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This book gives a pretty clear look at how things were run in Germany. Though it is wartime reporting, so there would be differences from peacetime, but even in peacetime, resources were limited, and thus heavily controlled.
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[–] 16215294? ago
This book gives a pretty clear look at how things were run in Germany. Though it is wartime reporting, so there would be differences from peacetime, but even in peacetime, resources were limited, and thus heavily controlled.
[–] 16215363? ago
Book has a great intro. This is going to be a great read. Thanks.
not what was wanted by America’s intellectual and policy
establishment. Even before Into the Darkness was published, Time
magazine sniped at Stoddard as “persona grata to Nazis,” running a
grotesquely truncated version of his interview with Goebbels (already
published through the North American Newspaper Alliance). By the
time his book appeared, Germany ‘s armed forces had conquered
Denmark and Norway, overrun the Lowlands and conquered France,
and driven British troops back across the Channel. While the United
States, in accord with the wishes of the great majority of Americans,
would stay officially neutral for a further a year and half, the climate
in the publishing world, the academy, and government was such that
Stoddard felt constrained to include an apologetic “Statement” on the
book jacket. It begins “Personally repellent and depressing though
Nazi Germany was to me, as it must be to any normally-minded
American .” and continues in the same mode for two paragraphs.
Stoddard’s aim then was to salvage himself and his book by
advertising Into the Darkness as a clarion call to preparedness against
the German “New Sparta with its cult of ruthless efficiency”; today,
Stoddard’s apology for Into the Darkness stands more as a sad tribute
to the intimidating power, even then, of America’s Orwellian media
combine. One can’t help noting that none of Stalin ‘s many apologists
among American journalists seems to have felt compelled to write a
similar disclaimer.
Sixty years after it was written, the text of Into the Darkness is both a
refutation of its author’s apologia and a rebuke to his detractors. This
is a journalistic account that still lives and breathes, that informs and
entertains.
[–] 16215366? ago
Most shocking thing I learn so far about real Nazi life:
Another surprising matter was the number of officers and soldiers
sitting together in gay parties throughout the audience. I had already
noted instances of this in North Germany, but not to the same extent.
Recalling as I did the rigid caste lines in both the old Imperial Army
and the small professional Reichswehr established after the World
War, it took me some time to get used to these evidences of social
fraternization. The new trend is due to two causes. In the first place, it
is part of the Nazi philosophy to break down class and caste
distinctions, and weld the whole nation into a conscious Gemeinschaft
— an almost mystical communion, as contrasted with the rest of the
world. In such a socialized nationhood, the traditional caste barriers,
first between officers and soldiers, secondly between army and
civilians, are obviously out of line. The present German army is
undoubtedly more of a Volksheer — a People’s Army, than it ever was
before. This new tendency is also furthered by the fact that with better
education, specialization, and technical training of the rank-and-file,
officers and men are more nearly on the same plane. The old Imperial
Army, unmechanized and made up so largely of peasant lads
commanded by Junker squires, was a vastly different institution.
Yet, despite all social changes, military discipline and authority do not
seem to have suffered. No matter how friendly men and officers may
be off duty, the heel-clicking and stiff saluting on duty are as
punctilious as they ever were in the old days
[–] 16215297? ago
'Audiobooks anon' has recorded the first eight chapters of it so far >>>/pdfs/8073
https://mega.nz/#F!nVRlxCrR!TvWPLk33Iz19wNar5py4qQ!bVgUBCyJ