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After the Reich | 
 enlarge | Author: Giles Macdonogh
Publisher: Basic Books
Category: Book
List Price: $32.00
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Rating:  25 reviews
Sales Rank: 16974
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 656
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.4
Dimensions (in): 9.4 x 6.3 x 1.7
ISBN: 0465003370
Dewey Decimal Number: 943.0874
EAN: 9780465003372
ASIN: 0465003370
Publication Date: July 2, 2007
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Product Description
When the Third Reich collapsed in 1945, the Allied powers converged on Germany and divided it into four zones of occupation. A nation in tatters, in many places literally flattened by bombs, was suddenly subjected to brutal occupation by vengeful victors. Rape was rampant. Hundreds of thousands of Germans and German-speakers died in the course of brutal deportations from Eastern Europe. By the end of the year, Germany was literally starving to death. Over a million German prisoners of war died in captivity, where they were subjected to inadequate rations and often tortured. All told, an astounding 2.25 million German civilians died violent deaths in the period between the liberation of Vienna and the Berlin airlift. A shocking account of a massive and vicious military occupation, After the Reich offers a bold reframing of the history of World War II and its aftermath. Historian Giles MacDonogh has unearthed a record of brutality which has been largely ignored by historians or, worse, justified as legitimate retaliation for the horror of the Holocaust. Drawing on a vast array of contemporary firstperson accounts, MacDonogh has finally given a voice to tens of millions of civilians who, lucky to survive the war, found themselves struggling to survive a hellish peace.
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 A grizzly account of allied atrocities in World War II August 18, 2007
Ryan Setliff (VA, USA)
134 out of 158 found this review helpful
~After the Reich: The Brutal History of The Allied Occupation~ is a sordid tale of allied atrocities committed against the Germans following the fall of Hitler's fanatical Third Reich regime on May 8, 1945. Conventional wisdom just presumes that American and British armies were merciful liberators ready to bestow chocolate and candy to the German children; but history isn't always so black and white. For the defeated Germans, the end of the war brought an uneasy peace, and for many a hellish aftermath. What resulted in the years 1945-1950 is little known to most Americans. Some three million Germans died in the aftermath of VE-Day, and many in the Soviet occupied zones were subjugated to a brutal ethnic cleansing.
The facts concerning occupation are alarming:
* 2.3 million German civilians died violent deaths following the official cessation of hostilities on VE-Day, and 1.4 million German POWs died in captivity.
* Some of the same concentration camps formerly utilized by the Germans to imprison the Jews and work them to death were co-opted into Allied concentration camps to hold millions of Germans. The same grizzly results ensued: emasculated bodies from those who nearly starved to death and were plagued by pestilence and disease. Nearly all of the famous concentration camps utilized by the Germans--Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen, Buchenwald, and Dachau--were utilized again by the Allies replicating the same hellish conditions perpetrated by the Nazis. German prisoners died in throngs.
* The Americans utilized torture to extract confessions in their prison at Schwabisch Hall. Men had their testicles emasculated in the interrogations.
* There were 600 POW camps in the UK, and over a million POWs died in the USSR.
* On April 17-18, 1945, French soldiers raped as many as 600 women in Freudenstadt, before making passage to Stuggart where they raped 3,000 more.
* The Russians may have raped over 20,000 women alone in Berlin.
The author is not trying to be apologist for the Nazi regime by any stretch of the imagination. He should not be faulted for sticking to his book's topic either. There are plenty of books documenting German atrocities against Poles, Jews, Russians, and Ukrainians. The author's purpose is not to dispute those candid facts. Researcher Giles MacDonogh offers an enthralling and accurate study which exemplifies how liberation was never entirely a happily-ever after story for the millions of Germans subjugated by a conquering Allied army--particularly the vengeful Red Army of the Soviet Union. By spring of 1945, Germany was a nation in tatters, with many urban population centers literally flattened by the bombings. Hundreds of thousands of women were brutally raped, and many civilians were murdered in cold blood by the occupying armies. Hundreds of thousands of Germans were conscripted as laborers, and many deported to Eastern Europe and the Soviet heartland to work as slave laborers. Over 2.25 million Germans died in captivity during the period between the Vienna liberation and Berlin airlift. In airing these historical facts, the author is not trying to be apologist for the Nazi regime by any stretch of the imagination.
