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Battlegrounds: Cornell Studies in Military History
German Blood, Slavic Soil: How Nazi Königsberg Became Soviet Kaliningrad
German Blood, Slavic Soil reveals how Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, twentieth-century Europe's two most violent revolutionary regimes, transformed a single city and the people who lived there. During World War II, this single city became an epicenter in the apocalyptic battle between their two regimes.
Drawing on sources and perspectives from both sides, Nicole Eaton explores not only what Germans and Soviets thought about each other, but also how the war brought them together. She details an intricate timeline, first describing how Königsberg, a seven-hundred-year-old German port city on the Baltic Sea and lifelong home of Immanuel Kant, became infamous in the 1930s as the easternmost bastion of Hitler's Third Reich and the launching point for the Nazis' genocidal war in the East. She then describes how, after being destroyed by bombing and siege warfare in 1945, Königsberg became Kaliningrad, the westernmost city of Stalin's Soviet Union. Königsberg/Kaliningrad is the only city to have been ruled by both Hitler and Stalin as their own—in both wartime occupation and as integral territory of the two regimes.
German Blood, Slavic Soil presents an intimate look into the Nazi-Soviet encounter during World War II. Eaton impressively shows how this outpost city, far from the centers of power in Moscow and Berlin, became a closed-off space where Nazis and Stalinists each staged radical experiments in societal transformation and were forced to reimagine their utopias in dialogue with the encounter between the victims and proponents of the two regimes.
Drawing on sources and perspectives from both sides, Nicole Eaton explores not only what Germans and Soviets thought about each other, but also how the war brought them together. She details an intricate timeline, first describing how Königsberg, a seven-hundred-year-old German port city on the Baltic Sea and lifelong home of Immanuel Kant, became infamous in the 1930s as the easternmost bastion of Hitler's Third Reich and the launching point for the Nazis' genocidal war in the East. She then describes how, after being destroyed by bombing and siege warfare in 1945, Königsberg became Kaliningrad, the westernmost city of Stalin's Soviet Union. Königsberg/Kaliningrad is the only city to have been ruled by both Hitler and Stalin as their own—in both wartime occupation and as integral territory of the two regimes.
German Blood, Slavic Soil presents an intimate look into the Nazi-Soviet encounter during World War II. Eaton impressively shows how this outpost city, far from the centers of power in Moscow and Berlin, became a closed-off space where Nazis and Stalinists each staged radical experiments in societal transformation and were forced to reimagine their utopias in dialogue with the encounter between the victims and proponents of the two regimes.
330 pages, Hardcover
First published April 15, 2023
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
January 18, 2024
Incredible book.
I got it because I heard a podcast with the author on the New Books Network. I've picked up bits and pieces of the story from other WWII books but it is always an afterthought or a foot note. This book fills in a gap I didn't even realize I had until a broader picture of the times began to click into place.
Konigsberg (now Kalingrad spoiler alert) both supplied men who tried to assassinate Hitler and the brutal leader who survived a political coup because he became a favorite of Hitler
The Nazi citizens ran headlong into the contradictions of a "race based" nationalism when they had to come up with workarounds for "loyal" Polish speaking people they deamed "culturally German" After The War the Soviets never could figure out how to integrate those same citizens (the ones who were left) into the "workers paradise" they were creating. Instead the new myth makers fell back on a created ideal Slavic history of the area (see! the land was Russia's all along they said)
The author is clear about the tragedy and wrongs commited but I never loss the sense of humanity of anyone, not the Germans or the Soviets or any groups those two factions declared an "other" . I never felt like the author was weighing tragedies against each other she lets the people in the book speak for themselves.
Nothing feels fated or inevitable in this book. This isn't a book about ideologies fighting abstractly. Real people making real choices show up again and again reacting to what is going on around them. The author's use of memoirs , official reports and even travel guide books feels so organic and natural I never lost sight of all the people- even as massive political forces are crashing across the continent.
If you are at all interested in WWII this is a must read.
I got it because I heard a podcast with the author on the New Books Network. I've picked up bits and pieces of the story from other WWII books but it is always an afterthought or a foot note. This book fills in a gap I didn't even realize I had until a broader picture of the times began to click into place.
