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Reviews of Books
however, had Brenner delved more deeply into the
reception of the books he describes among Jews; they
were widely reviewed and much discussed at the time.
In his treatment of music and the visual arts, Brenner confines himself almost entirely to what was
distinctive in the Jewish communities and cultural
associations. Because much of this artistic work was
religious, the theme of a Jewish culture newly founded
on ethnicity rather than religion slips from prominence. That theme returns decisively, however, when
Brenner examines the mainly secular East European
Jewish intellectual community that flourished in Germany during the early 1920s. For the first time, German Jews encountered Hebrew and Yiddish culture at
first hand, although Brenner concedes that its impact
was largely limited to the Zionist minority.
In an epilogue on the Nazi years, Brenner concludes
that the events of 1933 constitute a hreak in the
development of a specifically Jewish culture. Jewish
existence then became far too anxious and cramped for
cultural renaissance to continue. Not everyone will
agree with this conclusion, but it must be conceded
that the conditions under which Jewish culture could
develop were profoundly altered.
This well-researched and thoughtful study might
have benefited from a more sophisticated historiographical context. The image that Brenner seeks to
overturn, of Weimar-era Jews cravenly pursuing radical assimilation ism, was discredited by scholars long
ago, even if it does linger in the popular mind.
Moreover, his zeal to establish the emergence of a new
collective Jewish identity in the 1920s sometimes
causes Brenner to lose touch with the profound and
persistent divisions among German Jews. This volume
will be valued chiefly as a highly readable survey of
specifically Jewish cultural trends in Weimar Germany
that recast the Jewish heritage in a secular context.
DONALD L. NIEWYK
Southern Methodist University
HENRY FRIEDLANDER. The Origins of Nazi Genocide:
From Euthanasia to the Final Solution. Chapel Hill:
University of North Carolina Press. 1995. Pp. xxiii, 421.
$34.95.
The world's first gas chamber designed for killing
people was built at an abandoned prison in Brandenburg in the winter of 1939-1940. The first victims were
psychiatric patients, the initial group singled out by
Nazi leaders for extermination in the so-called "euthanasia operation," code-named T4. Patients were told
they were entering an "inhalatorium" and then a
shower; showerheads were later added to perfect the
illusion. Reichsarztefiihrer Leonardo Conti was reportedly the first to suggest the use of poison gas;
Alhert Widmann, the SS chemical engineer who killed
Russian handicapped with dynamite, proposed releasing gas into hospital dormitories while the patients
slept. The decision was finally made to use gas chambers after the Brandenburg experiment showed the
AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW
efficacy of the procedure (killing by injection was the
rejected "control"). Friedlander argues that while the
creation of the gas chamber was a unique invention of
Nazi Germany, the methods developed "to lure the
victims to the chambers, to kill them on an assembly
line, and to process their corpses" (p. 93) were even
more significant. The gas chambers (the "killing hardware") and the method of application (the "killing
software") were both developed first for use in the
euthanasia operation. Euthanasia managers pioneered
the practice of selection, the technologies of extermination, the robbing of gold teeth from corpses, and
most of the methods of deception later used in the
death camps. Many concentration camp administrators
and technicians began their killing careers in T4
facilities equipped with state-of-the-art murder machines. T4 men eventually composed "almost the
entire personnel of the extermination of camps of
Operation Reinhard"-Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka-where nearly two million people perished (p.
297). The topics covered in this well-researched and
wide-ranging volume include the struggles between the
party and the civil bureaucracy over control of the
eugenics movement, the killing of Pomeranian and
Polish handicapped early in the war, T4's role in the
killing of tubercular Ostarbeiter, and popular and clerical opposition to the killing of the handicapped. A
chilling chapter charts the background of the perpetrators-the doctors, nurses, drivers, cooks, construction workers, police officers, stokers, photographers,
and other "dull and uninteresting men and women" (p.
187) complicit in the operation. We hear about successful and unsuccessful escape attempts, ten-year old
children fearing transport (and playing a "coffin
game"), parents who managed to save their children
(one father retrieved his child from a transporting
hospital "against medical advice"), and even a few
parents who requested that their own children be
killed. We hear how hospital administrators sometimes
killed to cover up clerical errors and how hundreds of
patients were killed by electroshock. We hear how
psychiatrists predicted that hospitals of the future
would routinize euthanasia and how chemists of the
Kriminaltechnisches Institut performed animal experiments to perfect the gases used for killings. There are
a few minor errors. It is not true, for example, to say
that the leaders of the nordic wing of the racial hygiene
movement "applauded the Nazi program without joining the party": Fritz Lenz and Alfred Ploetz joined in
1937, and Eugen Fischer joined in 1940. One might
also quibble with Friedlander's thesis that the killing
centers "did not actually need physicians" (Friedlander admits that doctors were needed to create the
illusion of normal hospital routine) and his overly neat
division of Taler into those who were "ideologically
motivated" and those who were not (p. 231). None of
this compromises the strength of the book, the most
detailed scholarly inquiry into the management and
mechanics of the euthanasia operation yet published.