Overall, after VE-Day, the American and British were the most munificent to the conquered Germans in their occupation zones, and most of their atrocities were visited against Nazi combatants. In their occupation zone, the French tolerated and sanctioned malevolent vengeance perpetuated against both civilians and combatants alike. The Soviets were by far the most brutal of conquerors, and tales of their torturous bloodbath literally shock the human conscience. The Red Army was apt to rewrite history as they committed their crimes before and after the war. For example, the Soviets purged nearly the entire officer corps of the Polish Army to soften resistance to Soviet occupation in 1940. They literally decapitated the Polish nation's leadership. When the mass graves were uncovered in Katyn Forest, the Soviets attributed their dastardly deed to the Nazis.
As German defeat seemed inevitable in late 1944, some German civilians believed that the occupation in the cities would not be so brutal as the countryside, because they presumed the Red Army would not be apt to commit crimes where onlookers could readily see them. They were wrong. The German propaganda machine reported Red Army atrocities to stiffen resistance to the Soviet advance, and its exposure of vengeance was not mere hyperbole. In winter of 1944-1945, when word came of advancing Red Armies in Prussia, thousands of Germans committed suicide in mass. Women took their children and drowned themselves in the frozen Spree River. They anticipated rape, wanton violence and torture, and the sordid history of occupation vindicates their trepidation. A respected historian Richard Overy collaborates the claims of MacDonogh, and notes that Red Army soldiers raped more than 2,000,000 German women, an estimated 200,000 of whom later died from the trauma, outright murder, or subsequent suicide. Many women found themselves forced to concede to one soldier in the hope that he would protect them from the brutality of others. Women went out of the way to protect their posterity, particularly their daughters, by hiding them in storage lofts for days on end. Young boys were summarily shot when they attempted to protect the women in their families. "The 13-year old Dieter Sahl," neighbors wrote in a letter, "threw himself with flailing fists at a Russian" attacking his mother, and succeeding only at "getting himself shot." In the bitter occupation, many found women themselves subjected to wartime prostitution against their will, in order to secure nourishment and sustenance for their families. Black markets developed in the occupation zones, and they bartered in human flesh.
In the 1940s, there were two demon-incarnates in the world, namely Hitler and Stalin. The Westerners placated the later to vanquish the former. But the later never conciliated his Allies' liberality by being the humanitarian. FDR who surprised Stalin by his overtures of generosity was himself culpable for the Soviet occupation. FDR was literally tracing out arbitrary lines with matchboxes in a National Geographic atlas to determine the postwar landscape. His handiwork decided the fate of millions. Yalta was the "green light" for the Red Army to ethnically cleanse the eastern German territories. Ironically, the better-trained, better-equipped Western Allies could have occupied more German and Austrian territory, but halted their advance in accord with that off-the-table agreement to divide Germany into four zones of occupation. General Patton himself would have much preferred to have kept the tanks going to Moscow. FDR's Treasury Secretary Morgenthau developed his own vengeful plan for turning Germany into a pasture-land ripe for Red Revolution, but fortunately as the Cold War ensued, cooler heads prevailed. Socialism and central planning were scrapped in the late 1940s in favor of the more liberalized market economy pioneered by Ludwig Erhard.
Over three million Germans died in the occupation aftermath of World War Two. This is not questionable revisionist history, just neglected history. Most historians do not dispute this, though some try to trivialize the matter or make shameless excuses for it. Most historians of World War II make a succinct epilogue of liberation which crescendos in the Berlin Airlift and the rise of the Iron Curtain. This is just a side of the war history that doesn't really get told. In the past, historians have downplayed the Allied atrocities, made excuses for it, or went so far as to justify it as justifiable retaliation for the crimes perpetrated by the Nazis. MacDonogh gives voice to the millions of Germans who were fortunate to survive the war, but many of which were subjected to a hellish existence thereafter. Hundreds of thousands of Germans remained slave laborers for thirty to fifty years behind the Iron Curtain.
