| What to do with Germany
(1944)
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| Front Cover |
Book Details |
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| Genre |
Non-Fiction |
| Subject |
Reconstruction (1939-1951) - Germany |
| Publication Date |
1944 |
| Format |
Hardcover (8.3
mm)
|
| Publisher |
Ziff-Davis Pub. Co. |
|
|
| Personal Details |
| Acquire Date |
6/10/2010 |
| Condition |
Very Good/Fair |
| Rating |
0 |
| Links |
Library of Congress
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| Product Details |
| LoC Classification |
D829.G3 .N58 |
| Dewey |
940.53144 |
| Cover Price |
$2.50 |
| No. of Pages |
213 |
| First Edition |
No |
| Rare |
No |
|
| Notes/Review |
This was an interesting one.
As a scholarly work, it falls a bit short in my eyes. It has no notes and is not indexed, but does include a bibliography which is broken down to match the chapters. Also, it is written in that rather strident tone so common of books about the war written during the war.
Nizer sets forth the case that generations of education and propaganda made the German people so warlike that extreme measures must be taken to prevent them from starting a third world war. To counter this, he proposes a series of remedies including punishment, economic sanction, re-education programs, and (believe it or not) a federalized world government.
Of course, he didn't foresee the division of Europe when the Iron Curtain came down, so the only part of his program that came to be was the war crimes trials. These, though, were mild in comparison to what Nizer suggested. He makes the case that 150,000 Germans should face the death penalty, and a million more be put to work rebuilding Europe's infrastructure.
This book is more than a "how-to". The most valuable part, to me, is the inter-war history he lays out. He details how Germany essentially avoided paying reparations, how war crimes trials were avoided, and the rise of I. G. Farben and other German-run industrial cartels. And how all this was done before Hitler's rise. He doesn't cut Hitler any slack, but makes the case that the Second World War was inevitable given the "martial tendencies of the German people." |
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