A century ago, the most potent moral figure in the West was Jesus Christ. Believers and unbelievers alike accepted him as an ethical exemplar. Not to do so was to make oneself an outcast. But now, our most potent moral figure is Adolf Hitler. In our relativist, pluralist age, he is our one . . . . Continue Reading »
It was surreal. President Biden began his State of the Union speech by invoking the Nazi threat. More than eighty years ago, Biden reminded us, Franklin Roosevelt rallied the nation, as “Hitler was on the march,” and “freedom and democracy were under assault.” Today, the president warned, . . . . Continue Reading »
Until early 1939, much of the civilized world refused to believe that Hitler meant what he wrote. Rather, the civilized world averted its eyes from what it should have recognized as the unmistakable threat posed by a re-arming Germany. Continue Reading »
In 1980, the soldiers of the Third Reich took Bolivia. After the huge tank battles that had brought about the final victory in Europe, South America was something more like a police operation—in fact, the conquest of the country was led not by the Wehrmacht, but by a Hauptsturmführer of the . . . . Continue Reading »
The Collected Novellas of Stefan Zweig by stefan zweig translated by anthea bell pushkin, 384 pages, $30 The Collected Stories of Stefan Zweig by stefan zweig translated by anthea bell pushkin, 720 pages, $14.99 The World of Yesterday by stefan zweig translated by anthea bell . . . . Continue Reading »
Franco: Anatomy of a Dictator by enrique moradiellos i.b.tauris, 264 pages, $30 Not long after the successful Allied landings in Normandy in June 1944, Francisco Franco, dictator of Spain, removed a photograph of Adolf Hitler from his desk in the Pardo Palace in Madrid. He promptly replaced . . . . Continue Reading »