BOOKS: The Hitler Years: Disaster, 1940-1945: Frank McDonough

Dec. 10—Frank McDonough continues his look at Germany during the era of the Third Reich with "The Hitler Years: Disaster, 1940-1945."

With "The Hitler Years: Triumph, 1933-1939," McDonough chronicled Adolf Hitler's rise to power, consolidating his rule, first through democratic elections, followed by a mix of brute force, charm, diplomacy and compromise to dismantle democracy, strengthen the Nazi party, neutralize opponents at home, build the German military machine and invade and conquer neighboring nations while sidestepping war, initially, with those nations' allies.

In the second volume, "The Hitler Years: Disaster, 1940-1945," McDonough charts the course of Hitler ascendant — with Europe falling to his forces, with Britain standing defiantly alone, with Russia in a non-aggression pact, the United States sitting out the war, Japan and Italy as Axis partners, with France teetering toward sudden collapse — to the opposite with the utter destruction of Hitler, the Nazi Regime and Germany.

McDonough reveals other facets of World War II than what most Americans study, which is typically an isolated Britain and Winston Churchill standing alone, the attack on Pearl Harbor, the friendship between Churchill and American President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the alliance between America, Britain and Russia, D-Day and the Normandy invasion, Gens. Dwight D. Eisenhower and George S. Patton, the Battle of the Bulge, the Holocaust, and the fall of Berlin.

McDonough looks at the inner workings and politics within the Third Reich, Hitler's actions and known thoughts — successful followed by repeated missteps, the horrifying politics and results of the Holocaust, the German battle plans and the German victories and losses and eventually the final days of Hitler and the Nazi regime.

McDonough flips what most readers follow in World War II histories by revealing the inner workings of Germany and the Axis instead of the Americans/British and the Allies. Instead of FDR and Churchill, McDonough readers follow the relationship between Hitler and Italian Fascist Benito Mussolini.

He does not celebrate Hitler, Nazis or the Third Reich. Rather, McDonough provides a behind-the-scenes look at the person, party and nation that led to World War II and the tragedy of the Holocaust.

He also emphasizes the war between Germany and Russia.

Most American/British WWII histories mention Hitler's betrayal of the pact he had with Russian Premier Joseph Stalin with Germany invading Russia, the push to Moscow, the prolonged brutality of the siege of Stalingrad, the Russian pushback of the Germans, the German army retreat, Stalin's repeated call for FDR and Churchill to open a second front against Germany from the west, the Soviet push across other nations and the push through Germany and to Berlin.

McDonough chronicles the Germany-Russian facet of the war in great detail: the cataclysmic loss of life to the Russians, the depravity of first the German forces on the Russian people followed by reciprocated action by the Russian army on the Germans, and the devastating impact of the Russians on the German military with massive losses in the east before the other Allied powers ever entered the war in the west.

"The Hitler Years" does not gloss over the violence and horrors of war and genocide. McDonough spells out actions with grim detail.

The books are a frightening study of how a civilized people can be swayed by the will of one man to commit war and atrocities — not reluctantly but gleefully.