To his credit, Overy puts these questions in context in an admirably crafted 200-page introduction.
The first publication of Allied interrogations of Nazi war criminals in preparation for the Nuremberg trials.
Historian Overy (The Battle of Britain, p. 242, etc.) shows that the unique evil of Nazi Germany was as difficult to comprehend in the immediate aftermath of WWII as it is today. During the war, it was clear to the Allied leaders that Hitler, Himmler, Bormann, and their cohorts would somehow have to be held accountable once Germany was defeated. The chieftains of the Nazi State had brought “aggressive war” to a world at peace, and would be personally punished for it. This conviction, however, proved problematic. Any verdict already in before the trial would render that trial a farce. Accordingly, Churchill suggested to Roosevelt that known Nazi leaders be executed rather than tried. Somewhat improbably, Stalin insisted on a trial, and as the Allied forces neared Berlin, plans were already underway. Of course, the men of whose guilt the Allies were most certain never made it to Nuremberg: Hitler and Himmler committed suicide, and Bormann most likely was killed in a bombing. Each of the 22 left to stand trial was interrogated at length over the six-month period between arrest and formal indictment. Here, Overy presents the edited text of those sessions. It is a disturbing collection. These are not the confessions of innocents, but rather the calculated admissions of criminals intent on avoiding the gallows or preserving a legacy. Their evasions remain hauntingly effective. Even though 10 of the 22 were found guilty of crimes warranting death, much doubt remains to this day about exactly how each was involved. As Overy observes, the assignation of responsibility within the Nazi regime is a problem that still troubles historians. Was everyone but Hitler simply following orders?
To his credit, Overy puts these questions in context in an admirably crafted 200-page introduction.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2001
ISBN: 0-670-03008-2
Page Count: 652
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2001
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorkerstaff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
For Howard Zinn, long-time civil rights and anti-war activist, history and ideology have a lot in common. Since he thinks that everything is in someone's interest, the historian—Zinn posits—has to figure out whose interests he or she is defining/defending/reconstructing (hence one of his previous books, The Politics of History). Zinn has no doubts about where he stands in this "people's history": "it is a history disrespectful of governments and respectful of people's movements of resistance." So what we get here, instead of the usual survey of wars, presidents, and institutions, is a survey of the usual rebellions, strikes, and protest movements. Zinn starts out by depicting the arrival of Columbus in North America from the standpoint of the Indians (which amounts to their standpoint as constructed from the observations of the Europeans); and, after easily establishing the cultural disharmony that ensued, he goes on to the importation of slaves into the colonies. Add the laborers and indentured servants that followed, plus women and later immigrants, and you have Zinn's amorphous constituency. To hear Zinn tell it, all anyone did in America at any time was to oppress or be oppressed; and so he obscures as much as his hated mainstream historical foes do—only in Zinn's case there is that absurd presumption that virtually everything that came to pass was the work of ruling-class planning: this amounts to one great indictment for conspiracy. Despite surface similarities, this is not a social history, since we get no sense of the fabric of life. Instead of negating the one-sided histories he detests, Zinn has merely reversed the image; the distortion remains.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1979
ISBN: 0061965588
Page Count: 772
Publisher: Harper & Row
Review Posted Online: May 26, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1979
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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