1938: Hitler’s Gamble 1st Edition by Giles MacDonogh (PDF)

Description

In this masterful narrative, acclaimed historian Giles MacDonogh chronicles Adolf Hitler’s consolidation of power over the course of one year. Until 1938, Hitler could be dismissed as a ruthless but efficient dictator, a problem to Germany alone; after 1938 he was clearly a threat to the entire world. It was in 1938 that Third Reich came of age. The Fehrer brought Germany into line with Nazi ideology and revealed his plans to take back those parts of Europe lost to “Greater Germany” after the First World War. From the purging of the army in January through the Anschluss in March, from the Munich Conference in September to the ravages of Kristallnacht in November, MacDonogh offers a gripping account of the year Adolf Hitler came into his own and set the world inexorably on track to a cataclysmic war.

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐I was somewhat disappointed by this book. The author rushes through momentous international events like the departure of Anthony Eden from the British cabinet (a total of one sentence on the resignation that removed the last, powerful voice against appeasement from the British government), but spends dozens of pages recounting anecdotal stories of the plight of refugees from post-Anschluss Austria. While the impact of Nazi occupation and persecution is a story that deserves to be told, I wasn’t expecting to find it here.MacDonough’s book is primarily focused on Germany’s perspective, both the leadership and the victims of the Nazi regime. As such, important decisions and events in other countries seem to get short shrift. While it is a readable narrative, I find the strict chronological format gets in the way of the bigger picture.Having recently also read David Faber’s

⭐, the gulf in the level of analysis is striking. Faber’s takes the reader behind the scenes of the political and diplomatic manuevering in Germany, Britain, Italy, France and Czechoslovakia, and makes the reasons decisions were taken transparent. MacDonough, on the other hand, mainly just relates what happened without providing any real insights. Covering as they do essentially the same period, I would strongly recommend Faber’s book over this one, at least for readers interested in the origins of the war.

⭐Having been impressed by the scholarship in After the Reich, I was looking forward to the author’s view of the critical months preceding World War II.However, while interesting and engaging, there is very little that is added here. Some details about concerts Hitler attended, a decent run up to Munich and Kristalnacht, but otherwise I think the author was struggling to put meat on the bones of what probably seemed like a good idea for a book when it was pitched to the publishing house.Unless you are an obsessive on the era (I happen to be one) I would take a pass.

⭐I did not read. My husband who is a serious student of the WWI -WWII period found this a very useful book. And perhaps we all can learn from a history of a year on the edge of an abyss,

⭐This book is an eye-opener to me. VERY interesting! VERY informative! The Author does a great job in description and flow. It is still amazing today how one mans greed to succeed, was succesful, in the eyes of so many. A great book.

⭐I was aware of the reviews on Amazon, when I decided to purchase this book from another on-line vendor: The author’s idea of telling what happened in 1938, from the perspective of monthly events seemed rather interesting.Although there are limitations to this method of presenting the information, my main reason for disliking this book has nothing to do with the month by month account, or with the detailing of the Jewish plight–after all, there is no closer link to Hitler than his obsession with the Jews. Rather, I found the story-telling uninspired and slow-going, in addition to being poorly written. Very glaring is the author’s tendency to shift the thread of a paragraph by introducing a seemingly unrelated character or event, and the unnecessary use of several sentences which could have easily been combined into one, in order to make a clearer point.There is a very annoying editorial choice used in this publication, which I hope does not become as standard as the lack of proper punctuation has become–and that is the lack of citations for the endnotes. The reader is provided with a list of endnotes which are not cited in the main text, but listed in the “Notes” section by the page number in the main body of the book, followed by a short quotation to indicate the reference. In general terms, endnotes/footnotes are used to give credit for a quote, to further elaborate a point, or to introduce a related topic or character. Without the proper citation in the main text to the notes, the information becomes disconnected, placing the reader in a position of not knowing if or when there is an end note to explain or corroborate the information; it also leads the reader to second guess what the author’s intentions were and whether the narrative is original.The most glaring fault throughout the text is the author’s misuse and misplacement of pronouns: When speaking of more than one individual, the author injects pronouns to further the narrative without direct relationship to which of the individuals the pronoun refers. In sequential paragraphs, the reader is presented with more pronouns used after the names of other characters that have been introduced, only to realize that the author is referring to someone mentioned much earlier. This lack of referential indices makes for very confusing reading, in particular for those who may not be as familiar with the events or the complex cast of characters.When a writer (or a speaker) misuses or misplaces pronouns, there is a deletion of information needed for the reader to fully understand what the writer is trying to get across, suggesting that the author expects the reader to be a mind-reader.In general, 1938 is an interesting book, filled with details and information, but not significant.

⭐The author, who had Jewish ancestors who were directly affected by the events of 1938, has written an excellent month-by-month summary of some of the most important events that took place that year. This book will be of particular interest to those who are interested in the events that culminated with the implementation of the “Final Solution” (the Holocaust) as MacDonogh has included numerable stats on the Jews and what they had to do to get out of countries controlled by the Nazis, most particularly Austria, and what happened to those left behind.

⭐Although not able to match the classic 1938 book – On Borrowed Time – this is nevertheless a book worth reading. It has revelations concerning the pecking order in Hitler’s inner ‘ court’ as well as statistics to make your head swim. The author has certainly done his research and has family reasons for wanting to explore this important year. However, it lacks something in its narrative drive: I never felt compelled to turn the page, although many of its pages were rewarding with the insight and information they contained. I thought I knew all about this momentous year but I was wrong; there was a lot of new material which made me slightly alter my perspective on the period. Whereasother books I have read covering this period have had Chamberlain as the central character, this one has Hitler’s acolytes and the persecuted Jews as its main subjects,banishing Chamberlain to the periphery. Sometimes whilst reading some detailed passages, I felt I was being bludgeoned with a blunt instrument. Nevertheless, I would recommend this book to genuine students of this most fateful of years in European history.

⭐I have read hundreds of books on the period over 40 years and there is nothing at all new in this one. That 1938 was a gamble for Hitler in some way that any scholar of the period may not have already surmised, is simply not revealed. The book merely takes one year and explains what dozens of authors have in one way or another already covered.Perhaps it’s fair to say that it is slightly novel to look at 1938 from a single focus, but don’t expect to read anything new.It is well written and easy to get through, form that point if view it makes a good read.

⭐Prompt delivery but book tends to list lots of names which is very confusing. Overall a good sense of the period and the muddles that led to WWII

⭐I couldn’t finish the prose is so poor.Fascinating subject – awful writer.I did not think it was possible for someone to write so poorly about a subject I have so much interest in but this writer has achieved that goal.

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