When Good Countries Go Bad

To the Bitter End: An Insider's Account of the Plot to Kill Hitler, 1933-1944 ASIN: 0306808692 Binding: Paperback List price: $26.00 USD Amazon price: $26.00 USD

Bad Title, Great Book 

Even though I'm a numbers guy, I get bored as easily as the next person.  I love reading history, but many good history books are tedious. This is a rare book - a first-person history that's also a gripping life-and-death thriller. The author was a high-ranking Nazi who turned against Hitler early on, risking his life over many years with his efforts to end Hitler's grip on power.  Woven into the story is a detailed first-hand account of how, in just a few short years, a prosperous, highly-developed and liberal nation turned into a hypnotized sea of murderous fascist savages. 

How I Became A Liberal

As I mention in elsewhere, I began my adult life as a Conservative.  My turning point on the road to liberalism began on my first visit to Germany, in 1984.

Having grown up with stories of the Holocaust, I was expecting to find the German People to be - well, not like me.  I could never shepherd children (or anybody else) into gas chambers, commit torture, or perform any of the myriad heinous acts for which the Third Reich is known.  Nor could I stand watching in silence while those evil deeds were done.  So it was surprising to me to find that the Germans that I met were extraordinarily nice, not particularly different than people that I knew in the US. 

I had thought that the Germans must be inherently different than Americans - but they sure seemed to be the same as us.  How could Germans be "normal" people, and have allowed such horrors to occur?  This did not add up.  "Perhaps", I thought, "the Holocaust and other horrors were really perpetrated by a small group, without the knowledge of the general public." 

Genocide - with a View of the Munich Subway Line 

And then I visited the Nazi concentration camp at Dachau, near Munich.

A concentration camp rather than a death camp, it was designed to imprison, not execute; still, 30,000 prisoners perished there.  When it was liberated by our soldiers, 32,000 prisoners were starving, crammed 1,600 in each barrack that was designed for 250.  It had a crematorium, gallows, and a guillotine.

Dachau was absolutely not hidden.  Rather, it is across the street from a stop on the Munich subway!  The town of Dachau So much for the theory of the Germans being decent people who didn't know what was happening: they sure as heck knew.

This left me with one other possibility: that Germans were good people, but even good people can turn very, very bad.   Intrigued and disturbed by this thought, I began a study of how good nations turn bad.

To The Bitter End is the best book that I read on this subject.  Written in 1946, it is a personal history that takes the reader, month-by-month, through the events that took Germany into the hell of the Third Reich.

Hans Gisevius 

The book's author, Hans Gisevius, was a remarkable man in a perfect place to observe: he was a high-ranking Nazi official early in the history of Nazi party; he served in the Prussian Interior Ministry and the Reich Ministry of the Interior, and eventually as Germany's Vice Counsel to Switzerland.  However, Gisevius was leading a double life - a stickler for the law, he'd become disillusioned by the Nazi's lawlessness in the 1930s, and became part of a secret group that sought to overthrow the Nazis.

While in Switzerland, Gisevius bacame acquainted with Allen Dulles, the assistant to the US Ambassador to Switzerland - and officer in the OSS (predecessor to the CIA).  Eager to end Hitler's reign, Gisevius passed German secrets to Dulles.  Dulles recruited Gisevius to be his liaison to the anti-Hitler movement in Germany.

Hearing of a plot to kill Hitler, Gisevius returned to Germany in 1944 to help out.  The bomb failed to kill Hitler, and most of the conspirators were killed, but Gisevius escaped back to Switzerland, where he was taken into protection by the Americans.

After the War, Gisevius was a key witness in sending Nazi leader Hermann Goering to death row at the Nuremberg Trials.

What Makes This Book So Important?

There is an old  saying that if you drop a frog in hot water, he'll jump out; but if you drop a frog in cool water and gradually heat the water, the frog won't realize that it needs to jump out until it's too hot to jump.

This is a parallel to what happened to Germany in the 1930s. Germany turned from the most tolerant country in Europe to a genocidal hell in a matter of a few years. There were important and spectacular milestones along the way - the Reichstag Fire, the annexation of the Sudetenland, the Kristallnacht, ... The German people, however, did not wake up one day and decide "Hey, let's invade a country!" or "Why not attack Jews today?" - rather, there was a slow march into a terrible place, the direction and pace set by charismatic leaders and the circumstances of the day.

Could it Happen Here?

To The Bitter End is important because it lets the reader observe the small steps that led to the bltzkrieg, the concentration camps, and the other hells of the Third Reich. Reading the book, one is struck that 1930s Germany really isn't that much different than America in 2005 - a lot of the same tensions, beliefs, and personalities abound today.

Harry Truman once said "The only thing new in the world is the history you don't know".  To The Bitter End helps us to know some very important history, so that we can recognize a repeat performance and snuff it out early - before the water's too hot.