Hitler's First Hundred Days: When Germans Embraced The Third Reich, Fritsche - B +

   President Hindenburg swore in Chancellor Hitler at mid-day January 30, 1933. The political compromises that led to this decision were driven by desperation. The country was hopelessly divided between the extremists of each side. The Nazis and Communists were electorally equally matched and of much more importance in the body politic than the centrist parties of the Catholic Center and the Social Democrats. Reason had departed from whatever was left of the Weimar Republic. The previous decade-and-a-half had seen defeat, degradation, devaluation, anti-semitism, reparations, and depression. Indeed, the Berlin of that winter was marked by malnutrition, unemployment and grinding poverty. The Nazis  had been a feature on the national scene for years, but powered to the top in 1930-1932 when their share of the Reichstag vote moved from 2.8% to 37%. They accomplished their move by relentless effort all around the country, with a well organized ground game led by the hardest worker of them all, Hitler. He never tired of driving and flying around Germany and making multiple speeches a day. It is believed he spoke to 4 million people in person in 1932. His rabble rousing denunciations of the 'stab in the back' and Versailles resonated across all classes and religions. The Nazis sought to unify the country by first breaking down the barriers dividing the country. That said, the Nazis could not unseat Hindenburg's majority party for the presidency, nor could Hindenburg and the forces of the right find a chancellor other than the 'Bohemian corporal'. The conservatives who acquiesced to Hitler disdained him and his mob and believed they could control him. Von Papen, a recent chancellor, said, "We'll box Hitler in......after all, we've hired him." The right wished to break Weimar and they did, just not quite how they had anticipated.                                                                        There was a massive torchlight rally that night in Berlin, reviewed by Hindenburg and Hitler, celebrating what the Nazi's called the "spirit of 1914." Hitler, hoping for a legislative majority,  persuaded Hindenburg to call Reichstag elections for March 5th. The campaign was the first time the Nazis had access to the radio and they blanketed the airwaves for a month. The Reichstag fire of February 27th proved to be a pivotal moment, as it led the following day to emergency legislation that paved the way for dictatorship. Goring, as Prussian Minister of the Interior, arrested innumerable communists and basically frightened the Reds from voting. On the 5th, the Nazis achieved 44% and the Nationalists 8%, thus allowing a right wing conservative majority to form a government. "The week that followed the elections was the single most consequential in German history." The Nazis attacked Jews, communists, Social Democrats and prepared to take over the state. Newspapers were abolished. "Assertions about communist terrorism produced a concrete policy of ant-terrorism that installed the dictatorship." From one end of the country to the other, brown shirted SA stormtroopers marched to city hall and beat and tortured officials until they quit, were jailed or executed. It was a literal and illegal reign of terror. By the middle of March, the communist and SD parties ceased to exist.  On March 23rd, the Reichstag passed an Enabling Act authorizing Hitler's dictatorship.                                                                                              "Most Germans preferred a Nazi future to the Weimar past." It offered renewal and reunion. "Germans credited the Nazis with finally putting in place the national solidarity they had yearned for after the lost war and years of revolution and counterrevolution." The Protestant establishment viewed the immorality of the Weimar years as if it were the 'passion of Christ', assisted in its degradation by Jews and communists in the big cities. The Nazis also embraced and honored the one-third of German males who were war veterans. They attracted the working man by co-opting May Day by recognizing it as a national holiday and calling it the National Day of Labor. April saw the boycott of Jewish businesses and the removal of Jews, of whom there were about half-a-million, from all civil service positions in the Reich. The SA began indiscriminately beating and murdering Jews in the street. German society was severed, and Jews were excluded.                             The year 1933 marked the end of the post-war period and the ascendancy of the Nazis as the number one news story in the world. All of a sudden, the world became focused on the likelihood of a second war. The Nazis had taken  over Germany quickly and violently and the Germans went along willingly after the first weeks and months. This is a magnificent and highly recommended book. It tells not what happened, but how and why it happened better than any I can recollect. My only quibble is that the author stretches out the last third of the book on events after the first hundred days, and around Europe as well.  But again, I think this is a must for those who seek to try and understand the story behind the century's greatest calamity.

