After the Reich: The Brutal History of the Allied Occupation

by Giles MacDonogh

Book Overview

The shocking history of the brutal occupation of Germany after the Second World War
When the Third Reich collapsed in 1945, Germany was a nation in tatters, in many places literally flattened by bombs. In the ensuing occupation, hundreds of thousands of women were raped. Hundreds of thousands of Germans and German-speakers died in the course of brutal deportations from Eastern Europe. By the end of the year, denied access to any foreign...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0465003389
• ISBN13: 9780465003389
• Release Date: February 2009
• Publisher: Basic Books
• Length: 656 Pages
• Weight: 1.83 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.7" x 6.5" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Provocative Subtitle, Thoughtful Book

World War Two was likely the most devastating conflict humanity has experienced thus far. There were myriad causes, the easy explanation for its aftermath is to say that Germany and Japan started it so they deserved whatever the victors had in store for them. But what must be addressed and is in After the Reich is the toll taken on the civilian population of a defeated country. Civilized nations don't take revenge on civilian populations for the unaccountable actions of their political and military leadership and this book shows how the Allies and their hangers-on sank into barbarism in the fearsome blood-letting that occurred after the war against both disarmed POWs and the civilian population of a destroyed Germany. Before buying this book, I knew something about the mistreatment of German POWs by both the Western Allies and the Russians after the war. And from other reading I knew about the mistreatment of German civilians being expelled from the east of the country. But not until I read this book did I realize the sheer magnitude of the crimes committed against the innocent and the helpless, more so by the Soviets than by the West, but still in violation of international law, civilized norms and various agreements and protocols. Most Western readers won't be shocked by the behavior of the Soviet communists given the way they treated their own people, but many will be surprised and disappointed to learn that in many important ways that the British, the French, and the Americans were sometimes just as bad and even more morally culpable than the Russians given the supposed Judeo-Christian moral underpinnings of their societies. After the Reich looks at the good and bad in the ways each of the individual Allied countries ran their sectors in both Germany proper and in Austria. The reader learns of the incredibly vicious behavior toward German minorities residing in the east(at the sufferance of and possibly on behalf of and at the behest of Moscow) by the Czechs, the Poles, and the Yugoslavs in the immediate post-war years. Rape, wanton slaughter, senseless destruction, inhuman cruelty and ethnic cleansing of an unprecedented scale were the order of the day. And although the Western Allies eventually partially redeemed themselves and set Germany on the path to freedom and prosperity, the Russians never did. Although Giles MacDonogh has added a very provocative sub-title "The Brutal History of the Allied Occupation" to the dustcover, After the Reich is actually a very well-researched, balanced, and thoughtful book. Lest anyone think that MacDonogh goes easy on the Nazis, he certainly does not. I came away from reading this excellent history with the reinforced opinion that no European nation or ethnic group had a monopoly on suffering during or after the war and none have even the right to claim primacy in victim status. Those who can read this without bias and separate the mass of the German people from the actions of their government may well co

