidence. Hitler had no accomplishments to claim when he launched his political campaign.  What gave him confidence to run is beyond anyone.  Shirer adopts a tone of surrealism and contempt using this fact. Even later, after Hitler has won multiple battles, he still taunts him as a low corporal officer at the help of affairs.

Hitler developed a disdain for Jews during his stay at Vienna. This, and some botched up teaching of history made him start a Nationalist Socialist party with the objective to have a pure Aryan race take control of affairs of Germany and beyond. The means to this end have a parallel with today's times that is difficult to unsee.

Hitler frequently pointed out that Jews are seducing young Christian girls and thus adulterating their blood.  It is eerily similar to Love Jihad theory practised more commonly in northern states of India.

Normalisation of lies
For a lie to be sold, it has to be made truth. This is a playbook that that is common from Iraq war to Gujarat model. Hitler penned German's defeat of first world war on few traitors at home. These traitors were mostly Jews or people in power who had to be removed. Such a lie was packaged, repeated and sold as truth.

Even later, his Beer hall putsch, an amateur attempt to win a local election by force which was actually a failure by all accounts was deemed a success and celebrated in later years as the first true victory that created Third Reich.

Army and Politics
Many democracies including India had this principle of keeping the hierarchy of Army outside politics. Politicians should not influence how Army hierarchy works and army should not have any vested say in the party which rules. Hitler realized much early on that he can not come to power without the support of Army.

Hitler convinced army to join his cause to overthrow the government. He used the failures of current state -  a struggling one after the first world war loss restrictions.  In one of his moves, he created a new rank to which the chiefs of Army, Navy and Airforce will report. Much of these are similar to moves made by govt in last 4-5 years. It is commonplace now for ex-veterans to appear on TV shows and share their politically biased opinions.

The idea of state based on race
Hitler strongly believed in the purity of race. His book Mein Kampf is filled with his diatribe on this subject.  His idea of state, culture, economy all revolved around this race. What is good and what is bad based on this. He publicly decried his hate for other races, in particular Jews. 

A corollary of this race theory is the glorification of past when only pure race existed. Be it "Make America Great Again" or be it Hindu Rashtra, a nation concept is created based on mythology.  For struggling states, this becomes a rallying cry to come out of its misery. The means appear to justify its ends. citizens are forced to believe it as there does not exist any other alternative.

While the truth has always been that trade has helped countries flourish. A company thrives if it has diversity, a nation flourishes when it has citizens from different backgrounds. We are living in an age where we are connected like never before, information travels instantly. Even in these times, to call for a past which had no language diversity, no exchange of ideas is definitely an alarm.


Fragmented opposition
Germany after first world war had too many political parties. Each one serving its own ideology with a core group of supporters. Shirer writes that -

The cardinal error of Germans who opposed Nazism was their failure to unite against it.

A look at our present times and this is deja vu.


Section 2 - The World War

It started with race. First was the neighboring country Austria as it had many Germans. Next was Czechoslovakia. Same argument. Both Austria and Germany were won without a bullet being fired. Both were given an ultimatum. Their respective armies were no match for Germany which was still not as developed as in the prime of war.

Czech even had a pact with Britan and France to intervene in case any one of the country was attacked.

This review remains unfinished.