After the Reich | Giles MacDonogh | Mc Donogh's book is important documentation

After the Reich | Giles MacDonogh | it should be read

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After the Reich

	After the Reich Giles MacDonogh Basic Books, 2007 - 656 pages average customer review:based on 25 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Mc Donogh's book is important documentation

History is not selective, it happens on both sides of wars, and WWII is no exception.

Mr. McDonogh's book is supported by witnesses of WWII who are still living. Among them is Gudrun Everett and her recent autobiography "I can't forget: a Journey through Nazi Germany and WWII," where she tells her personal story of a 400-mile trek that began in Nazi-occupied Poland to escape from the advancing Soviets, and her description of Occupation Forces on both sides, the great post-war suffering by Germans, and of a country that eventually was to be devided by an Iron Curtain.

Mr. McDonogh's book is important in documenting the personal experiences of such authors and thereby 20th century history - from all sides.

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it should be read

This grim book is one which should be read. One should not be surprised that it can arouse strong emotions, many of which are on display in some of the other, often lengthy, reviews on these web pages. This reader, a non-historian whose ethnicity and age place him far from the fray which can arouse such emotions, found the book answered his questions--those of a disinterested, but curious amateur. Macdonogh uses a direct journalistic style to lay out a fact-based case that the allied occupation of Germany was a harsh one. This should not come as a surprise, but one rarely hears of any of the details. They should be known, and they are highly unpleasant. They also have resonance in present-day Iraq. Moreover, the case he presents is consistent with a few conversations I have had with American enlisted men of my father's generation, as well as that of a close colleague who grew up hungry in a displaced persons' camp because he was a four-year-old who spoke German, but did not live in Germany.

I can quibble with a few elements of style: occasionally, the author displayed the uncomfortable whiff of aristocratic aloofness, for some unknown reason he informed us when American soldiers in his narrative happened to be black, and I occasionally would have preferred to learn how a broader range of historians have treated this era. These are minor points, and should not prevent the interested reader from buying this worthy book.

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Facts that needed to be aired

An excellent book. It reports in great detail a long ignored chapter of European history. I can only confirm some of what has been reported, having been an eye witness to the horrors of World War II and its aftermath myself.

An important, if flawed, book

"After the Reich" is one of the first books to tackle the Occupation, from 1945 through roughly 1948, and the author is nothing if not thorough. The problem? The book tries to skirt the line between academic and popular history, and doesn't quite succeed on either score. At times, the author wallows in minutia, tosses about phrases in German, French, and even Latin (without translation), and generally falls prey to the academic historian's tendency to plow through a topic in strict A, B, C linear fashion. But once you get through the first half of the book, the author shakes off these trappings and starts telling us the real story--how people were truly affected, the political backbiting among the allies, how the West caved to the Russians, tart commentary about the French, and more. So this is worth the read, but be prepared to skim the first half of the book.

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reviews: 1, 2, 3, page 4, 5

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