Kirjahaku

German society underwent greater change under the four years of military occupation than it had under Hitler and the Nazis. The issue of reeducation lay at the heart of America's occupation policies. Encompassing denazification, restructuring of the school system, university reform, and cultural exchange, reeducation began as an idealistic (and naive) attempt to democratize Germany by making her over in the American image. For this meticulously researched study, James F. Tent has drawn on a wealth of recently declassified documents and on numerous personal interviews with veterans of the Occupation. He brings to life not only the dilemmas American officials faced in balancing the need for a political purge against the need to rehabilitate a disrupted society but also the paradoxes involved in a democracy's attempt to impose its ideals on another people. His book chronicles the dedicated work of many Americans; it also illuminates America's Occupation experience as a whole.

The ""Halbjuden"" of Hitler's Germany were half Christian and half Jewish, but, like the rest of the ""Mischlinge"" (or ""partial-Jews""), were far too Jewish in the eyes of the Nazis. Thus, while they were allowed for a time to coexist with the rest of German society, they were granted only the most marginal or menial jobs, restricted from marrying Aryans or even leading normal social lives, and sent eventually to forced-labour and concentration camps. More than 70,000 Germans were subjected to these restrictions and indignities, created and fostered by Hitler's morally bankrupt race laws, yet few personal accounts of their experiences exist. In this title, James Tent recounts how these men and women from all over Germany and from all walks of life struggled to survive in an increasingly hostile society, even as their Jewish relatives were disappearing into the East. He draws on extensive interviews with 20 survivors, many of whom were teenagers when Hitler came to power, to show how ""half Jews"" coped with conditions on a day-to-day basis and how the legacy of the hatred they suffered has forever lingered in their minds. Tent provides stories of life beneath the boot-heel of Nazi rule: a woman deemed unsuitable for a career in nursing because the shape of her earlobes and breasts indicated she was not ""racially suited"", a man arrested for ""race defilement"" because he lived with an Aryan woman, and many others. He shows how Nazi discrimination and persecution affected their lives and how such treatment intensified through the later years of the war. Tent's witnesses share experiences in school and problems in the workplace, where the best survival strategy was to find an unobtrusive niche in a nondescript job. They tell of obstacles to personal relationships and they soberly remind us that by 1944 they too were rounded up for forced labour, certain to be the next victims of Nazi genocide. This text demonstrates the lengths to which the Nazis were willing to go in order to eradicate Judaism - a fanaticism that increased over time and even in the face of impending military defeat. The ""Halbjuden"" mostly survived the Holocaust, yet they paid for their re-assimilation into German society by remaining silent in the face of haunting memories. This book breaks that silence and is a testament to human endurance under the most trying circumstances.

Wie judisch musste jemand sein, um als Jude zu gelten? In den Nurnberger Rassegesetzen von 1935 verankerten die Nationalsozialisteneine perfide Definition, die Menschen mit teilweise judischer Abstammungin Mischlinge ersten oder zweiten Grades einteilte. So gekennzeichnet lebten diese Deutschen unter zunehmend restriktiven Bedingungen zwischen den Welten. Im Verlauf des Krieges verscharfte sich ihre Lage. Das Hitlerregime gab allmahlich seine unentschiedene Haltung gegenuber den Mischlingen auf, so dass auch sie fruher oder spater die Deportation befurchten mussten. Zwar bewahrte das Ende des Krieges die meisten von ihnen vor diesem Schicksal, ihr Leiden endete damit jedoch keineswegs. Zum Schweigen verdammt wollten sie sich im Nachkriegsdeutschland ein Leben aufbauen geriet ihr Schicksal in der offentlichen Wahrnehmung, aber auch seitens der Forschung in Vergessenheit. Mit grosser Sorgfalt und Sachlichkeit hat sich der amerikanische Historiker James F. Tent ihrer vergessenen Geschichte angenommen. In seinem Buch, dem ausfuhrliche Interviews mit Uberlebendenzugrunde liegen, geht er den Lebensgeschichten Einzelner nach und fugt sie zu einer authentischen Chronik ihres alltaglichen Schreckens. ImSchatten des Holocaust wirft Licht auf eine wenig beachtete Seite des Nationalsozialismus eindringlich und umfassend. Eine wertvolle Lekture fur historisch Interessierte wie Wissenschaftler. Zur Politik der Nationalsozialisten gegenuber den Mischlingen gab es bisher nur wenige Studien. Umso mehr ist die Untersuchung des amerikanischen Historikers Tent zu begrussen, der das unheilvolle Alltagsleben im Dritten Reich auf der Basis neu erschlossener Quellen ebenso einfuhlsam beschreibt wiederen verschwiegene Erfahrungen in der Nachkriegszeit. (FAZ, November 2003)

The twenty-seven stories in this book serve as a graphic reminder of the selfless heroism of America's World War II Army Air Forces flyers and how necessary they were to achieve Allied victory. Wolfgang Samuel and the pilots he interviewed reveal the peril these men faced to achieve a daunting task, impossible without their bravery. And their sacrifices were stunning--American bomber crews suffered the highest casualties (KIA, MIA, POW, wounded) of all American armed services in World War II. The stories preserved in this book bear that grave danger out. A member of a heavy bomber crew in the 8th Air Force in the period from mid-1942 to spring 1944 was less likely to survive than a US Marine fighting on Iwo Jima or Okinawa. The stories in this unique book are about men who went face to face with their adversaries, who saw their buddies die, who crashed planes, and who became prisoners of war. Many later went on to become the backbone of the postwar Air Force, serving in Korea and Vietnam and during the Cold War. Young Ken Chilstrom led a flight of eight A-36 fighter bombers on a low-level foray in Italy. Only he and two others came home. Bob Hoover thought he could take on the entire German air force, but on his first mission he was shot down, nearly perished, and suffered the remainder of the war in a prisoner-of-war camp. Wolfgang Samuel's new book is all about men like Ken, Bob, and the many friends they lost, who saw World War II through to the end and gave freedom to so many others.