After the Reich by Basic Books

	Title: After the Reich Purchase Item Manufacturer: Basic Books List Price: $32.00 Our Price: $13.67
Customer Reviews:
After the Reich by Basic Books Bad reviews are from political pawns
I'm disgusted at the selfish, biased and brain-dead reviews of the leftists that give this book one star because they hate anything that could possibly make the Allies look bad or the Germans look like victims, because their selfish stuck-up elitist views of the world might possibly be challenged. I had a grandfather and a great grandfather on BOTH sides tell me similar stories. My Great grandfather made it out alive, but with nothing. The Russians stopped their train 30 times in 15 miles, and each time came on board and took what they wanted, even worthless items, one which held cut emeralds that he traded his home and land and all his family possessions for. The Russians were cruel, taking family photos and burning them on the train. A few that protested were shot, bodies left in the seats in the crowded train. My grandfather, of the 8th, then 11th US AAC, told stories of the black market, mostly food and cigarettes (at 50 USD to 100 USD per carton!), and the loot everyone sent home day after day. For those that don't believe the rapes, you are ignorant. Even the liberal Milwaukee Journal Sentinel ran a piece on a local woman who wanted to find her rapist Russian father. The evidence is irrefutable. This book is more detailed than "OTHER LOSSES", and a sad treat to read.
After the Reich by Basic Books A different truth.
After the Reich: The Brutal History of The Allied Occupation The truth about what actually happened in Germany immediately after WW2 was and still is hardly known in most other European countries. One was obviously pre-occupied with one's own problems. This detailed study can be considered as a true eye-opener.
After the Reich by Basic Books Important Testimony and Topic, but Poorly Written and Organized
I share some of the contextual concerns raised by the Washington Post review, yet I also agree that the author is not obligated to retell facts that are widely known in a book devoted to exposing facts that are not widely known. So I sympathize with the plight of the author, who took on an ambitious topic and has written a highly thought-provoking, sobering look at the costs of war. But I do think that the book fails to live up to its premise, or to the topic that it hoped to cover. For my money, I will take Gunter Grass' illuminating, brilliantly written account of what it was like to be a German POW in Allied hands after the war, the unforgettable account of the imaginary meals that would be prepared by a German master chef also in Allied captivity, than anything written here. I find the author's writing style to be so dry, so clinical, sometimes repetitive, that it badly calls out for a decent editor. I cannot follow the chapters, sometimes they appear to be about the same thing, and there are passages that go on forever, calling out for better organization and, to be frank, just better writing. But I thank him for bringing to light an amazing story and collecting personal testimony that is heart-rendering and that needs to be told. I just wish someone else takes on this topic and does a better job with it.
After the Reich by Basic Books What Pillage actually means
"By May 7, 1945 at least 1,800,000 German civilians had perished and 3,600,000 homes had been destroyed (20% of total), leaving 7.5 million homeless. As many as 16.5 million Germans were to be driven from their homes. Of these some 2,250,000 would die during the expulsions from the south and east." In most history books, the word "pillage" is supposed to convey to the reader all sorts of terrible things. I didn't even imagine that rape was one of them until long after college. If you've ever wondered what the word pillage actually means, at any time or place of war and its aftermath, read this book - it has all the details. Having seen horrifying WWII Holocaust footage since I was nine years old, and having read Goldhagen's "Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans & the Holocaust", I thought I'd have no problem reading about German's getting their comeuppance at the hands of the allies after the war ended. But reading the stories of survivors about brutal rapes, starvation, beating, suicides, and enslavement upset me so much I could only skim some of the book. Soldiers, especially the Russians, brutally raped women from 7 to 80 years old, as revenge for what Germans did to them. Polish and Russian brigands formed robber gangs and attacked isolated farm houses at night. Russians also took more booty of all kinds back with them as "repayment" than any other occupying force. As MacDonogh puts it "virtually every sewing machine, gramophone, and wireless" was taken East (as well as millions of tons of industrial machinery). Certainly, the Nazis took a lot of art as booty, but "they were amateurs compared to the Red Army" according to MacDonogh. Unfortunately, much of what the Russians took was destroyed in fighting, burning down the remaining architectural treasures, or through sheer negligence. Though whatever the Russians took paled in comparison to Napoleon Bonaparte, the greatest art thief of all time. But not just the Russians -- all of the occupying forces - British, American, French, etc., if not outright taking valuables, traded food, cigarettes, and other black market items for German treasures. After