As we approach the end of the 21st century, it is important that we learn all that we can from those who have lived through the horrors of this current century while they are still alive. In the case of the Holocaust, those who lived through it - victims, victimizers and bystanders - are dying out and taking their memories and ideas with them. It is timely then, that Laurence Rees of the world-reknowned BBC has both produced the television series The Nazis and has authored this companion book The Nazis: A Warning from History. Unlike facile histories of the era that dismiss the Holocaust as an anomalous tragedy that was solely the fault of one man (Adolph Hitler) and which will probably never recur, this book warns readers that the policies and attitudes that led to the concentration camps and the commission of wartime atrocities were the result of complicity on the part of Germany's advisors, politicians, workers and civilians. This thesis is adeptly proven through Rees' use of dozens of photographs (including color ones), analyses from respected historians and academics and testimony from surviving Jews, Nazi soldiers, Hitler Youth, Poles, activists and civilians. The endnotes and annotated bibliography lead the readers to other sources where they can learn even more.

One of the frightening themes that runs through Rees' work is the idea that the Germans chose to reject democracy. This idea may seem absurd to today's youth because we are brought up to believe that the democratic system is the only rational ideology and that those who enjoy freedom could never give it up for a repressive dictatorship. However, in the case of Depression-era Germany, the loss of faith in the status quo, the distrust of Jews (which had already been passed down through the generations) and the growing sense of shame felt by citizens combined to make the Germans anxious about the new democratic system that had just been put into place: "...by 1932, the majority of the German people, in supporting either the Communists or the Nazis, were voting for political parties openly committed to the overthrow of German democracy." (pg 42). Rees shows how, bit by bit, the German people let Hitler tear away at anything that would cause them to reject his ways: "There were no cabinet meetings, no national assemblies, no party senate, no forums in which Germans could legitimately come together to question...A system had evolved which protected Hitler not just from being constitutionally removed from office, but from coherent criticism of any sort." (pg. 210) Just as abhorrent is the suggestion by surviving Nazis that it was their specific horrible circumstances, which could befall any of us or any country, and not personal defects or national character that led Germany to become such a fascist nation. One German angrily said to the interviewer, "It's easy for you, isn't it? You've never been tested." (pg. 235).

Overall, I would highly recommend this book for academic library history collections, Holocaust collections in Jewish and special libraries and the history collections of public libraries.

Reviewed by:

Steven M. Bergson, Librarian
Jewish Public Library of Toronto

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