I really don't know why I revisit World War II history so much. It is genuinely depressing. Reading Norman Davies' book about the Warsaw Rising literally made me nauseated. The Poles found no meaningful liberation under the Soviets who shamefully halted their advance until the Nazis finished off Warsaw. When the Soviets came, they started new torments for the Polish people. The history of the twentieth-century is truly sad. This mesmerizing book by MacDonogh does not make for a happy day after one gets finished reading it. It's painful reading--but a well-written account of the forgotten side of World War II which needs to be told. My religious convictions as a Christian compel me to appreciate the sanctity of life, and plead for mercy to be bestowed upon my nation's conquered enemies. To be sure there were countless recorded acts of mercy and kindness by the liberators toward their conquered foes, particularly the Americans and British. Some Germans in their occupation zones were surprised that they were treated as well as they were. However, we should not obfuscate the historical memory of the war in neglecting the cruel aftermath of the occupation. The revenge-minded French and Red Army were particularly cruel and inhumane 'liberators' of Germany and Austria.
A respected historian Michael Burleigh has endorsed MacDonogh's book.
Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other.
-Psalm 85:10
One more book faulted for sticking to its designated topic August 14, 2007
Alex Bueno-Edwards (New York, NY USA)
59 out of 74 found this review helpful
No book can hope to cover every aspect of an issue, let alone an entire period of history. Faulting this book for lacking a discussion of the Holocaust or German terrorism against the Soviets is like faulting a history of the Holocaust for not having a discussion of the treatment of Soviet POWs. Yet many excellent works about the Holocaust do just that. The author obviously assumes a certain level of knowledge of the context of the historical period. This is perhaps not to the liking of some, but any discussion of the Holocaust, German abuses in the USSR, etc. would necessarily be exceedingly brief and cursory in nature. Would that be any better? I don't think so.
Many historical works digress from their designated theses, but these are examples of poor writing or at least of poor editing. The best works of history stick closely to the particular topic. The notion that McDonogh should write a second volume to "provide context" is absurd. If one wishes to read about the context of the period preceding the human rights abuses, then one can find hundreds of excellent works on nearly every aspect of World War 2, including the Jewish Holocaust, other German murder campaigns against Roma, Soviet POWs, the disabled, homosexuals, communists, etc., the occupation of the USSR, and other issues. There is no need for MacDonogh to write another volume just because you want something neatly packaged.
Finally, re: quotations from David Irving. David Irving WAS, at one time, a more serious (if controversial) scholar, before going off the deep end. Many of his earlier works are acknowledged to be authoritative by a great number of historians. Before faulting all of his work, perhaps one should examine his overall reputation before beginning his career of Holocaust denial. Look online using any search engine for his name for reviews of his work from authorities like the NY Times Review of Books, Hugh Trevor-Roper, The New Yorker, and many others.
This book, with A Terrible Revenge by Alfred-Maurice de Zayas seeks to bring attention to understudied aspects of the post-WW2 era. It's worth reading and I give it 5 stars.
Collective "revenge" based on ethnic heritage cannot be right (something hard to accept for some apologists) August 24, 2007
Jayme Simpson
38 out of 45 found this review helpful
I am very aware of the horrendous crimes the Nazi army division SS had committed on Jews in particular. I am also aware of the many terrible deaths due to the Nazi military invasions in Poland, Belarus, and Russia. Furthermore, I know of the persecution of Roma, mentally and physically disabled people, homosexuals, and the imprisonment of people in the German opposition. Also the insidious employment of propaganda is an aspect I am familiar with. These facts are widely known, Mr. MacDonogh is a historian so he also knows that. And still, the terrible crimes committed by Nazi war criminals cannot mean that one is not allowed to mention the terrible crimes committed on German civilians in the aftermath of the war, and for a few German minorities during and at the beginning of the war. Overall, we are talking about 70 million Germans who lived back then. Yes, amongst them there were millions of Germans who had not been war criminals and who were not responsible for the horrendous crimes committed during the Nazi dictatorship. And yes, millions of these people had to endure a collectivist "revenge", which in many cases meant awful rape, torture and murder of men, women and children alike. At first sight, if one remembers the horrific and unique Holocaust this "reaction" seems justifiable (for the war criminals it would certainly be, but not for the millions of others), but at the same time it's collectivist nature clearly remains wrong and sharply violates basic human rights. And very importantly, most Jews who survived the Holocaust did never engage in such revenge (sometimes even