The Order of the Death's Head: The Story of Hitler's SS

by Heinz Höhne and Heinz Hohne

Book Overview

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• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0141390123
• ISBN13: 9780141390123
• Release Date: September 2001
• Publisher: Penguin Group
• Length: 690 Pages
• Weight: 2.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 2.1" x 5.3" x 8.5"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Changed my view of the Third Reich

This book exploded some of the myths that I had come to accept as a given on the Nazi regime. I believed that the Nazi regime was a well oiled machine that ran more efficiently than any other in the world. Then I come to find out that the regime worked on nothing more than a cult of personality and that personality's ability to foster rivalries between competing forces on the lower rungs of power. It's amazing to me that in this chaotic atmosphere this regime was able to make the trains run on time let alone reconstitute the most powerful and technologically advanced army in the world. This was also the most comprehensive look at the SS I have read as of yet. The author goes through the organization with a fine tooth comb to really give one a good look into this eclectic organization. The author goes through the reasons why some would join the SS for the credibility and standing membership gives the individual within the Nazi regime. Many professionals joined this organization so that they would be able to advance in their careers within the framework of the regime even though they were philosophically opposed to the organization. This of course does not go for every member. Himmler also had philosophical and practical problems between keeping his organization "pure" and raising enlistment numbers within the SS so he could gain more power and influence. The book does a very good job describing what was happening during the regimes final days. Himmler's pipe dreams of leading the SS to the battlefield to save the German army to his belief that he could take over and negotiate terms with the allies and not be held to account for the horrible crimes committed under his authority. As the regime collapsed around its leading figures, they continued to exist in a world that was divorced from reality. Whether it was Goering's art and fine wine collections or his drug habit, Hitler's reliance on the miracle weapon or Himmler's unfounded belief in his military prowess, the leadership of the Third Reich was rarely in touch with reality. Even as Hitler's ability to actually command any part of Germany, Himmler could still not bring himself to act against the fuehrer. This book was such a great find for me that I hope others may read this work also. There are rather few reviews for this work even though I believe it should be an essential read for anyone who wants to understand this era history. It is big but don't let the size intimidate you because this is one book that rewards the effort put into it.

The author makes a good case against an evil regime

The central theme of Hoehne's thesis is that the SS, and Nazi Germany in general, was not quite the efficient all-for-one tight-knit apparatus everyone thinks it was. There was structure, however the structure of the state apparatus was mostly set up by Hitler to keep his subordinates too busy fighting amongst themselves, to threaten Hitler's position. (Contrast this to Stalin's method, which was to simply kill off all potential rivals.) The subordinate departments; the SS, SA, SD, Gestapo were quite independent of one another, and often were at odds with one another due to overlap in jurisdiction. There is a wealth of information in this book. A lot of things in here will surprise you; for example there is the case of Ernst Roehm, the leader of the SA, who went to court over a stolen suitcase. The thief was a male prostitute who testified in court that he left Roehm (without his suitcase) because Roehm wanted to "engage in a form of intercourse which he found abhorrent." And Roehm wasn't the only Nazi homosexual. (A "distilled" account of Nazi homosexuality can be found in the books "Pink Swastika" by Lively and "Germany's National Vice" by Igra.) While not as comprehensive as Shirer's "Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" "Order of the Death's Head," like Shirer's book, gives the reader a good picture of what times were like then, and it is certainly sufficient to read this book if you want to understand some basic things about Nazi Germany.