Divided Loyalties, Todd - B +

                   In 22 books over 24 years, the authors have created one of the best, perhaps my favorite, series.  I've always admired their sense of history in England immediately after the Great War,  their ability to study the despair of the men who fought, and the society they returned to. It is excellence seldom seen in a novel or for that matter, a history.  The mystery plots are almost always good, and here, it's great. Rutledge is sent to Devon to explore a murder, which he successfully wraps up, when his irascible boss sends him to another town in the west because one of his colleagues has failed in a case. It's the best one in the series in recent memory

An Underground Guide To Sewers, Halliday - B-

  The 19th was a century of world-wide cholera epidemics and massive urban sewer programs. From time immemorial, mankind created systems to access water and dispose of waste, but never gave much thought to the health consequences of either or both or their interaction. Thanks to Victor Hugo, the world's most famous sewers are those of Paris, which were constructed in the 18th and early 19th century. The era of Napoleon III saw the epic reconstruction of the city by Baron Haussmann, who transformed above and below. He significantly expanded the sewers and built masterpieces for the transmission of storm water and liquid waste to the Seine. He apparently did not want #2 despoiling his sewers and continued the use of nightsoilmen to clean out cesspits. Solid human wastes were added later in the century by a successor City Engineer. The construction of London's sewers coincided with the mid-century realization that cholera was a waterborne disease. London, at two-and-a-half million people, was the largest city in the world and in desperate need of extensive water intake and waste output. The Victorian engineers rose to the task and were the first to separate, and thus allow a more lenient disposal of, rainwater from human waste. The unpredictable storms were allowed to flow directly into the Thames. Human waste was routed far to the east. Around the world, the steps taken in Paris and London led the way forward, and as mankind moved into the 20th century and even larger cities, processes for waste treatment moved to the fore. Admittedly, the most apt characterization of this book is odd.

The King At The Edge Of The World, Phillips - B

                                  This novel begins in 1591, with a group of diplomats sent to London by the Ottoman Emperor. When they leave, unlucky Turk physician, Mahmoud Ezzedine, is left behind as a gesture of good will. A decade later, as Elizabeth I lay dying, all are anxious about whether James Stuart, the likely heir, is truly Protestant.  Mahmoud is now Matthew Thatcher, still a physician, and now a Christian. This transition from the Tudors to the Stuarts was fully seven decades after Henry VIII had left the Catholic church, but religion had been and would continue to be an unsettled source of conflict for another nine decades after Elizabeth's death. Indeed, it wouldn't be until the middle of the 18th century that Bonnie Prince Charlie's defeat at Culloden ended the last Catholic threat once and for all. Thatcher is sent to James VI in Scotland by Elizabeth to be his assistant and physician. It is not his health, though, but rather his religious intent, that Thatcher is assigned to monitor. He gains the King's confidence, plays chess with him and slowly poisons him. When called in to administer to him, he does and he observes the King in extremis. He prays to his Protestant God as Thatcher cures him. Thatcher delivers the wonderful news toEngland, easing the way for James I to ascend the throne upon Elizabeth's demise in 1603.

Heaven, My Home, Locke - B+

                                 This excellent novel is set in east Texas a few years ago and features Darren Matthews,  a black Texas Ranger, with a fair share of personal problems and a very complex case. He's got marital issues, and more importantly, one of the local sheriffs thinks he killed a member of the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas. He's called out to investigate a kidnapping, perhaps murder, near Caddo Lake on the Texas - Louisiana border. He uncovers a rat's nest of crime, nasty people, true black-white hatred and a nasty side to a dear friend and FBI agent. The fascinating thing about this book is the background of the lake, its history as a safe place for free blacks and native Americans before the Civil War, and how it all played out a century-and-a-half later.

Play The Red Queen, Jurjevics- B+

                                  This is a fascinating, and recommended, novel set in Saigon in the fall of 1963.  The lady of the title is the nickname of a VC sniper who kills American officers with one shot from the back of a Vespa from a pretty good distance. She is talented and lethal and our two Yank MPs are on her trail after her third kill. The only clue they're able to uncover is that she is after either an American silver fox or America's silver fox. Could be Lodge? Could be Diem? They soon find out that victim #3 was about to file a report exposing the obscenely corrupt practices of the Diem's, which the newly-appointed Lodge was trying to stop. They finally catch up to her on the night in November when the coup against the Diems succeeds. The author was a Vietnam vet and a fine writer with great insight into the Saigon of that pivotal year.