Ten or fifteen years ago, it was rare to see a historian
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Modern Europe
drawing links between the Final Solution and the
murder of Germany's handicapped. There are, of
course, other kinds of "origins" one can point toideological, electoral, sociopolitical-but Friedlander's elucidation of the important continuities of technique and personnel gives us valuable new insights into
the inner workings of Nazi genocide.
ROBERT N. PROCTOR
Pennsylvania State University
STEPHEN G. FRITZ. Frontsoldaten: The German Soldier
in World War Il. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky. 1995. Pp. x, 299. $29.95.
Stephen G. Fritz's book is an excellent example of
everyday history, or what the Germans call Alltagsgeschichte. Fritz's purpose is "to allow average German
soldiers to speak with a minimum of external interferences" (p. vii). Using a variety of letters, diaries, and
memoirs as well as a judicious blend of novels, poetry,
and songs, he generally succeeds in his goal of conveying the complex thoughts and motivations of the
German Landser (infantryman) who served at the
front.
Fritz's approach is the usual one of starting with the
infantryman's training and then looking, in turn, at his
views toward combat, his emotions at the front, his
thinking on the environment and the sensations of war,
his feelings about comradeship and ideology, and his
recollections about the war experience. In most instances, Fritz is able to show that these views possess
both positive and negative attributes. For example, the
recruits soon realized the importance of the positive
elements of training, such as developing skills, endurance, and cohesiveness, and these carried over and
made the infantry soldier into one of the most effective
features of the German war machine. On the other
hand, as in most armies, basic training was not devoid
of instances of harassment, sadistic discipline, and
even inhuman treatment.
With regard to emotions at the front, the soldier
witnessed and exhibited determination and courage,
shared almost unbelievable experiences with his comrades, and appreciated such measures as special treatment at holidays, home leave, mail, and music to help
sustain morale. Balanced against these positive aspects, however, were the strains of war, the psychological impact which at times produced extreme depression and despair. Ewald H., for instance, conveyed
these feelings when he wrote: "I have seen life. I can
no longer experience the happiness and misfortunes of
this world. War, you monster, this time you have
crushed the whole earth. God, you have directed these
events, why are you so inscrutable, so cruel and harsh?
Build a new world, and allow this death to find an end"
(p. 88). Four days later, he was killed.
Among the book's other strengths, the materials
selected by Fritz prove conclusively that a number of
perceptions about the common soldier of the Third
Reich are incorrect. With few exceptions, the Landser
AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW
believed in Hitler and in the seductive Nazi ideal of a
harmonious community marching forward toward a
new and better world. German soldiers further participated in numerous atrocities against Jews and other
"inferiors," and most believed in the "Jewish-Bolshevik conspiracy" and thought of themselves as protectors against the communist hordes to the east. In other
words, though perhaps not Nazis, they were to a
remarkable degree Nazified.
Despite its many merits, the book reveals a number
of troubling aspects. First of all, Fritz's reliance on
printed rather than documentary sources leads him to
depend more than is necessary on the writings of
several participants, particularly the memoirs of Guy
Sajer (A Forgotten Soldier [1967]) and the letters of
Harry Mielert (Gerda Mielert-Pflugradt, ed., Russische
Erde: Kriegsbriefe aus Russland [1950)). Second, Fritz's
dependence on infantrymen to exemplify the themes
he wants to emphasize means that other frontline
combatants, such as artillery and armored personnel,
are virtually excluded from the narrative. These menalong with SS soldiers, whom Fritz dismisses as persons apart from the regular troops-also have their
story to tell, and their inclusion would have allowed
Fritz to overcome the repetition that creeps into parts
of the book.
Third, Fritz's venture into everyday history is not as
original as the author seems to contend. As he undoubtedly knows, Martin Broszat, Detlev Peukert, and
Richard Bessel, among others, have worked in this
area for at least two decades, and Christian Streit and
Omer Bartov previously have made contributions,
though not exactly in the same way, to everyday
military history. Fourth, and finally, Fritz's assertion
that the average German infantryman was more effective, i.e., better trained, better disciplined, more reflective than the troops of other nations is difficult to
sustain, especially in light of the capabilities demonstrated by Allied soldiers during the war's later stages.
Still, thesc drawbacks should not lead one to conclude that Fritz's book is not a considerable achievement. He has prodigiously pulled together a number of
printed sources to depict the experiences of the common German soldier. The result is a moving account of
personal observations combined with a thoughtful
commentary in which the author provides numerous
insights into the combat environment. His book is not
only good military history but good social history as
well.
ALAN F. WILT
Iowa State University
ERIC A. ZILLMER et al. The Quest for the Nazi Personality: A Psychological Investigation of Nazi War Criminals. (The LEA Series in Personality and Clinical
Psychology.) HilIsdale, NJ.: Lawrence Erlbaum. 1995.
Pp. xviii, 254. $29.95.
This book by psychologists Eric ZiIlmer, Molly Harrower, and Barry Ritzier and psychiatrist Robert Ar-
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1997