This was the first Glasnost biography to come out of the then Soviet Union using many new resources and archives.  The author, the son of an agrarian specialist who was purged in 1937, went on, despite his questionable background, to become a Colonel General of the Soviet Army. Dedicated to his profession, he was shocked by the 1956 denunciation of Stalin by Khrushchev and began to gather material for this book at this time.  In addition to early access to archives, the author also was able to speak to many individuals who were associated with Stalin; although Stalin did not have any close relationships after the suicide of his second wife, these individuals were able to provide tidbits of information about Stalin’s habits, techniques, etc.

Originally written in 1947, this was the first comprehensive account to the trial of the major Nazi leaders after World War II.  The desire to create some type of trial (there was no international precedent) in a speedy manner (the beginning of the Cold War and the normal desire of the average citizen to get on with life) were two of the major challenges facing the judges and attorneys who had their own motives and goals.  Although the Nazi regime kept efficient records, the sheer volume of those records and the seemingly complex relationships between departments and organizations made errors unavoidable.  No one even within the Nazi regime could always explain the power differentials between the State and Party organizations, for example, responsible for the administration of any given area (the SD was a party organization while the Reich Foreign Ministry was a State organ but they each had administrative duties in some of the occupied territories).  Add in the duties of the Wehrmacht, the SS, the Todt labor organization, etc., and the judge’s confusion is understandable.

While historians believe that after the victory at Midway Island the course of the war in the Pacific was set, this excellent history of the naval battels around Guadalcanal shows that had the U.S. navy not prevailed, the marines on the island would have been defeated, displayed in captivity and a serious setback handed to the overall strategy.  That the U.S. naval forces were not defeated was not due to the brilliance of the naval leadership, but rather due to luck, a technological advantage that was nearly thrown away, sheer luck and the misunderstanding of the Japanese military which was focused on tactics instead of logistics.

For a week in late May 1941, the eyes and attention of the British Admiralty and the German Kriegsmarine were focused on the North Sea as the German battleship Bismarck, was attempting to break out on a raiding mission in the Atlantic.  After sinking the pride of the British nave, HMS Hood, Bismarck turned its attention of the Prince of Wales and swiftly caused such damage that the British ship had to run for its life.  Unfortunately for the Bismarck, she was also hit and was badly leaking oil and taking on water.  What followed for the next three days has been the subject of books and movies for over fifty years.  The author was a gunnery officer on the Bismarck and was one of 115 survivors (out of a crew of 2,200).  His story is a firsthand description from “the other side” about a battle that was almost preordained-in my opinion- to failure.

I have read biographies of Mussolini and military books, trying in vain to find out why Mussolini was so adored by his I have people.  Hitler, Stalin, Mao, I could understand as they tapped into the needs of the people, promised them what they desired and delivered on many of the promises (although at a huge, terrible price).  Mussolini, aside from killing off (or their fleeing to the US) the Mafia and making the trains run on time, seemed to stagger from one disaster to another.  It must have been the pomp and uniforms that kept many people enthralled and we need to remember that FDR and Churchill both had favorable opinions of the Italian dictator for quite a while.

DeGaulle was a major figure for almost two decades in post-World War II Europe.  After being the lone voice for a free France after its collapse in the face of the German invasion, he managed against all odds to create a movement which was often at loggerheads with the very forces (the British and Americans) who paid for, fed, equipped, and supplied his small forces (most of French rescued at Dunkirk had decided to return to France rather than stay in the U.K. and continue the fight).  He was egotistical, dogmatic, tightly controlled, and he shaped Europe more through his inactions than through his actions. 

The belief that certain people(s) are inherently superior to others and that “lesser” peoples need to be controlled did not begin with the Nazis.  Margaret Sanger, Woodrow Wilson and other Americans joined together with others in Europe decades before the Nazis to argue that birth control would help to control the “lesser” peoples, that blacks could not learn mechanical skills and that somehow the “superior” white race which had created Western Civilization needed to control the animalistic reproductive urges of the “lesser” peoples before they swamped the civilized world.

It is difficult to write an interesting book on politics when 1) the national politics in question cover a country unfamiliar to the reader and 2) included individuals from an obscure past, yet Professor Craig managed to create a history that is lively and very informative.  We tend to think of Prussia as a militarized state, going back to the time of Frederick the Great, and yet there were several attempts by both the civilian and military leadership to exert civilian control over the military (primarily the officer corps).  Each attempt failed due to either poor and uncoordinated political moves, foreign wars or the revolution of 1848.

History is replete with lost wars, often caused by rivalries between top decision makers over strategies, type of munitions, tactics, and of course, political turf wars.  It is refreshing to read a book which outlines how five different men, all driven (by patriotism, some also by glory) managed to create the most powerful navy in the history of the world and use it in a manner which contributed to the total victory over the forces of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan.  As the book focuses on these five men, the actions of the hundreds of thousands who served under them and were at the “sharp end of the stick” are not covered, but one is struck by the force of their personalities and how those personalities much have inspired many of those lower down the ladder.

How was it that under a regime which introduced radio on a mass scale to the average family, that pioneered the Americanization of political campaigning in Europe and that openly encouraged the average citizen to at least boycott their Jewish neighbors, how could the average citizen claim ignorance of the actions of the Nazi regime?  The regime made no secret of its ideology nor of most of its methods and yet, even in the period leading up to the start of the war, yet after the war, people claimed that they did not know what was happening right before their eyes.