Notre-Dame: The Soul of France, Poirer - A*

     In life, there are enduring symbols and Notre-Dame has been one for 850 years. It has always been more than a cathedral. "Notre-Dame is one of mankind's greatest architectural achievements, the face of civilization, the soul of a nation. "                   In the 12th century, Paris was the capital of France and a thriving multi-dimensional city. It was "the royal city, the merchant city, the bishop's city and the university city."  Bishop Maurice deSully was the man responsible for the cathedral's construction, which began in 1161 and was vigorously pursued for the next 40 years. It took a century to complete the airy, cohesive, austere and majestic building.  Centuries later, the Bourbons would lavish works of art and gifts on Notre-Dame, as they bestowed on it a central role in their monarchy. The Revolution led to the melting of the cathedral's bells for canon, lead coffins for bullets and the beheading of the 28 kings of Judah on the facade because they were wrongly thought to be the kings of France.  Catholicism was abolished and Notre-Dame became the Temple of Reason.  The new century saw the pope and Napoleon sign a Concordat, reestablishing the church in France and confirmed at a mass at Notre-Dame.  A few years later, in 1804, Pius VII came to Notre-Dame for Napoleon's coronation as emperor.  Hugo's 'Notre-Dame de Paris', published in 1832, led to a movement to restore the cathedral to its former glory.  The twenty-year restoration  began in 1845 with the objective of undoing the previous three centuries of filling in, plastering over, removing of stain glass and other intentional defilements, along with damages inflicted by time and weather.  Also, a new towering spire was added to the cathedral. Its collapse in 2019 was the devastating symbol of the fire at Notre-Dame last year. Paris itself by the middle of the 19th century was an overcrowded, congested and filthy mess. Baron Haussmann's renovations completely redid the Ile de la Cite. He evicted two-thirds of its inhabitants in order to clear the sight lines around the cathedral.                                   The day after he arrived in Paris in August of 1944, De Gaulle walked from the Arc de Triomphe  to Notre-Dame  and cemented himself as liberator and leader of France.  The year 2013 saw the replacement of all but one bell with new, meticulously cast bronze bells, and for the first time since before the Revolution, the bells of Notre-Dame were in tune.  On the evening of April 15, 2019, flames began to leap from the roof. The fire was in the 13th-century oak lattice work roof structure.  An hour after the fire began, the spire collapsed. The firefighters saved the towers and the treasures of  Notre-Dame. The next day, donations were promised by rich and poor, in France and around the world. Securing tarps in place of the roof and stabilizing the walls were the first two jobs addressed. How it will be restored and how its role as a church and museum will be modified all remain to be resolved.  It is now the 'building site of the century' and this is a very good book.

To The Edge of Sorrow, Appelfeld - B +

                                 The author survived the Holocaust as a young boy, hiding in the woods of Ukraine before joining the Red Army. He became a noted Israeli writer specializing in fictional accounts of the war. In this tale, a seventeen-year-old narrates the story of a Jewish band of partizans formed in the summer of 1942, near the Romanian-Ukrainian border. It is mostly about the day-to-day details of patrolling, gathering food and surviving. The focus is on the leader, Kamil, the cook, Tsila, and the ancient old lady, Tsirl, with a memory of everyone's grandparents. As time passes, there is less and less fighting with Germans or local police and the group's goal is to  wait for the Soviets. But Kamil decides to take the offensive and begins dynamiting trains, derailing them and rescuing Jews on the way to the camps. Soon, the hilltop hideout has 172 souls. When artillery is heard far to the east, the camp fears that the Germans will finish them off before the arrival of the Red Army. The Germans shell the camp, killing many, including Kamil, before the Soviets run them off. After a few days, they descend, walk to town and bury their dead in the Jewish cemetery.  They then settle in at a warehouse near the train station. Time passes and they lose their purpose and cohesiveness. Without the camp, they are no longer connected. The Ukrainians try to rob them and the decision is made  to return. Not home, back to the hilltop.

A Gentleman In Moscow, Towles - A*

                                  This magnificent novel was voted book of the year by many a few years back and I thank my friends, Dennis and Catie Grindinger, for encouraging me to take it up. The gentleman of the title is Count Alexander Rostov, condemned by the Reds at the dawn of the USSR for being a gentleman to spend his life in the Metropol Hotel, of which he was so fond.  Even after his suite was taken away and he was reduced to an extremely modest room, he retained his aristocratic grace and poise and continued to enjoy life to its fullest. The Boyarsky Restaurant, once and maybe still, the finest east of Vienna was his daily home and source of great joy. Of course, when the Bolshies decided that the hundreds of thousands of bottles in the cellar needed to reflect the nation's new politics and had all the labels removed, leaving a choice of red or white, he was appalled, but accepting. As he meets and charms the many who pass through, including Nina, a nine year old girl, Anna, a famous actress, and Osip, a Red Army Colonel, we see through the wit and learn details of the tragedies that befell his family and his class. As he soldiers on through the years and in the late 20's starts helping out with the seating and waiting in the Boyarsky, we see the history of the USSR through the lens of the hotel. When the trials begin in the mid-30's, Nina returns and asks him to watch over her 5 year old daughter, Sofia, because she must follow her husband to Siberia. Nina is never heard from again and Rostov is now the guardian of a child, whom he raises to young womanhood. Sofia is brilliant, beautiful and the child of the entire staff of the Metropol. She excels at piano and joins the Moscow conservatory, which is scheduled to perform in Paris in the summer of 1954. The Count begins to dream and plot. He had returned from the City of Light when the Revolution  began and had been dreaming of it for decades. Escape is planned for him and Sofia; Paris for one and home for the other. Truly wonderful.

