Generalne Gubernatorstwo. Mroczne serce Europy Hitlera

by Martin Winstone

Pierwsza powstała poza granicami Polski i opracowana z takim rozmachem monografia na temat tragicznej historii Generalnego Gubernatorstwa

Tragiczna historia Generalnego Gubernatorstwa - nazistowskiej kolonii stworzonej w historycznym centrum Polski - wyróżnia się nawet na tle okrucieństw niemieckich rządów w okupowanej Europie. Oddzielone od Rzeszy, ale rządzone przez Niemców, za pośrednictwem brutalnego i skorumpowanego reżimu kierowanego przez Hansa Franka Generalne Gubernatorstwo stało się głównym "laboratorium rasowym" Trzeciej Rzeszy i największym ośrodkiem Holokaustu.

Było to prawdziwe mroczne serce hitlerowskiego imperium. To tu przeprowadzono akcję "Reinhard", największą operację ludobójczą w dziejach ludzkości, w czasie której w ciągu 18 miesięcy zamordowano 1,7 miliona Żydów, a wobec polskiej ludności realizowano systematyczną kampanię terroru, eksploatacji i czystek etnicznych. Było to miejsce, w którym można było bezkarnie rozstrzelać 42 tysiące ludzi w dwa dni, i odebrać tysiące dzieci ich rodzinom. Przewodniki turystyczne zachęcały zaś niemieckich turystów, by przyjeżdżali do tego atrakcyjnego miejsca, by zwiedzić miasta, które "zostały już odżydzone".

Generalne Gubernatorstwo przedstawia pełną historię nazistowskiego reżimu okupacyjnego w Polsce oraz tragicznych doświadczeń Polaków, Żydów i przedstawicieli innych narodów, którzy znaleźli się pod jego władzą. Korzystając z bogatych źródeł, począwszy od dzienników i relacji świadków, po wcześniej niedoceniane, niezwykle oryginalne materiały, jak na przykład przewodniki turystyczne czy utwory poetyckie, Martin Winstone umożliwia czytelnikowi wyjątkowy wgląd w działalność Generalnego Gubernatorstwa.

Historia miejsca największej operacji ludobójczej w historii!

Genres: History, World War II, Poland, Holocaust, Nonfiction, European History

424 pages, Hardcover

First published August 30, 2014

Reviews

[Julie Huskey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Winstone opens with a description of one of the creepiest-ever travel guides: Baedeker's Generalgouvernement [much of which is available on the web, for those who read German]. The section of Poland that was occupied by, but not considered part of, Germany, was the scene of much squabbling among German officials, German civilians, and Ukrainians; the brutality of the war played out in a far more haphazard manner in the GG than in other German-controlled areas. If one ever needs a reminder of the cruelty we are capable of, this will do.

[Maria Roizman · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the few books on Hitler's conquest of Poland that can be read not only by professional historians but by general public as well.

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

A survey look at the General-Government, the governing authority that the Nazis used to rule over Poland during the Second World War. It covers the entire history of the state, which is to say it is full of death and despair as befell the mainly Polish and Jewish inhabitants of the area. Winstone does a good job in terms of writing and keeping the history engaging, and provides the first true comprehensive look at the General-Government in English. It is a short book with 250 pages of text, and it does end with you feeling a lot more could be written, but it's bolstered with an ample bibliography full of mainly German-language texts that allow for further research. Very much a valuable read for the subject.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is another book which has become a reference text for me that I keep diving into here and there for bits of information.
Dark Heart of Hitler's Europe isn't the only book which focuses on the General Government area of Poland, under German rule during WWII. I recently reviewed a Jan Gross book on the same topic, but I prefer this book by Winstone much more.

The initial pages are actually a really fascinating way to open a book - they're a great "hook" into a non-fiction history text... I don't know how well known the Baedekers Generalgouvernement travel guide is amongst historians, but I had never heard of it before. I am however a guy who once worked in the travel section of a bookstore and sold travel books (Baedekers, Lonely Planet etc), and having travelled a lot with those kinds of books in my backpack, it is FASCINATING that Baedekers wrote and published a travel book about an area which - let's face it - was essentially a g*&^dmned huge horrendous prison and slave labour camp. I mean... it came out in 1943!! The Germans were in the process of losing an entire army at Stalingrad, the tide of the war was changing, and Baedeker wrote a book about the best restaurants etc in Warsaw! OH my gosh... it might be a good work of fiction to write a novel about Hans Baedeker being forced by the Nazis to even research & write this travel book ... geeze... that's actually a good idea...

ANYWAY - totally off track.
If you don't know what the General Government area was... it's the region of central and south-east Poland that the Germans did NOT simply fold into Germany after their invasion. It's an area they saw as a huge prison camp which needed to be cleansed... get all the Jews and Poles out of the area, so that German immigration could happen and the land would eventually be that eastern "living space" for Germans that Hitler craved.
I like the book more than some others, because Winstone does discuss German personalities and motives, AND that of the Poles and Jews, so he is looking at both sides in his book.

He has also found a lot of interesting quotes - including this one from Hans Frank, who was the German head of the General Government, about how some of their policies in the area contradicted each other:
one suddenly gains the insight that one cannot simultaneously annihilate the Poles and on the other hand make calculations including the labour capacity of the Poles. (pg 120).

You can imagine the nazis on the other side of the table going "ohhh... of course... if we kill all of them, they can't make bullets for us... right... right...."

Through the section of the book which includes the Zamosc expulsion material, Winstone makes a lot of use of
Diary from the Years of Occupation 1939-44
which is good to see... as the Klukowski book is the most famous first-hand account of these years.

As has been my complaint with some of the other books I've been using for research, there still isn't a lot of discussion about the Polish Home Army or the Peasant Battalions etc, in the forests during the Zamosc actions, and what THEIR thinking was or goals or daily life was like. But, this book definitely has a bit more of this than some others.

There is also some ... umm... not "good"... but... powerful writing about the Ukrainian atrocities against the Poles (mostly pages 204 to 207).
As German forces abandoned the countryside, UPA units [Ukrainian Insurgent Army] murdered the entire populations of Polish villages (and many Ukrainians as well) in an attempt to frighten the remainder into fleeing. Estimates of the number of Polish civilians murdered in Wolyn in 1943 are in the range of 40,000 to 60,000.
I mean - good God... this region during WWII - it's almost completely unimaginable what was happening here.

So far - if someone was looking for one single book to read on the General Government area, this Winstone book would be my choice.

If you'd like to see a full review from a historian - try to access this one:
Kelly, M. (2016). The Dark Heart of Hitler’s Europe, by Martin Winstone. The English Historical Review, 131(551), 958–959. https://doi.org/10.1093/ehr/cew129

[Patrick Elsey · Rating 1 out of 5]

To unfocused and disjointed to be worth reading

[Nate Rabe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Desperately sad history. Very worthy of being read