any war, the black market thrives, as people desperate to survive barter for goods. There was very little food after the war available to Germans. In urban areas, the black market thrived near rail road stations, which were also places where prostitution thrived and the homeless lived. Cigarettes became the main currency, but other popular items to trade were soap, gum, butter, flour, coffee, chocolate, alcohol, wood, and oranges. But you had to beware - some tins contained nothing but filth or the goods might be rotten. Many fabulously rich West Germans got their start in WWII black markets. Another way to survive was to steal food or coal. Many Germans died of cold - over 60,000 in the cold 1946-47 winter alone, especially those over 60 who were most susceptible to hypothermia, though quite a few in their fifties and forties also succumbed to the cold as well. Special trains took town and city folk to country areas to trade with farmers, who preferred that over taking the risk of going to the city and having all of their produce stolen. If no farmers were around, city folk harvest their crops and paid nothing for them. The Farmers didn't trust money - you had to exchange useful goods. Farmers also converted their crops to alcohol, apple schnapps was a popular and profitable beverage for them. To prevent rape, women made themselves as unattractive as possible. Another strategy some young women took was to sleep with as high a Russian officer as possible for protection. Women in general sought out military men of all the occupying forces for many reasons, for food, and also companionship as so many German men had died in the war. Many women committed suicide rather than be raped, or killed themselves afterwards - there are many tales not only of women but whole families killing themselves. The mistreated foreign workers, who'd been forced to work in Germany while the men fought, often informed Russian soldiers where to find women to rape and alcohol and food to plunder. Liquor was greatly sought after, few people were able to hide the wine in their cellars from rampaging soldiers, and this made raping even more brutal and frequent. Germany was so destroyed by bombs that towns often had few homes remaining, and the occupying forces took over these, especially the best homes. Even those homes that survived were often destroyed, and people lived in ruins or even holes in the ground, especially orphaned children. After the occupation, Germans were often forced into work duty, such as digging graves for ten or more hours with little food or water, so some people took to wearing fake slings. The saga of how the great powers intended to divide Germany up is worth reading and covered in the first part of the book. Some wanted to destroy the industrial base entirely, forcing Germany to be an Agrarian nation. Others wanted to divide Germany into 4 or 5 different states. Truman saw the worst plans for Germany as "an act of revenge" and rejected them. Each nation wanted something -- France wanted German coal (among other things), and the bargaining began long before the war ended between the nations. Much of the hardship to Germans came to those expelled from Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Yugoslavia after the war, the details are covered in Chapters 4 and 5. The major failing of the book for me was that MacDonogh writes almost nothing about the tens of millions of deaths caused by the Nazis. It's well-known that ordinary Germans were fully aware and even complicit in what was going on in the death camps, yet the book only has accounts of survivors who claim to have known nothing of what was going on in the concentration camps.
After the Reich by Basic Books Washington Post Review is Spot On
Interesting, flawed, and slanted view of events which includes questionable facts and scholarship. A far superior work is Endgame - 1945 by David Stafford but this is certainly a unique addition to Second World War histories (though "history" may not be appropriate to this work.) Read the Washington Post Book World review and others by scholars of the period for professional opinions of this book.
After the Reich by Basic Books Product Description
When the Third Reich collapsed in 1945, the Allied powers converged on Germany and divided it into four zones of occupation. A nation in tatters, in many places literally flattened by bombs, was suddenly subjected to brutal occupation by vengeful victors. Rape was rampant. Hundreds of thousands of Germans and German-speakers died in the course of brutal deportations from Eastern Europe. By the end of the year, Germany was literally starving to death. Over a million German prisoners of war died in captivity, where they were subjected to inadequate rations and often tortured. All told, an astounding 2.25 million German civilians died violent deaths in the period between the liberation of Vienna and the Berlin airlift. A shocking account of a massive and vicious military occupation, After the Reich offers a bold reframing of the history of World War II and its aftermath. Historian Giles MacDonogh has unearthed a record of brutality which has been largely ignored by historians or, worse, justified as legitimate retaliation for the horror of the Holocaust. Drawing on a vast array of contemporary firstperson accounts, MacDonogh has finally given a voice to tens of millions of civilians who, lucky to survive the war, found themselves struggling to survive a hellish peace.