Spies of No Country: Israel's Secret Agents At The Birth Of The Mossad, Friedman - C

 This is the story of four young Jews, all born in the 1920's in the Arab world, three named Cohen, and one Shosan, who were the foundation of one of the world's premier intelligence agencies, the Mossad.  Only Jews born in the Middle East had any prayer of acting as a spy. The Askkenazi Jews from Europe could not speak Arabic and did not look Arab. Even these four had occasional difficulty. They were the 'Arab Section' and we follow them from January 1948 to August 1949 in Beirut and Haifa. The fighting had begun in late 1947 after the UN agreed with British plans to leave Palestine and that there would be an Arab and a Jewish state in Britain's stead. The British left on May 14, 1949. The men of the 'Arab section' spied, bombed, assassinated, reported on Arab attitudes and in particular, on Arab intentions and plans as the Arab invasion failed. They came in from the cold and helped build the state after the Independence War.

High Five, Ide - B-

                                  As intriguing as IQ's brains and the plot lines are in this series, the vast array of idiosyncratic Los Angelenos is just as much fun. Dodson, IQ's occasional aide and old friend, goes to the park and feeds Doritos to the pigeons. Starsky and Hutch are a pair of women hitmen specializing in hits requiring difficult access. They grew up in the Ringling Brothers circus as part of the high-wire act and needed work after it folded. TK plays music to the elephants at the zoo, and there are just an endless list of gang-banging bad guys, most stupid, but some pretty savvy. I'm not sure where this series is going. It hasn't lived up to its debut performance and after a totally crazy gang war, everybody's looking for IQ and he's headed out of town all alone, and without any plans.

The Hunt For Kimathi, Henderson and Goodheart - B

                                   This is the story of the 1950's hunt for the Mau Mau's most ruthless and merciless leader, Dedan Kimathi. The Mau Mau indiscriminately slaughtered Kenyan whites and native Africans. Kimathi was a 32 year-old rapist and thug in 1952, when he assumed a leadership role in the uprising. By the middle of the decade, the rebellion was mostly suppressed,  but approximately 1500 rebels were still free roaming over a vast forest of 6,000 square miles. Ian Henderson was the policeman who led the hunt for Kimathi that began in late 1955.  His strategy was to capture a terrorist with the help of other terrorists. Over the course of seven weeks, he convinced a dozen Mau Mau to abandon Kimathi in exchange for food, arms and safety from the increasingly erratic and violent Kimathi. The collaborators helped Henderson narrow down the are where Kimathi and his remaining 50 followers were when the rainy season began at the end of March. The hunters captured more and more of the rebels, including Kimathi's brother. By August, they were closer than ever and Kimathi was down to a dozen men. By October, the final operation was ready, and traps were set in all the possible places Kimathi would seek water. One of the rebel's top lieutenants was captured, and led them to his hideout. Starving, alone and near collapse, on the 21st, six Kikuyu tribal policemen wounded him and brought him to a hospital. He was tried, sentenced to be hung and executed the following year. Thanks to my Kenyan friend and Colorado neighbor, Jonathan Block, for the recommendation.

Your House Will Pay, Cha - B+

                                 This is an extremely well-done and nuanced novel about modern LA. The story is about a Korean family and a black family, whose paths crossed in 1991 and again in 2019. Three decades ago, a promising 16-year-old Ava was shot in the back of her head by the female owner of a Korean grocery. Convicted of a reduced crime and given probation, she changes her name to Yvonne Park,  and surfaces much later, when she is gunned down out side her pharmacy. Could it have been a member of Ava's family? Is justice possible? Is reconciliation?

