Product Description

Hitler’s Empire constituted the largest, most brutal and most ambitious reshaping of the continent ever attempted in Europe’s history. Liberalism and democracy were swept aside, as Germany aimed to turn itself into the most powerful state on the continent, and to compel everyone else to recognize its mastery. Europe’s future was to lie in a new racial order based on the uprooting, resettlement and extermination of millions of people. Hitler’s Empire charts the landscape of the Nazi imperial imagination – from those economists who dreamed of turning Europe into a huge market for German business, to Hitler’s own plans for new trans-continental motorways passing over the ethnically cleansed Russian steppe, and earnest in-house SS discussions of political theory, dictatorship and the rule of law. Above all, this chilling account shows too what happened as these ideas met reality. After their early battlefield triumphs, the sheer bankruptcy of the Nazis’ political vision for Europe became all too clear: their allies bailed out, their New Order collapsed in military failure, and they left behind a continent corrupted by collaboration, impoverished by looting and exploitation, and grieving the victims of total war and genocide.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #50871 in Books
• Published on: 2008-06-05
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 768 pages

Norman Stone, Guardian
`[A] beautifully constructed account of life under the horrifying Nazi empire ... Splendid'

Herald
`In many ways an exemplary volume.'

Review
`Remarkable ... provocative ... an important new book'

Customer Reviews

Excellent
This is a first class book which allows a comparative reading of the Nazi occupation of different countries of Europe. What it really shows is the difficulty of trying to see Nazi occupation as a monolith. In reality the practice pursued in the different occupied countries varied enormously- according to which German administration was dominant in the occupied country, according to Nazi stereotypes of each country and what they hoped to achieved from occupying it, according to how the population of each country responded, not forgetting that Nazi occupations generally became more severe with time. A complex history but well worth reading about.

Excellent Book
So much literature and history related to World War II in Europe passes through the prism of emotionalism that it actually ends up as propaganda either villifying or lionizing groups or individuals. Whether it be the need to praise the heroism of allied troops, establish the obscene nature of the holocaust or chronicle the perfidity of statesmen, it seems that authors are so often in the thrall of their emotions that the literature is on some level or another, tainted. While Mazower does not by any means disregard the incredible immorality of Nazi policy in Europe, he takes a clinical and wide angle approach to his analysis.

He sets out to examine why the Nazis did what they did and what they hoped to achieve. He gets to the nub of it by identifying an issue that plagued German policy and self-conception from the time of Bismarck. How should Germany best deal with the problems of mixed ethnic communities containing significant populations of Germans outside the Reich?

It is understanding that this question is the infamous "German Question" that Hitler tried so outrageously to "solve" that provides the framework to the book and the entire conflict. The irony is that Hitler's war did indeed end up "solving" this German Question but in a way that was far different from what Hitler intended.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

It had a great review in The Spectator's book pages
This book had a really excellent review in the London Spectator magazine dated 5th July. It made me put this book on my wishlist. One of the central theses of the book is that the Germans themselves were surprised and unprepared for the complete collapse of their Western European enemies in 1940. Thus, there were no settled policies, and given the subjective nature of racial hatred, and the competing heirarchies of SS, the Army, Civil Service and competing Gauleiters, chaos was inevitable and, ultimately, cost Germany the war. Mythical concepts of German destiny and racial hatred prevailed over military necessity and pragmatism. Mazower quotes Goebbels saying, perhaps ironically, 'If anyone asks us how you conceive the new Europe, we have to reply that we don't know.'