the German Jews who had survived the Holocaust were expelled). In some cases it was even Nazi collaborators who engaged in "revenge". I also want to remind the public, that many people in Eastern Europe did not engage in "revenge". It was some people and politicians who are responsible for the way things worked out for these civilians, and some people who profited from it. Thus, also this collectivist "revenge" was not committed by just everybody. I do recommend Giles MacDonogh's After the Reich: The Brutal History of The Allied Occupation, I also recommend A Terrible Revenge: The Ethnic Cleansing of the East European Germans, Second Edition, Fully Revised and Updated by Alfred-Maurice de Zayas. In addition, I recommend the memoirs by Lev Kopelev (The Education of a True Believer and To be preserved forever), a Russian-Jewish humanist who had protested the violence against German civilians by the Soviet army in East Prussia and who was consequently sentenced with 10 years in Soviet labor camps, and Victor Gollancz's work Our Threatened Values. On the contrary, as opposed to the topic Dresden (which has some important moral implications due to its late occurence), I do not necessarily recommend the releases "The End: Hamburg 1943" or "Inferno: The fiery destruction of Hamburg 1943", because they merely have documentary value and treat events which are good to know, yet not challenging to the same degree. To say MacDonogh's release were anti-American is firstly baseless, and secondly means to completely miss the point. On the contrary, the book applies American values such as human rights of the individual regardless of ethnic heritage. Apart from that, "comprehensibility" (in the context of revengeful feelings and propaganda at the time) and "justifiability" (ok'ing crimes in the legal and moral sense, even today) of collective, ethnically-based "revenge" are two distinct issues which shouldn't be mixed up. Mentioning a different topic: Honestly, would we have ok'd it if Tutsis had indiscriminately killed Hutu civilians in "revenge"? Would we have ok'd it if the Tutsi government had issued a law that it is actually legal to kill and brutalize any Hutu he or she can encounter and to strip him of his possessions? Was every Hutu a war criminal? Would it even have been ok to the Hutus who actively fought against the war to strip them of their right to vote and to prohibit them to speak their language or admit their identity? Would it have been ok to send other Hutus who lived far away from Rwanda into labor camps? Now coming back to the book: One ought to remember that it wasn't all the population in Eastern Europe, who brutalized these civilians in "revenge", it especially also wasn't most of the surviving Jews.
Long overdue account of post-war brutality August 22, 2007
Ben D. Schaechter (New York, NY United States)
28 out of 38 found this review helpful
Very fascinating and well-written book.
Much of the criticism directed against this book is unwarranted and absurd. The book does present brutalities inflicted upon the Germans in a context. However, its focus is not on the Holocaust or brutalities inflicted upon Russians.
Whether one thinks these brutalities were justified or excusable is irrelevant. They still need to be discussed and evaluated by histoirians and the public at large.
However,I am hesitant to elevate these unjust acts to the equivalency of genocide or "ethnic cleansing". But an objective historian would gather all the evidence before reaching that conclusion. And the public has heard relatively little about the bloodbath inflicted upon Germans in Czechoslovakia and the like.
Any objective factual account of events should be viewed as a conbtribution. Whether acts were justified or not, they still transpired.
 Shameful revisionist history and poorly written to boot September 19, 2007
R. C Sheehy (Foxboro,MA USA)
26 out of 99 found this review helpful
After reading this book I found myself confused. It was obviously one of the worst histories ever written of the World War II era but what was worse, the naked pro-Nazi angle or the terrible inaccuracies and poor editing found withing.
Let me start with what I see as the pro-Nazi angle. Mr. MacDonogh tries to convince us that the Germans had fought this honorable war and then when invaded by the allied armies who raped, pillaged and rampaged their way throughout Germany. He pays short attention to the Nazi crimes done in the name of the German people and supported by many of them. For each mention of the Holocaust there are several mentions of supposed allied war crimes which the British are interestingly not as invested in as the American's, French or Russians.
So it might be better to say that the author is also overtly pro-British as he attributes the allied victory and successful rehabilitation of Germany to Britain and makes no mention at all of the Marshall Plan. Also, the author maintains that the US Army threw out food rather than give it to the German people. This is out and out false. My father served in Germany in 1945-46 as a supply cook and can attest to the exact opposite being what was done.
Aside from his belief that the Nazi's suffered terribly and did nothing to deserve this fate, there are several errors such as calling the US Military Academy westpoint and not West Point. I suggest that in the future Mr. MacDonogh get his facts straight and hire a better editor.
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