The Last Protector, Taylor - B

                                  Cat Lovett, now Cat Hakesby, married to her elderly master for protection, is approached by her childhood friend, Elizabeth Cromwell, granddaughter of the Lord Protector. Richard, banished son of Oliver, exiled on the continent returns to London in disguise to recoup a possession of his mother's buried in Whitehall. The plans for the building where the Cromwells lived are in the possession of Hakesby and the Cromwells seek his help. However, they are being manipulated by the Duke of Buckingham, who is plotting against Charles II. Marwood, in his role at Scotland Yard, works to unearth the plot, and manages to quiet Buckingham's plans. Since I read the first three in this series a month ago and now this the week it came out, I guess I'm hooked. However, obscure novels set in London in the 1680's are an acquired taste.

Sarah Jane, Sallis - C

                                         The author cranks out best-sellers, and this one received a number of book of the year awards last year. The heroine of the title could best be described as a drifter, who managed to finish college, serve in the Army and wind up as sheriff in some small town in the middle of nowhere. The book is a series of disconnected observations and events, lacking in theme or continuity. The sheriff who hired her lets her know he's leaving and not coming back. Towards the end of the book, we learn that Sarah killed a man decades ago and the former sheriff killed the fella who came to avenge Sarah's actions. It all, apparently, ties in to time in the Army in combat, but it's never spelled out. I don't get it, but maybe that's me.

Thirteen Days In September: Carter, Begin, and Sadat at Camp David , Wright - B+

"The Middle East from distant times till now is a cautionary story of the failure of war to impose a lasting and just peace. The struggle for peace at Camp David is a testament to the enduring force of religion in modern life, as seen in the ability to mold history and in the difficulty of shedding the mythologies that continue to lure societies into conflict."  Carter was a very religious Baptist who believed God wanted him to make peace in the Middle East. Begin was an extreme right-winger, considered a terrorist by many and focused on the destruction of Arabs. Sadat was considered a visionary, bold yet capable of being flexible. Indeed, he had taken the first step on the road to peace when he visited Israel in 1977. Carter invited Begin and Sadat to meet in September, 1978. Absolutely no one thought there was one chance in a million anything would come of the conference. And the opening discussions appeared to be fruitless. Neither side would give an inch. Carter had hoped to be an intermediary, and realized he had to place a proposal on the table and facilitate an accomodation. A week into the summit, Carter and Sadat had reached the outlines of an agreement, but Begin fought every issue tooth and nail. Carter was convinced Begin was unbalanced and had never intended to agree to anything. Israel had occupied the Sinai since 1967, fortified it and allowed a modest number of civilian settlements. Returning the Sinai without removing the settlements was pointless for Sadat, and unimaginable for Begin. Begin eventually, literally at the 11th hour, relented. He also accepted Carter's nebulous side letter on the West Bank  and Jerusalem. There would be peace between Israel and Egypt and a framework for discussions with the Palestinians. The three men signed the documents in the East Room of the White House.  Six months later, they met again and signed the formal peace treaty. Egypt recognized Israel's right to exist and the two countries have been at peace for over four decades. Many in the Arab world were unhappy with Sadat. He was assassinated four years later.  Begin ignored the framework on the West Bank and Jerusalem and aggressively allowed more and more settlers in. Today, there are half-a-million Jews in what most of the world considers the occupied territories. It is of course why the conference failed one of its two objectives, and the reason for ongoing and endless violence in the area. Begin resigned in 1982 after his invasion of Lebanon dragged on in stalemate. The Carter presidency is oft-derided and mostly forgotten, but he soared at Camp David.                       This book is an excellent primer on the problems of the region. The Bible stories of the Israelites and Egyptians are retold, as is the history of the Zionist movement, the British occupation and Israeli independence. Begin's story recounts his time in Poland, Siberia and as the mastermind of Irgun's terrorist activities. Sadat's history focuses on the degradations of the British occupation and the USSR's heavy-handed friendship. The wars fought, particularly the Six Day War and the Yom Kippur War, are related.  In essence, this is a history of the Middle East's conflicts viewed through the prism of the Camp David summit. This book is worth the effort. The author is one of our finest writers and it weighs in under 300 pages. Once again, thanks to my brother.

The Red Lotus, Bohjalian - B+

                                 The author is a master of page-turning bestsellers and he's done it again here. The story is about a NYC ER doc who falls for a guy who works in the same building as she does, but is ethically challenged. The scheme that the boyfriend and others are working on involves weaponizing bubonic plague for sale in the international arms markets. Note to those offended by rodents, there's quite a bit here about rats. This is a perfect antidote for self-isolating.