David Cesarani
Defies Any Parallel
The Third Reich: A New History
Macmillan 956pp £25
Every 9 November during the Third Reich, Hitler and his minions performed a solemn memorial rite for comrades killed during the struggle for power. The day that properly commemorated the dead of the Great War was appropriated for men whose fate was rather less noble. But to the Nazis they were 'martyrs' who sacrificed their lives for their prophetic leader and the redemption of Germany. Michael Burleigh brilliantly sums up this flimflammery as a 'Nazified passion play'. It was, however, part of the larger picture in which the ordinary was sentimentalised and recast as sacred. Even the welfare system was adapted to nurture faith in the ethnic community and family. For this reason, too, the Nazis' conflict with the Church was anything but a sideshow.
Burleigh modestly claims no originality for these insights. Although his superb synthesis is bang up to date and can justly claim to be 'a new history' in that sense, he acknowledges in his provocative introduction that there is little 'new' in its analysis or central arguments. Instead, Burleigh has revived
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
London's East End was long synonymous with poverty and sweatshops, while its West End was associated with glamour and high society. But when it came to the fashion industry, were the differences really so profound?
Sharman Kadish - Winkle-pickers & Bum Freezers
Sharman Kadish: Winkle-pickers & Bum Freezers - Fashion City: How Jewish Londoners Shaped Global Style; Fashion City: ...
literaryreview.co.uk
In 1982, Donald Rumsfeld presented Saddam Hussein with a pair of golden spurs. Two decades later he was dropping bunker-busting bombs on his palaces.
Where did the US-Iraqi relationship go wrong?
Rory Mccarthy - The Case of the Vanishing Missiles
Rory Mccarthy: The Case of the Vanishing Missiles - The Achilles Trap: Saddam Hussein, the United States and the ...
literaryreview.co.uk
Barbara Comyns was a dog breeder, a house painter, a piano restorer, a landlady... And a novelist.
@nclarke14 on the lengths 20th-century women writers had to go to make ends meet:
Norma Clarke - Her Family & Other Animals
Norma Clarke: Her Family & Other Animals - Barbara Comyns: A Savage Innocence by Avril Horner
literaryreview.co.uk