Introduction to Allied revenge, terrorism, and the doctrine of collective guilt

Minutes after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, a co-worker from Australia told me that the attacks were directed against "tax-paying citizens" who supported the "murderous" policies of the American government. Any individual who chooses to live and work in the United States is therefore, whether they are conscious of it or not, giving support to any action or policy of the government. They are thus implicitly guilty for any government actions and hence legitimate targets for those who have experienced repression or violence due to these actions. This is the "collective guilt" hypothesis and has found many adherents throughout history, and as this book outlines in gruesome detail, was manifested in the aftermath of World War II. Confident of victory and bent on revenge, many commanders and soldiers in the Allied forces proceeded to take their frustrations out on whoever was left in Germany, with sex and age not being an impediment. It did not matter whether or not German citizens had consciously supported the Nazi government, or whether they did so out of fear for their lives and the lives of their families. As the author remarks, just the ability to speak German frequently was proof enough of this support. The carnage against Germans in post-war Europe was unrelenting, with rapes, crucifixions, hangings, forced starvation, and forced marches being widespread and taking place with great enthusiasm by Russian, British, and American troops of occupation. Having endured incredible hardships in battle they did not hesitate to take matters in their own hands and direct their anger towards those who "supported" the German government. Women were "responsible" for giving birth to German soldiers, so they must be punished accordingly. Male children could grow up to be German soldiers, so they must be prevented from doing so. Female children could grow up and produce more German soldiers, so they must be prevented from doing so. Nuns represented the Catholic "support" for the Nazi Reich, so they must be raped or beaten up without reservation. Even German Jews were subjected to mistreatment, as if they had not suffered enough: many were prevented from immigrating to Palestine due to British fears that they would join a movement to overthrow British control of Palestine. This is a book that cannot be read during eating time. This reviewer attempted this and failed. There is too much horror inside its covers to allow any vestige of peace of mind during its perusal. But it is a book that should be read by anyone insisting upon a true picture of history, no matter how it perturbs their emotional or mental equilibrium. The reader will learn that the Soviet Red Army "raped wherever it went"; of fifty thousand citizens of Hamburg who in two days in 1943 were slaughtered by British and American weapons of mass destruction; of the rape of almost three thousand women by French soldiers in Stuttgart; of the Brno death march, wherein over twenty-five

Important - Taboo Breaking Book Reveals Allied Atrocities.

_After the Reich: The Brutal History of the Allied Occupation_, published in 2007 by British journalist and historian Giles Macdonogh, is an important and taboo breaking book revealing the atrocities committed by the Allied nations following the downfall of the Third Reich. The unique factor of this book is that it is written by a mainstream historian seeking an objective perspective on the history of post-Nazi Germany. As the author explains in the Preface to this book, "This book is about the history of the Germans in defeat" and as such it will seek to show the horrors inflicted on the German people following the Third Reich. However, to do so it is necessary to make sense of the notion of collective guilt. Many historians have maintained that the Germans "deserved what they got" because of their supposed part in bringing Hitler to power and for the crimes of Hitler and the Nazis. The author on the other hand attempts to show that such notions are specious and that the vast majority of Germans who bore the brunt of Allied terror were largely innocent. In fact, some of the worst offenders were allowed to go free, while countless innocent women and children suffered for the alleged crimes of the German nation. Some of the worst atrocities committed against the German people include the notorious rapes of German women by Soviet soldiers. Further, the ultimate results of the Second World War did not pan out well for the German nation given that a large part of Germany came under the control of the Soviets, arguably worse tyrants than the Nazis had been. While Hitler certainly did not serve the German people well, it is clear that the hands of the Allies are by no means clean in this matter and the subsequent Cold War which resulted was largely a waste. To show such things, the author relies extensively on such sources as German authors, thinkers, and philosophers including such individuals as Ernst Junger, Heinrich Boll, Gunther Grass, Thomas Mann, Karl Jaspers, and Carl Schmitt who personally went through much of the subsequent Allied occupation and recorded the events that took place under it. This book remains important for what it reveals about Allied atrocities and ultimately remains a testament to the horrors of war. This book begins with a Preface in which the author explains his understanding of the events following the demise of the Third Reich in 1945. The author notes what he means by Germany, including all German-speaking peoples in this category and including Austria among them. The author also discusses ideas concerning the notion of "collective guilt", emphasizing the severe problematic with this notion and with the idea that many innocent people who had not supported (or even operated against) the Nazis would be lumped in with others, including countless children. In the Introduction to this book, the author goes over the demise of National Socialism noting the claims of the Allies to be "liberators" and finding fau

