Hitler's Army Research Articles

A Blueprint for War: FDR and the Hundred Days that Mobilized America by Susan Dunn

Reviewed by: A Blueprint for War: FDR and the Hundred Days that Mobilized America by Susan Dunn Samantha Misa (bio) A Blueprint for War: FDR and the Hundred Days that Mobilized America By Susan Dunn. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2018. 252 pages, 16 halftones in insert, $27.50 cloth. Susan Dunn's latest book is a must-have for anyone with an interest in the United States and its involvement in World War II. Dunn's artfully crafted analysis of Franklin D. Roosevelt's efforts to prepare the country for war prior to Pearl Harbor does a magnificent job of filling in the often overlooked span of time between the New Deal and the "day of infamy." A Blueprint for War begins with the months leading up to FDR's unprecedented third term as president through his third Hundred Days in office from 1940 to 1941. Dunn argues that this period would prove a defining moment in the outcome of not only the global conflict, but also the postwar world. Utilizing speeches, press conferences, newspaper articles, letters, and a refreshing amount of diaries, Dunn outlines how FDR and his advisors were able to prepare for conflict while the nation was "neither fully at peace nor fully at war" (177). Dunn skillfully presents FDR as a truly human leader whose ideas and decisions returned varying degrees of success. Prior to his third term election, Roosevelt's actions predominantly hinged on public opinion, which often favored anti-interventionist sentiment and a desire to remain neutral in the face of another European conflict. Despite this, Roosevelt and other officials, including Secretary of War Henry Stimson, General George Marshall, Admiral Harry Stark, and Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox, carefully developed plans to prepare the nation for a war citizens and isolationist politicians adamantly sought to avoid. While Roosevelt's position as president during an election year compelled an understanding of and acquiescence to public opinion, he was nevertheless successful in preparing for entry into the conflict; FDR was also successful in turning the tide of isolationist opinion toward aiding embattled democracies, notably Britain. While Roosevelt sought to avoid the topic of intervention in 1940, he implemented the Selective Service Act that September, marking the nation's first peacetime draft. His promises that American soldiers would not be sent off to a "foreign war" provided a loophole should the United States be attacked. Knowing that any sort of attack would plunge the unprepared country into war, FDR allowed military leaders to develop contingency plans that ranged from prioritizing defense to full-scale offensive positions in the Atlantic while remaining carefully ambiguous regarding his approval. Roosevelt's early efforts to prepare for defense production led to the formation of the National Defense Advisory Commission (NDAC). When the authority of the NDAC [End Page 210] proved too vague, the creation of the Office of Production Management (OPM) resolved a number of issues on the labor front while increasing the output of war material. Such supplies were desperately needed by Britain, but FDR was hindered from providing aid as Americans feared assistance would be viewed as a breach of neutrality. Aid to Britain in 1940 was couched in reciprocal terms, such as the exchange of destroyer ships for British territories in the Caribbean and the shipment of B-17 aircraft for "testing" in combat situations. As it became increasingly apparent that appeasement and avoidance would not curtail the growing threat of Hitler's armies, FDR relied on "education and persuasion" to turn American sentiment toward aiding Britain in a manner that would not "infuriate the internationalists or alienate the isolationists" (39). Roosevelt invoked the rhetoric of the Monroe Doctrine; the safety of the United States hinged on the protection of the Western Hemisphere. Roosevelt argued that providing war material to Britain was in the republic's best interest—using factories for defense production meant the country would be prepared industrially should it be attacked, and helping Britain defeat the Nazis with munitions could preclude the need for any involvement of American soldiers. Neutrality was retained through the implementation of the Lend-Lease Act, a remarkable loophole that allowed the United States to provide supplies and...

