The Order of the Death's Head: The Story of Hitler's SS - Brossura

Hohne, Heinz

Brossura

ISBN 10: 0141390123 ISBN 13: 9780141390123

Casa editrice: Penguin Classics, 2000

Riassunto

The author has drawn on primary historical sources in the form of secret SS archives, confidential papers and diaries and hundreds of personal interviews to reveal that the SS was not directed by some devilishly efficient system, but was the product of accident, inevitability and the grouping together of criminals, place-seekers and romanticists. 'A monumental achievement' New York Times Review of Books

Su questo libro

L'autore:

Heinz Hohne was head of the Foreign News Department at 'Der Spiegel' and is also the author of CODEWORD: DIREKTOR, the story of the Red Orchestra spy-ring which operated in Nazi Germany.

Estratto. © Riproduzione autorizzata. Diritti riservati.:

Their uniform was black and they were the terror of a nation. Their badge was the death’s head and they swore eternal allegiance to the Führer. Their flash was the runic double-S and they murdered men in millions. Hardly an aspect of the nation’s life seemed safe from their interference; they provided the sentries on the Reich Chancellery and the guards in the concentration camps; they manned the divisions which carried the death’s-head symbol to Europe; they occupied key positions in agriculture, the health service, racial policy and scientific affairs; they crushed their way into traditional diplomatic festivities; they had their watchdogs among the ministerial bureaucrats.They called themselves the “Schutzstaffel [guard echelon SS] of the National-Socialist Party and in the words of SS-Hauptsturmführer [Captain] Dieter Wisliceny they considered themselves a “new form of religious sect with its own rites and customs” ...In fact the SS world was a bizarre nonsensical affair devoid of all logic. The theories hitherto advanced to explain the SS phenomenon have been equally bizarre, though superficially logical. In fact, history shows that the SS was anything but an organisation constructed and directed on some diabolically efficient system; it was a product of accident and automatism. The real history of the SS is a story of idealists and criminals, of place-seekers and romantics; it is the history of the most fantastic association of men imaginable.

Su questa edizione

• Editore: Penguin Classics
• Data di pubblicazione: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0141390123
• ISBN 13: 9780141390123
• Rilegatura: Copertina flessibile
• Numero di pagine: 720