Konigsberg (now Kalingrad spoiler alert) both supplied men who tried to assassinate Hitler and the brutal leader who survived a political coup because he became a favorite of Hitler
The Nazi citizens ran headlong into the contradictions of a "race based" nationalism when they had to come up with workarounds for "loyal" Polish speaking people they deamed "culturally German" After The War the Soviets never could figure out how to integrate those same citizens (the ones who were left) into the "workers paradise" they were creating. Instead the new myth makers fell back on a created ideal Slavic history of the area (see! the land was Russia's all along they said)
The author is clear about the tragedy and wrongs commited but I never loss the sense of humanity of anyone, not the Germans or the Soviets or any groups those two factions declared an "other" . I never felt like the author was weighing tragedies against each other she lets the people in the book speak for themselves.
Nothing feels fated or inevitable in this book. This isn't a book about ideologies fighting abstractly. Real people making real choices show up again and again reacting to what is going on around them. The author's use of memoirs , official reports and even travel guide books feels so organic and natural I never lost sight of all the people- even as massive political forces are crashing across the continent.
If you are at all interested in WWII this is a must read.
January 14, 2024
I too heard the author interviewed on the New Books Network podcast and knew I had to read this. I grew up hearing about Königsberg and East Prussia. I found neither on any map. Family members spoke of it as a place of horror, but also with fondness.
Finally, back in 2019, I cycled through parts of the Russian enclave, including the modern city of Kaliningrad. This was a research trip for my novel, Crow Stone, which explores the chaos of my mom's life between 1945 to 1947 as she attempted to flee the Soviet Army.
Kaliningrad is a complicated, enchanting place. Eaton's book fills a necessary void ... a detached, well-researched exploration of a neglected part of Europe. In today's politically unstable world, Kaliningrad might again be in the spotlight.
Finally, back in 2019, I cycled through parts of the Russian enclave, including the modern city of Kaliningrad. This was a research trip for my novel, Crow Stone, which explores the chaos of my mom's life between 1945 to 1947 as she attempted to flee the Soviet Army.
Kaliningrad is a complicated, enchanting place. Eaton's book fills a necessary void ... a detached, well-researched exploration of a neglected part of Europe. In today's politically unstable world, Kaliningrad might again be in the spotlight.
January 30, 2024
Gandrīz izcils darbs. Ja ir kas iebilstams, tad jāatzīmē divi trūkumi. Pirmkārt, mazliet neizprotams ir apstāklis, ka vispār nav pieminēti t. s. "vilku bērni", kas būtu pelnījuši vismaz atsauci pēc tam, kad tik pozitīvi novērtētas padomju okupācijas varas rūpes par vācu bāreņiem bērnu namos. Otrkārt, un tas jau ir konceptuāls trūkums, pārāk izteiktā tendence izcelt visu pozitīvo un notušēt negatīvo, aplūkojot šo pašu okupācijas varu
April 29, 2024
Concise history and analysis of the varying methods of empire during the transformation of Nazi of Konigsberg to Soviet Kaliningrad. Both the Nazi and Soviet empires navigated the politics of difference through exclusionary practices that demonstrated the fundamental similarities between the two polities. Despite ideological differences between the two polities, their application proved to be no more than superficial covers for authoritarianism. Great read.
March 29, 2025
Quotes:
"A subsequent generation of historians rejected the totalitarianism model as grossly oversimplified and sought to analyze the Third Reich and the Soviet Union through more historically informed structural comparisons...Both were authoritarian dictatorships built around the cult of the leader; both used an ideological party apparatus to dominate the activities of the state; both fabricated emergencies to break down the rule of law and resorted to terror in the name of security against perceived enemies, internal and external; both relied on imprisonment and encampment to eliminate political, social, and racial or ethnic enemies."
"Gestapo records reveal that in East Prussia, it was mostly simple workers and the occasional rural farmer who risked showing kindness to Jewish neighbors."