Преступления гитлеровской армии против человечности в период Великой Отечественной войны

Преступления гитлеровской армии против человечности в период Великой Отечественной войны

Pie XI: Un Pape contre le Nazisme? L'encyclique Mit brennender Sorge (14 mars 1937) ed. by Fabrice Bouthillon and Marie Levant

Reviewed by: Pie XI: Un Pape contre le Nazisme? L'encyclique Mit brennender Sorge (14 mars 1937) ed. by Fabrice Bouthillon and Marie Levant John S. Conway Pie XI: Un Pape contre le Nazisme? L'encyclique Mit brennender Sorge (14 mars 1937). Edited by Fabrice Bouthillon and Marie Levant. Actes du colloque international de Brest, 4–6 Juin 2015. [Collection Nouvelles Ouvertures.] (Brest, France: Editions dialogues. 2016. Pp. x, 452. €28,00 paperback. ISBN 978-2-369-45.) Pope Pius XI (Achille Ratti), who reigned from 1922 to 1939, has not been intensively studied, even though the files in the Vatican Archives for his pontificate were opened several years ago. This is in contrast to the heated debates about the wartime policies of his successor, Pius XII (Eugenio Pacelli), whose papers are still not open for research. We should therefore be grateful to a group of French scholars, [End Page 365] based at the University of Western Brittany, for organizing this conference in June, 2015. Their focus is on the most sensational event in the latter part of Pius XI's reign, namely the publication of the papal encyclical, Mit brennender Sorge, which was smuggled into Germany, secretly printed and distributed to every Catholic parish, and read out at High Mass on Palm Sunday, 1937. The twenty papers printed in this volume, two of which are in English, explore the origins, scope, and impact of this forceful encyclical. As well a French translation is printed in full. This spectacular challenge to the Nazi regime was, however, a political failure. The reasons are clear. The majority of German Catholics supported Hitler in all but his religious policies. They approved of his anti-communism and were silent about the persecution of the Jews. In the following year, they welcomed the seizure of Austria and the Sudetenland. Millions of Catholics enlisted in Hitler's armies, and eagerly fought against the Soviet Union. There was never any attempt to build up a Catholic resistance movement. For their part, the Nazi leaders also recognized the value of an expedient silence. The Reich Concordat remained in place. Diplomatic relations with the Vatican were never broken off, and the nuncio remained in Berlin. Subsequent developments in the Vatican were marked by impatient frustration. The encyclical was, however, noted in the rest of Europe, as described in six later chapters in this book.. In Germany, the Gestapo quickly confiscated all copies they could find. In France and Britain, the denunciations of Nazi ideology were applauded, and the regime's anti-Catholic measures of persecution were deplored. In Franco's Spain and Mussolini's Italy, however, the need for Germany's political and military support led to a cool reception of the Vatican's initiative. The pope's later speeches became more and more apocalyptic. In the following year, he charged three Jesuit priests, an American, a German, and a Frenchman, with the task of drawing up a new encyclical, which was designed to spell out clearly the errors of Nazi racism. This document was allegedly ready for signature when Pius XI died in early February, 1939. But his successor, Pius XII, believed that such an anti-German demonstration was inopportune, and ordered all exiting copies to be destroyed. No similar defiant gesture or public protest was ever issued. The question mark in this book's title would therefore appear to be justified. John S. Conway University of British Columbia (Emeritus) Copyright © 2017 The Catholic University of America Press

The problem of the Slavs unity in the age of globalization on the basis of common cultural background and mentality

One of the most crucial issues of the modern Slavic world is unity. The roots of this problem lie deep in the past. Slavs are nowadays separated from each other by not only state frontiers, but also by membership in different military alliances and political coalitions. Slavs have claims against each other concerning territorial, economic, confessional, historical and cultural matters. The situation in the Slavic world has become more complicated after the breakup of two largest countries with mainly Slavic population-the USSR (1991) and Yugoslavia (1999-2008). The termination of the Warsaw Pact caused the pivot of the Communist bloc, including Slavic countries, towards the West. The terrible events in the Ukraine after the 'colour-coded' revolution in 2014 has led to a civil war in which Slavs killed each other. Amidst these events, it is worth mentioning friendly contacts between Serbia and Russia. Over many centuries, people of these countries displayed fidelity to fraternal duty and fought against the same enemies side by side during the years of World War I and World War II. After the USSR break up, Belarus and Russia created the Union State, based on common history and culture and still have active contacts. The article deals with the key problem of the modern Slavic world-the preservation of culture in the age of globalization. The author of the article believes that only joint efforts of all Slavs can help them keep traditions and pass the experience of scientific cognition of the world and its imaginative perception, reflected in national arts, to future generations. As has been demonstrated historically, only mutual support helped Slavs overcome difficulties and achieve goals. With the help of Russia, the South Slavs got freedom from Turkish yoke; during World War II, Slavic people from occupied countries fought together with the Red Forces against Hitler's Army and won. Globalization is an inevitable consequence of technological progress. Active economic, political and cultural contacts among countries lead to the constriction of areas where small peoples' languages are used. All of this can cause the death of their cultures. The common heritage of Cyril and Methodius, Christian religion, affinities of language and culture, common ethical values and similar crucial concepts are the base for Slavic unity. Similar features in Serbian, Russian and Ukrainian slogans with element 'unity' demonstrate the actuality of the question.

Gleb N. Budzilovich, MD.

G leb Budzilovich, a long-time member of the American Association of Neuropathologists, died on October 8, 2014, at age 91 years. Gleb spent almost his entire professional career in the Division of Neuropathology at New York University (NYU) Medical Center and its affiliate Bellevue Hospital. Gleb had the kind of life about which novels are written and movies are made. He was born and raised in what was then the Byelorussian Republic within the former Soviet Union, but he always considered himself a true “Russian” despite some hints of Ukrainian or other lineage. He grew up under Stalin and, because his family was not in political favor, he acquired a lifelong hatred (there is no more apt word) of communism, which extended to a dislike of the color red. He was a teenager when Hitler's armies invaded European Russia, and he lived in the occupied zone for 4 years; he worked in a German-run hospital during part of this time. There, he acquired and survived a plethora of infectious diseases, including epidemic typhus; he told me he saw the louse that bit him. He also told me about being treated as a “lower form of human” by the German military conquerors. Nevertheless, when the war ended, his detestation for Stalin and communism outweighed his feelings about the Nazis so he escaped from the USSR and ended up in Munich. By that time, he had graduated from the equivalent of high school (gymnasium). He then applied to and was accepted into medical school there. In due course, he …

Leaving

Leaving Anna Nessy Perlberg (bio) I was born in Czechoslovakia, a republic created in 1920 at the end of World War I out of three provinces of the defeated Austro-Hungarian Empire. The young republic prospered. Its first president, Thomas Masaryk, set a tone of high-minded humanism; the economy grew, the arts flourished, and the mix of cultures—Czech, German, and Jewish—made the capital, Prague, a rich center of European life. But Czechoslovakia's First Republic lasted only twenty years before Hitler's army invaded and World War II began. Those twenty years were the high point of both my parents' lives. My mother, Julia Nessy, grew up in the historic Old Town section of Prague. As a child, she lived a few houses down the street from Thomas Masaryk, a philosophy professor, leader of the struggle for Czech independence from Austria-Hungary and the future president of Czechoslovakia. His two daughters were my mother's playmates and close friends for the rest of their lives. My mother became a concert and opera singer. A lyric soprano, she performed widely throughout Europe during the 1920s and 1930s. Music and devotion to the young Czechoslovak republic brought my parents together. My father, Pavel Bacher, was a country boy who, because of his unusual promise, was sent to Prague for higher education. He was a gifted pianist, but he also studied law and was unable to decide whether music or law would be his career. Finally he chose the law and achieved great success in finance and manufacturing. A devoted Czech patriot, he was a close friend of Masaryk's painter son, Herbert. My parents met in the Masaryk home during the war and married soon after they met. They were married by a judge. The difference in their religious origins—his Jewish, hers Catholic—were of no concern to them. As his fortunes improved during the early twenties, my father bought a house on the hill near the ancient castle, overlooking the city. From its windows we looked down on the Vltava River crossed by the famous stone bridge, and on the red roofs that dotted the hill rising right up to the castle from the river's edge. [End Page 119] This was the home that my parents, two older brothers, and I left behind as Hitler's army seized Prague in March 1939, just before the outbreak of World War II. As a shy, precocious nine-year-old girl, I observed much, though I understood little, as we left one world for another in America. What follows are my observations of that experience, recollected years later but still powerful in my memory. It is told in the voice of my nine-year-old self, Anna Bacherova. I am standing at the foot of the staircase in our house in Prague. I have come down from the second floor, where I sleep with my governess and two older brothers, and I look at the scene before me. To my left are tall doors that lead to large rooms—the dining room, the library, and biggest of all, the music room, with its two grand pianos and two harps. My mother is an opera singer. I like to hunch down outside the door to this room and listen while Mother practices. Sometimes I look through the keyhole and watch as she stands before the piano, strikes a chord, sings the note with her mouth wide open, and then sings higher and higher till she hits a very high note and holds it. Then she strikes a new chord and repeats the exercise. After this, she practices arias from operas. I like to watch how her expression changes with each foreign phrase she sings. This morning there is no music, and instead I see a disturbing scene. Pieces of furniture are standing about with handwritten notes attached to them. Paintings have been taken down, encased in wooden crates, and stacked up, one behind the other, against the walls. Under the windows that overlook the courtyard are huge trunks, their lids propped open. People scurry about with armfuls of linens, clothing, and dishes wrapped in crumpled newspapers. Here comes the governess...

Panzers in Winter: Hitler's Army and the Battle of the Bulge (review)

Panzers in Winter: Hitler's Army and the Battle of the Bulge (review)

Charlemagne's Crusaders

Military collaboration is one of the least acknowledged aspects of France under the Occupation. Yet from summer 1941 France raised a number of fighting units for Hitler's armies, each with its distinctive mission and each drawing the Vichy regime deeper into collaboration with Nazi Germany. This article discusses that process and its diverse implications. It shows how the Paris collaborationists used military engagement to pressure the Vichy government into more activist collaboration and explores the divergent perspectives in which this was viewed from Berlin, Paris and Vichy; it considers the mobilising myths, motivations and misapprehensions behind military collaboration; and it identifies some of the anomalies of that collaboration, with its reconceptualising of France and Other, friend and foe, belonging and alienation. Those French ‘patriots’ who fought in German uniform would become effective exiles from a homeland they departed to ‘defend’ only to see it ‘liberated’ by their ‘enemies’. Exposing the divisions and the delusions underlying military collaboration, the article sheds light on conflicting political calculations and shifting allegiances in occupied France.

Anne Frank and the Children of the Holocaust (review)

Reviewed by: Anne Frank and the Children of the Holocaust Hope Morrison Lee, Carol Ann Anne Frank and the Children of the Holocaust. Viking, 2006 [256p] ISBN 0-670-06107-7$16.99 Reviewed from galleys Ad Gr. 6-10 Lee's latest exploration of the Holocaust (A Friend Called Anne, BCCB 4/05) uses the familiar tale of Anne Frank as a frame to tell other stories of young Holocaust victims ("In September 1939 . . . there were more than one and a half million Jewish children living in countries occupied, or soon to be occupied, by Hitler's armies. By 1945, when the war ended, over a million of those children . . . were no longer alive"). Drawing on a range of primary and secondary source material, Lee recalls the whereabouts of the Frank family during the war years, occasionally interrupting the narrative to offer a related story of another family or child with a similar or related experience. While the events in the annex are more referenced than recalled, the description of the Franks' experience after their deportation is presented here with horrific detail. The inclusion of other children's accounts adds depth to the narrative and universalizes many of the truths recalled in Anne's tale. There's ultimately little new material here, though, whether in Anne's tale or about the Holocaust experience in general, and the limited formatting makes it difficult to use the text as a source of study—there are no headings, sidebars, or breaks to divide up the narrative, and only occasional photographs. This might nevertheless function as an independent read for students deeply engaged in the topic or just looking to expand beyond Anne Frank, and it would also juxtapose nicely with Bartoletti's Hitler Youth: Growing Up in Hitler's Shadow (BCCB 6/05), which considers the role of children on the Nazi side of the spectrum. Endnotes and a bibliography is included. Copyright © 2006 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Peoples, Homelands, and Wars? Ethnicity, the Military, and Battle among British Imperial Forces in the War against Japan

Ethnicity is increasingly central to analysis of war.Michael Brown et al., eds., Nationalism and Ethnic Conflict (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1997); Samuel Huntington, Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996); David Lake and Donald Rothchild, eds., The International Spread of Ethnic Conflict (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998). Cf. John Mueller, “The Banality of ‘Ethnic War,'” International Security 25, 1 (Summer 2000), pp. 42–70. Whether conceived in essentialist or constructivist terms, ethnicity is often accorded explanatory primacy in accounting for the organization and use of violence in wartime settings, in part due to the utility of processes of othering for group mobilization. Both the political and ideological context of hostilities as well as the motivations of combatants in the actual making of wartime violence are frequently conceptualized in ethnic and racialized terms.Omer Bartov, Hitler's Army (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992); John Dower, War Without Mercy (London: Faber and Faber, 1986). In a word, wartime violence is domesticated; it is seen as arising from the identities of, and commitments to, homelands.

Georgian servicemen in the polish armed forces (1922–39)

In the wake of the reemergence of an independent Georgian Republic after the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991, this article presents unique information concerning the history of the earlier Georgian State, which existed briefly during the period of the Russian Civil War. It relates to the brief attempt by Poland to support the Georgian military by training Georgian Army officers in the Polish military. This article then tracks the performance and fate of these Georgian officers (completely listed as of 20 April 1934) as they loyally served Poland up to the time when it fell victim to Hitler's Wehrmacht and Stalin's Red Army in 1939.

Zu wenig Gerechte: Österreicher und Judenverfolgung 1938-1945 (review)

Book Reviews 131 Zu wenig Gerechte: Osterreicher und Judenverfolgung 1938-1945, by Erika Weinzierl. Graz: Styria Verlag, 1997. 257 pp. DM 248. The volume at hand is the fourth revised and expanded edition ofWeinzierl's study on Austrian antisemitism, the persecution ofthe Jews after the Nazi invasion, and actions taken by Austrians to help Jews. Inspired by the desire to examine and publicize the courageous acts of individuals, some of whom were designed "Righteous" by Yad Vashem, Weinzierl sketches a broad historical panorama tracing the history ofthe Jews in Austria since the 10th century, a history of disruption, expulsion and resettlement, massacres and conditional toleration. Weinzierl considers this spectrum necessary to understand the willingness on the part ofthe Austrian majority to make common cause with the Nazis and to highlight the exceptional self-determination and courage ofthose who refused to follow orders, if only in one instance and for one person. Ultimately Weinzierl, an expert in the history of the Austrian resistance, the documentation of which is the mission of the Vienna Dokumentationsarchiv des osterreichischen Widerstands, is unable to document a widespread resistance against the anti-Jewish legislation and actions taken by the Nazis. It is important to note that anti-Nazi resistance had many reasons, political, social, personal, but in most cases it did not include opposition to the anti-Jewish initiatives ofthe National Socialists. The short list ofthose who helped one or several Jews to survive-only in exceptional cases were more than a few individuals involved-is a shocking reminder that those who did lend assistance were few compared to the jubilant masses welcoming Hitler's army on the Heldenplatz in 1938. Moreover, the affidavits ofpersons stating that they did assist the persecuted reveal that for them "helping Jews" often consisted in refraining from harming or denouncing them or in helping them for a short while. In view ofthe facts presented, Weinzierl's objections to Daniel Goldhagen's findings in the controversial study Hitler's Willing Executioners, her refusal to acknowledge the phenomenon of "eliminationist antisemitism" within German-speaking culture, promoted and sustained by consistently anti-Jewish discourses, is surprising (pp. 206-207). Weinzierl's own documentary, which does not mince words when it comes to discussing acts ofbrutality perpetrated by Austrians against Jews, strongly suggests that for the most part Germans and Austrians did not have to be forced to give their tacit consent to or collaborate with the engineers ofthe genocide. In many respects Weinzierl's study has remained relevant over the years: in a clear and honest fashion it delineates the prehistory ofthe Shoah, describes the atmosphere in pre-Nazi and Nazi Austria, and positions the author within this history by revealing her background and reasons for conducting this type of research. On the other hand, some ofthe problems regarding representation and point ofview are specific to the time of the first publication when this book was by and large a pioneering study. Now, in spite of its many good insights and detailed information, the book is dated. The mere 132 SHOFAR Winter 2000 Vol. 18, No.2 concept (and the question Weinzierl asked in the media to gather information) of "helping" Jews relegates the persecuted Jews to an object status while assigning the non-Jews a position ofagency. Whether they harm or help, the Jews are acted upon. To be sure, mention is made in passing ofJews helping other Jews, but Weinzierl's overall perspective prevents Jews from being perceivedas autonomous agents, as human beings who had reasons oftheir own for reacting the way they did react under duress, and who did develop strategies for facing the unprecedented catastrophe. The focus on gentile agency is characteristic ofthe entire study, including the historical sections. Zu wenig Gerechte implicitly sets gentile society in its positive and its negative aspects as the cultural norm and overlooks the inner dynamics ofthe Jewish communities that inform Jewish responses to the historical events under discussion, whether in the period ofthe Toleration Edict, or at the time ofthe deportations. Today's reader may wonder about the reasons for Jewish remigrations aftermassacres andexpulsions, abouttheir apparent (and only apparent) defeatism in the face ofpogroms and anti-Jewish legislation. With regard to the...

Eastern Europe through German eyes: Soldiers' photographs 1939–42

When Hitler's armies swept across Eastern Europe, millions of German soldiers encountered people and cultures they found alien. The nations to Germany's east at the outbreak of war in 1939 were populated by a variety of inhabitants, including Slavs, Sinti and Roma, and of course Jews. The physical appearance of these peoples, as well as their houses and villages, elicited largely derogatory responses from German soldiers, who recorded in documents and photographs their revulsion at the relatively primitive living conditions. Unassimilated Jews in particular, the so-called Ostjuden, simultaneously disgusted and fascinated many German soldiers exposed to years of intense anti-Semitic propaganda. Religiously observant Jewish men, clad in black caftans and wearing lengthy beards, instantly became the object of many a soldier's camera, leaving an extant photographic record filled with anonymous snapshots of young German troops posing beside Jews, cutting their beards, and otherwise tormenting them.

Sir Alan Hodgkin (1914-1998).

E very now and then giants come along, raise the bar, and lift us all; Alan Hodgkin was one of them. He never worked for a Ph.D.; didn't have a research supervisor; and built, borrowed, or begged equipment to ask and answer his own questions. Yet despite—or because of—what might be viewed today as these initial “handicaps,” as a second-year undergraduate, Hodgkin began an active research career that spanned more than 50 years. His studies resulted in landmark discoveries that rewrote textbooks, established the keystones of modern physiology, and set new standards for experimental neuroscience. He is most recognized for his work on nerves. As a 20-year-old undergraduate at Trinity College, Cambridge, Hodgkin established that the action potential is propagated electrically by currents spreading passively in a local circuit. Later, with Andrew Huxley, he made the first intracellular recordings from squid axon and discovered unexpectedly that the action potential overshot zero by many tens of millivolts. This demonstrated that the action potential was generated by selective changes in the electrical properties of the surface membrane and did not involve proteins in the axoplasm as many thought. Their excitement was cut short 3 weeks later when Hitler's army marched into Poland and England was plunged into war. Hodgkin was assigned to research on radar and spent the next 5 years working as a physicist, an unusual assignment for a biologist who was self-taught in mathematics and physics, but he was an excellent choice. Hodgkin was a quick study, creative, with penetrating intelligence and common honesty. “Alan, what was the most important thing you learned at school?” “To read widely and work on my own.” “Yes, but what did you like the best about school?” “The holidays.” [A. L. Hodgkin, Chance and Design , 1992]. Boyhood holidays were spent exploring the outdoors, which was the original source of Hodgkin's enthusiasm for natural history. It was through a keen interest in bird watching that he first recognized the essential relationship between observation (research) and learning. The war ended, and Hodgkin and Huxley returned to their work on the giant axon. Using a feedback circuit to clamp membrane voltage at fixed levels they dissected the ionic basis of the action potential, and discovered voltage-gated sodium and potassium conductance changes, showing how their properties could account for the excitation and propagation of the nerve impulse. The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine recognized their work in 1963. Hodgkin became president of the Royal Society in 1970 and switched to research on vision, the focus of his experimental work for the rest of his career. He began working with M. G. F. Fuortes at Woods Hole on the photoreceptors of the horseshoe crab, Limulus . They investigated the long delay that preceded the electrical response evoked by a light flash and attributed it to the time taken for a signal to pass through a cascade of chemical reactions. They recognized that stages of chemical amplification may underlie the generation of the photoresponse and that feedback mechanisms were likely to be responsible for the reciprocal changes in response sensitivity and time resolution that occur when the receptor is light- or dark-adapted. Rarely working with more than one person at a time, Hodgkin undertook research on retinal cones and rods that lasted 17 years and through elegant experimentation and imaginative quantitative analysis established many tenets of retinal photoreceptor physiology. As with his work on the electrical properties of nerve, Hodgkin's research on vision redefined the landscape, expanded the vocabulary, and focused attention on the next set of crucial questions. Alan Hodgkin was a tall man, with a quiet disposition, a good sense of humor, and lively eyes that could express a full range of emotions. He was modest despite his achievements. He did not put his name on any work that he did not fully participate in. He had no interest in having a large research group and felt that one collaborator at a time was best, two were awkward, and more than that impossible. He was fun to work with. Experiments were rarely planned ahead of time, as there was the unexpressed sense that this would somehow ruin the chase by quenching the feeling of exploration and discovery that was, after all, the point of the process—the chance in Chance and Design .

Hitler's Army: Soldiers, Nazis, and War in the Third Reich. Omer Bartov

<i>Hitler's Army: Soldiers, Nazis, and War in the Third Reich</i>. Omer Bartov

Book Review: Hitler's Army, Soldiers, Nazis, and War in the Third Reich

Book Review: Hitler's Army, Soldiers, Nazis, and War in the Third Reich

Hitler's Army: Soldiers, Nazis, and War in the Third Reich.

Although acknowledged as a highly professional military organization, the Wehrmacht has been traditionally exonerated of the crimes attributed to the SS during World War II. However, in this study the author shows how the relentless Nazi propaganda machine produced conscripts for Hitler's army who were fully convinced of his horrific views on inferior peoples, and that it was these ideas, and not the exigencies of war, that motivated their atrocities. Concentrating on the organized and spontaneous crimes committed against Communist officials and Jews in the Soviet Union, this reappraisal challenges many military theories long thought to be truths.

&lt;sc&gt;Omer Bartov&lt;/sc&gt;. &lt;italic&gt;Hitler's Army: Soldiers, Nazis, and War in the Third Reich&lt;/italic&gt;. New York: Oxford University Press. 1991. Pp. xiv, 238. $22.95

Journal Article Omer Bartov. Hitler's Army: Soldiers, Nazis, and War in the Third Reich. New York: Oxford University Press. 1991. Pp. xiv, 238. $22.95 Get access Bartov Omer. Hitler's Army: Soldiers, Nazis, and War in the Third Reich. New York: Oxford University Press. 1991. Pp. xiv, 238. $22.95. George H. Stein George H. Stein State University of New York, Binghamton Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The American Historical Review, Volume 97, Issue 4, October 1992, Pages 1242–1243, https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr/97.4.1242-a Published: 01 October 1992

Hitler's army: soldiers, Nazis, and war in the Third Reich

Hitler's army: soldiers, Nazis, and war in the Third Reich

Threshold of War: Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Entry into World War II

For Franklin D.Roosevelt, the spring of 1941 was a time of uncertainty. Hitler's armies were poised to strike, but no one was sure where the next attack would come, and Churchill and members of Roosevelt's administration were urging him to intervene before it was too late. In this account of the American entry into World War II, the author shows that Roosevelt was not the vacillating, impulsive, and disorganized leader as he is often portrayed, but a cautious, rational man, capable of acting with great determination.