New Books In German Studies

To Americans, Hitler et al. were a confusing bunch. The National Socialists were Germans, and Germans had a reputation for refinement, industry, and order. After all, many Americans were of German descent, and they surely thought of themselves as refined, industrious, and orderly. The Nazis, however, seemed un-German in important ways: they were, apparently, racist thugs bent on destroying democracy, conquering Europe, and murdering millions of innocents in the name of “purity.” If the Nazis weren’t Germans, who were they? If the Nazis were Germans–that is, had somehow sprung out of deeply German cultural roots–then who were the Germans? As Michaela Hoenicke points out in her fascinating book Know Your Enemy. American Debate on Nazism, 1933-1945 (Cambridge UP, 2009), Americans high and low thought a lot about these questions before and during the war. Their answers, as you will see, were not entirely consistent. Sometimes the Americans took the “Good German” line seri