A grizzly account of allied atrocities in World War II

~After the Reich: The Brutal History of The Allied Occupation~ is a sordid tale of allied atrocities committed against the Germans following the fall of Hitler's fanatical Third Reich regime on May 8, 1945. Conventional wisdom just presumes that American and British armies were merciful liberators ready to bestow chocolate and candy to the German children; but history isn't always so black and white. For the defeated Germans, the end of the war brought an uneasy peace, and for many a hellish aftermath. What resulted in the years 1945-1950 is little known to most Americans. Some three million Germans died in the aftermath of VE-Day, and many in the Soviet occupied zones were subjugated to a brutal ethnic cleansing. The facts concerning occupation are alarming: * 2.3 million German civilians died violent deaths following the official cessation of hostilities on VE-Day, and 1.4 million German POWs died in captivity. * Some of the same concentration camps formerly utilized by the Germans to imprison the Jews and work them to death were co-opted into Allied concentration camps to hold millions of Germans. The same grizzly results ensued: emasculated bodies from those who nearly starved to death and were plagued by pestilence and disease. Nearly all of the famous concentration camps utilized by the Germans--Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen, Buchenwald, and Dachau--were utilized again by the Allies replicating the same hellish conditions perpetrated by the Nazis. German prisoners died in throngs. * The Americans utilized torture to extract confessions in their prison at Schwabisch Hall. Men had their testicles emasculated in the interrogations. * There were 600 POW camps in the UK, and over a million POWs died in the USSR. * On April 17-18, 1945, French soldiers raped as many as 600 women in Freudenstadt, before making passage to Stuggart where they raped 3,000 more. * The Russians may have raped over 20,000 women alone in Berlin. The author is not trying to be apologist for the Nazi regime by any stretch of the imagination. He should not be faulted for sticking to his book's topic either. There are plenty of books documenting German atrocities against Poles, Jews, Russians, and Ukrainians. The author's purpose is not to dispute those candid facts. Researcher Giles MacDonogh offers an enthralling and accurate study which exemplifies how liberation was never entirely a happily-ever after story for the millions of Germans subjugated by a conquering Allied army--particularly the vengeful Red Army of the Soviet Union. By spring of 1945, Germany was a nation in tatters, with many urban population centers literally flattened by the bombings. Hundreds of thousands of women were brutally raped, and many civilians were murdered in cold blood by the occupying armies. Hundreds of thousands of Germans were conscripted as laborers, and many deported to Eastern Europe and the Soviet heartland to work as slave laborers. Over 2.25 million Germans died in captivity during th

One more book faulted for sticking to its designated topic

No book can hope to cover every aspect of an issue, let alone an entire period of history. Faulting this book for lacking a discussion of the Holocaust or German terrorism against the Soviets is like faulting a history of the Holocaust for not having a discussion of the treatment of Soviet POWs. Yet many excellent works about the Holocaust do just that. The author obviously assumes a certain level of knowledge of the context of the historical period. This is perhaps not to the liking of some, but any discussion of the Holocaust, German abuses in the USSR, etc. would necessarily be exceedingly brief and cursory in nature. Would that be any better? I don't think so. Many historical works digress from their designated theses, but these are examples of poor writing or at least of poor editing. The best works of history stick closely to the particular topic. The notion that McDonogh should write a second volume to "provide context" is absurd. If one wishes to read about the context of the period preceding the human rights abuses, then one can find hundreds of excellent works on nearly every aspect of World War 2, including the Jewish Holocaust, other German murder campaigns against Roma, Soviet POWs, the disabled, homosexuals, communists, etc., the occupation of the USSR, and other issues. There is no need for MacDonogh to write another volume just because you want something neatly packaged. Finally, re: quotations from David Irving. David Irving WAS, at one time, a more serious (if controversial) scholar, before going off the deep end. Many of his earlier works are acknowledged to be authoritative by a great number of historians. Before faulting all of his work, perhaps one should examine his overall reputation before beginning his career of Holocaust denial. Look online using any search engine for his name for reviews of his work from authorities like the NY Times Review of Books, Hugh Trevor-Roper, The New Yorker, and many others. This book, with A Terrible Revenge by Alfred-Maurice de Zayas seeks to bring attention to understudied aspects of the post-WW2 era. It's worth reading and I give it 5 stars.