An excellent overview

This recounts the history of one of the most evil organizations ever created. Founded in 1925 as a bodyguard for Hitler, the SS ultimately became a security, military and bureaucratic behemoth whose influence pervaded the entire Nazi empire. Contrary to both contemporary propaganda and subsequent popular belief, however, neither the SS nor the Nazi regime were monolithic organizations devoted to exercising their leaders' directives. Indeed, a suggestive metaphor for the Nazi state would be that of a cancerous tumour, in which a collection of aggressively growing and constantly mutating cells maintains just enough cohesion to carry out its expansionist aims. The government consisted of a variety of departments whose ill-defined and overlapping responsibilities resulted in a permanent state of fractious feudalism. This arrangement suited Hitler perfectly. By pitting his subordinates against each other he maintained his position as the supreme and final authority. The SS, for all its powers, was therefore still hemmed in by its rivals, of whom the most notable were the SA, the Party and the Wehrmacht. The rivalry with the SA was eventually settled in blood in the Roehm putsch of 1934, following which the SS gained primacy. But the rise of the SS would have been likely in any event by virtue of the Party's ascension to power. The SA had served its purpose: the regime no longer required an army of politicized street brawlers but rather a professional security apparatus. The rivalries with the Party and the army were not so neatly resolved. Party administrators frustrated SS designs in the occupied regions - for example in Poland under Hans Frank - while Martin Bormann controlled access to the Fuehrer. The SS ambition to create its own statelet outside of Greater Germany was never realised. The Wehrmacht, meanwhile, maintained a long-standing opposition to the arming of Party organizations - both SA and SS alike - and initially inhibited the development of the Waffen SS. In the field of intelligence the SS organizations the Sicherheitsdienst and the Gestapo were frequently in conflict with each other and the military intelligence service, the Abwehr. This is apparently why the Stauffenberg circle, which almost succeeded in assassinating Hitler in 1944, escaped SS notice: its members were mostly in the military. The Waffen SS eventually developed into a formidable fighting force. Based on storm trooper principles - which in fact had their origin in practices developed by front-line officers in the First World War - and which emphasized mobile, elite strike formations, and staffed by highly motivated and ideologically committed troops it was widely acknowledged as the best force on any side in the war. But its very success was self-limiting. Thrown into the harshest battles on the Eastern Front it took heavy casualties. At Rhzev in winter 1942, for instance, the SS regiment "Der Fuehrer" attacked and drove back a much larger Soviet forc

Excellent History

In many ways, the demonization of the 3rd Reich's arch-villains has been a mistake. The travesty is that people always assume there is "us" and "them" and "they" are always the monsters. "We can't possibly have it in us to do these horrible things." The sad case is most are accomplices either by their apathy, ambition, or some other mundane aspect. Whether Hohne desired to or not, he hammers this point home. With painstaking detail using first-hand accounts, interviews, diaries, letters and other documentation Hohne crafts an in-depth portrait of Nazi Germany, the SS, and the men involved. Most weren't insane or sadists. To this list I would add even Himmler, Eichmann, Muller, Heydrich and others. Eichmann wasn't even an anti-Semite. Sadly, I don't think he saw anything other than numbers as any efficient bureaucrat would. This book clearly demonstrates how easily normal people were compromised by their own small decisions to become monsters. Action A desensitized them to B and the road to Hell was made in baby steps. Hohne makes his case that Nazi Germany wasn't a monolithic State but a jungle. The illusion of a central authority, even Hitler as such, is a myth. By documenting how various depts. wax and wane along with their respective spheres of influence and maddening overlap of responsibilities, Hohne shatters the monolithic image of the Nazi State. State powers grew unchecked by law, international pressure, or civic duty. Fascist intellectuals had stated that their State was beyond Law. This is what happened when a State had no checks. It was a power grab in a madhouse. Various State organs were run as fiefdoms by ambitious men with Hitler in the center as a lion tamer. At any moment one fo those lions could, and would, have eaten him. All the way down the chain, everyone ran their little empires and sought to increase them. The image of Hitler I have after reading this is from the old Doors song "rider on the storm." He played one powerful potentate off against another to maintain his position. Hitler was the penultimate politician. The book reads well, though dry statistics can occasionally bore. The large "cast of characters" creates difficulty in remembering who did what when esp since individuals frequently wore more than one hat. Trying to remember various shifting State entities is difficult. Hohne does an excellent job of documenting the shifting spheres of influence among the horde of departments in Nazi Germany, but you will often find yourself backtracking. Familiarize yourself with the Appendices to reduce confusion. In the end, the read is exceptional and well worth it.Goriness and sensationalism are kept to a minimum. The real horror is how, step-by-step, normal people were roped into insanity and how absolutely easy it was. There never was (or is) any great evil conspiracy. Nazi-ism's rise is best expressed inadvertently by Carl Sandberg when he wrote "the fog comes on little cat feet." Those who tr

Truth behind the Death's Head.

This book was gruesome. It showed the truth of Hitlers operation to get rid of the Jews. It tells about how Hitlers army could not kill women and children, so they had a backup army which were trained to kill women and children. This books get very specific when they tell about how some infants were killed. One would throw the baby in the air, and the other would try to catch it the end of the knife. And if any one flinched, they would get beat, or possibly even killed. As gruesome and graphic this story is... It tells the horrible truth of what happened during the "Final Solution."