"For many of the [Soviet] soldiers, discovering such abundance only compounded their frustration. The common question, as one solider explained to the US journalist Alexander Werth in Berlin, was why the Germans had gone to war at all. 'They lived well, the parasites. Great big farms in East Prussia, and pretty posh houses in the towns that hadn't been burned out or bombed to hell. And look at these datchas here! Why did these people who were living so well have to invade us?'"
"The expulsion of the Germans was not designed to provide newly arriving Soviet settlers with jobs, however. Endemic labor shortages became even worse after the Germans were dismissed...At first, they used the presence of German workers as a scapegoat for plan under-fulfillment; after the expulsion, they blamed failure to meet plan targets on the Germans' absence." (p 229)
"A subsequent generation of historians rejected the totalitarianism model as grossly oversimplified and sought to analyze the Third Reich and the Soviet Union through more historically informed structural comparisons...Both were authoritarian dictatorships built around the cult of the leader; both used an ideological party apparatus to dominate the activities of the state; both fabricated emergencies to break down the rule of law and resorted to terror in the name of security against perceived enemies, internal and external; both relied on imprisonment and encampment to eliminate political, social, and racial or ethnic enemies."
"Gestapo records reveal that in East Prussia, it was mostly simple workers and the occasional rural farmer who risked showing kindness to Jewish neighbors."
"For many of the [Soviet] soldiers, discovering such abundance only compounded their frustration. The common question, as one solider explained to the US journalist Alexander Werth in Berlin, was why the Germans had gone to war at all. 'They lived well, the parasites. Great big farms in East Prussia, and pretty posh houses in the towns that hadn't been burned out or bombed to hell. And look at these datchas here! Why did these people who were living so well have to invade us?'"
"The expulsion of the Germans was not designed to provide newly arriving Soviet settlers with jobs, however. Endemic labor shortages became even worse after the Germans were dismissed...At first, they used the presence of German workers as a scapegoat for plan under-fulfillment; after the expulsion, they blamed failure to meet plan targets on the Germans' absence." (p 229)
April 3, 2024
Kaliningrad fascinates me - a Russian enclave isolated from Russia by more than 400 miles. I was excited to see Eaton's book. Eaton focuses on the period from the 1930s to 1947 that spanned the city's transition from Konigsberg to Kaliningrad and covered many transitions during that period. Eaton's book explores the transitions faced by the city and the many themes that are a part of it - city looking to develop ties with Eastern Europe to bulwark, to administrative hub of German occupied Eastern Europe to bulwark against Soviet invasion to Soviet occupied city, finishing with the final Sovietization of the city and expulsion of the vast majority of the German population.
In this process Eaton is able to examine themes such as the often twisted logic of Nazi ethnic policy, and the twisted mirror image that the supposedly neutral Soviet system developed.
A book that is full of insight - understand that this is not a narrative history, and it covers a limited span of the Konigsberg/Kaliningrad timeline.
In this process Eaton is able to examine themes such as the often twisted logic of Nazi ethnic policy, and the twisted mirror image that the supposedly neutral Soviet system developed.
A book that is full of insight - understand that this is not a narrative history, and it covers a limited span of the Konigsberg/Kaliningrad timeline.
May 28, 2024
Excellent history and relevant to contemporary refugee crises! Only quibble: author slips, at times, into an academic jargon that was probably helpful for getting tenure, but doesn't make the book more readable or relevant.
Very worthwhile.
Very worthwhile.
September 10, 2024
Truly interesting book about rather unique situation, as the author wrote, I quote, when victors lived together with vanquished. Learned a lot of new facts and adored how author smoothly goes from chapter to chapter, explaining history and contexts of the city.
November 10, 2024
Interesting topic and clearly deeply researched book but it suffered a bit from the author’s constant repetition. I’m not sure how many times she said the city served as a “bridge and a bulwark,” but it was one time too many for me.
December 8, 2024
Decent book that expands on the geography of the region between Russia and German in the peri-WW2 era.
I’m not sure what I was expecting. The entire book was based upon the reconstruction after the war. I would have liked to learn a little more of the dynamic in the East during the war.
I’m not sure what I was expecting. The entire book was based upon the reconstruction after the war. I would have liked to learn a little more of the dynamic in the East during the war.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews