Blood and Iron: From Bismarck to Hitler the von Moltke Family's Impact on German History

by Otto Friedrich

A chronicle of German history focuses on the role played by the von Moltke family

Genres: History, Nonfiction, European History, Biography, Germany, Politics

448 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

Otto Friedrich was born in Boston and graduated from Harvard, where his father was a political science professor. He took a while to find his literary stride. His career took him from the copy desk at Stars and Stripes to a top writing job at Time, with stops in between with the United Press in London and Paris and with The Daily News and Newsweek in New York.

But it was the seven years he spent with The Saturday Evening Post, including four as its last managing editor, that established Mr. Friedrich as a writer to be reckoned with.

When the venerable magazine folded in 1969, Mr. Friedrich, who had seen the end coming and kept meticulous notes, delineated its demise in a book, 'Decline and Fall," which was published by Harper & Row the next year. Widely hailed as both an engaging and definitive account of corporate myopia, the book, which won a George Polk Memorial Award, is still used as a textbook by both journalism and business schools, his daughter said.

From then on, Mr. Friedrich, who had tried his hand as a novelist in the 1950's and 60's and written a series of children's books with his wife, Priscilla Broughton, wrote nonfiction, turning out an average of one book every two years.

They include "Clover: A Love Story," a 1979 biography of Mrs. Henry Adams; "City of Nets: Hollywood in the 1940's" (1986); "Glenn Gould: A Life and Variations," (1989); "Olympia: Paris in the Age of Manet," (1992), and "Blood and Iron," a study of the Von Moltke family of Germany that is being published this fall.

He wrote his books, as well as reams of freelance articles and book reviews, while holding down a full-time job with Time that required him to write in a distinct style far different from the one he used at home.

Mr. Friedrich, who joined Time as a senior editor in 1971 and retired in 1990 after a decade as a senior writer, wrote 40 major cover stories, the magazine said yesterday, as well as hundreds of shorter pieces, all of them produced on an old-fashioned Royal typewriter that he was given special dispensation to continue using long after the magazine converted to computers.

Mrs. Lucas, portraying her father as a New England moralist whose life and literary interests reflected his disenchantment with much of 20th-century culture, noted that his aptitude for anachronism did not end with typewriters. "We have five rotary telephones in this house," she said.

In addition to pursuing his eclectic interests into print, Mr. Friedrich also had a knack for turning his own life into art. When he tried to grow roses, the record of his failure became a book, "The Rose Garden" (1972). When relatives were stricken with schizophrenia, his frustration drove him to produce an exhaustive study of insanity, "Going Crazy" (1976).

Reviews

[Readius Maximus · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book isn't bad but it is miss branded. This book has very little to do with Bismarck or Hitler and is mainly about the Moltke family and talks more about their estate in Kreisau then it ever does about Bismarck or Hitler.

If you want to learn about the Moltke family this is a decent book although their might be better haha.

Napolean's defeat of the Prussian's really influences events for the next century and a half and lays a very firm foundation of hatred between France and Germany. The rest of the politics of Europe seemed to be dictated by which side you were going to join in this rivalry.

Campaigns: Covers Moltke's crushing of the Austrians in 1866, the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, and the WW1 Schlieffen Plan. Very interesting but only takes up a few chapters of the book.

Politics: One of the more interesting parts of the book is discussing the political situation that led up to the major wars in which a Moltke was involved in which was probably the most interesting parts of the book. It's interesting to see how the fallout from each war influenced the course of affairs decades or in the case of Napoleon even a century later. Napoleon took Alsaic Loraine from the Germans which helped fuel the Franco-Prussian war which fueled WW1. WW1 seems to have happened for no other reason then people wanted a war. That and the Germans were stupid politically. They had everything to lose and nothing to gain from a future war. They should have left the Austrians to handle the Serbians and Russians since the Russian's kind of sucked and waited for France to mobalize and join the war.

WW1: I have no ideas why the Germans joined WW1. Russian wanted to protect the Serbians and honor their pledge after all their previous disasters. The Germans wanted to protect Austria. France and England went to war because Germany did. Germany felt pressure to mobilize because Moltke's insistence on attacking first and the German's mobilization plan was firmly set to enact the Schlieffen plan, so if their was going to be war they felt they had to act quickly to try and knock out one opponent. It's ironic that if they had gone on the defensive in the West they could have very easily knocked out Russia (they did knock out Russia thanks to Lenin although maybe if Russia had been invaded they would have united?) and then Italy

Bismarck: Their only decent statesman. Gifted but flawed. Unlike Hitler he knew when to stop and consolodate what he had gained instead of getting greedy. However, his strong arm leadership prepared the people to accept Hitler, and his victories and success made Germany powerful and thus hated and despised.

Moltke: Great strategist and unlike Bismarck a very decent man. In fact he was a good counter to Bismarck. However, his attack first principal, while affective at winning wars is terrible politically as everyone fears that you will suddenly attack and start a war to prevent a war. Much like us in a way after Iraq. This success and fear brought on WW1 as Germany was eager to start a war to prevent one and Europe was afraid of just that happening.

[Kyle David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Otto Friedrich was a very talented writer, this was very good book. I will be reading more by him. Going back further than WW1 is giving me a much better understanding of the causes of WW2.

I give 4 stars because I think he let the focus shift far too often to Bismarck as opposed to Field Marshall von Moltke in the first section of the book. This stands in sharp contrast to “Iron and Gold” in which Fritz Stern doggedly stays focused on Bismarck’s banker, Bleichroder, the intended subject of that work. Stern doesn’t allow Bismarck to overshadow Bleichroder unlike Friedrich and his chosen subject.

Despite this flaw in the beginning it is a book I highly recommend if one is seeking out more information on German history as it relates to the World Wars. Friedrich’s style is as engaging and enjoyable as it is informative.

[Jonny Andres · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've read of the Moltke contributions to the German war machine, but in merely brief passing and snippets. This was a rather enjoyable read with poignant anecdotes and vibrant characters. A very nice short summary of such an abstract (for myself) portion of German history.

[Ed Evans · Rating 4 out of 5]

Extremely well written narrative of three generations of a German military family from the Franco-Prussian War thru WW2. Massively researched, but reads more like a novel than a history book. A nice resource on the complicated history of the unification of Germany and the fate of Prussia. For any student of things German, both history and culture, this is worth your time

[Jay Archer · Rating 4 out of 5]

i really like this book but some points i disagree with bismarck and how he handle things.Sometimes i do think that the weak should always die because they will always get in the way of people who r strong and i dont really blame bismarck for saying that. but bismarck doesnt really explain him self to well he say the blood represent the hard working people of germany and the iron is the idustrialization.

[Debra · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book answers Why?? how WWI and WWII came about.