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Moral Combat: Good and Evil in World War II
"Magnificent. . . . Seldom has a study of the past combined such erudition with such exuberance." — The Guardian "No-one with an interest in the Second World War should be without this book; and indeed nor should anyone who cares about how our world has come about." — The Daily Telegraph Pre-eminent WWII historian Michael Burleigh delivers a brilliant new examination of the day-to-day moral crises underpinning the momentous conflicts of the Second World War. A magisterial counterpart to his award-winning and internationally bestselling The Third Reich , winner of the Samuel Johnson prize, Moral Combat offers a unique and riveting look at, in the words of The Times (London), "not just the war planners faced with the prospect of bombing Dresden or the atrocities of the Holocaust, but also the individuals working at the coalface of war, killing or murdering, resisting or collaborating."
672 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2010
About the author
Michael Burleigh
26 books101 followersMichael Burleigh is a British author and historian.
In 1977 Michael Burleigh took a first class honours degree in Medieval and Modern History at University College London, winning the Pollard, Dolley and Sir William Mayer prizes. After a PhD in medieval history in 1982, he went on to hold posts at New College, Oxford, the London School of Economics, and Cardiff where he was Distinguished Research Professor in Modern History. He has also been Raoul Wallenberg Chair of Human Rights at Rutgers University in New Jersey, William Rand Kenan Professor of History at Washington & Lee University in Virginia, and Kratter Visiting Professor at Stanford University, California. In 2002 he gave the three Cardinal Basil Hume Memorial Lectures at Heythrop College, University of London. He is a member of the Academic Advisory Board of the Institut für Zeitgeschichte in Munich and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. He founded the journal Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions and is on the editorial boards of Totalitarismus und Demokratie and Ethnic and Racial Studies.
In 1977 Michael Burleigh took a first class honours degree in Medieval and Modern History at University College London, winning the Pollard, Dolley and Sir William Mayer prizes. After a PhD in medieval history in 1982, he went on to hold posts at New College, Oxford, the London School of Economics, and Cardiff where he was Distinguished Research Professor in Modern History. He has also been Raoul Wallenberg Chair of Human Rights at Rutgers University in New Jersey, William Rand Kenan Professor of History at Washington & Lee University in Virginia, and Kratter Visiting Professor at Stanford University, California. In 2002 he gave the three Cardinal Basil Hume Memorial Lectures at Heythrop College, University of London. He is a member of the Academic Advisory Board of the Institut für Zeitgeschichte in Munich and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. He founded the journal Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions and is on the editorial boards of Totalitarismus und Demokratie and Ethnic and Racial Studies.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 47 reviews
December 20, 2011
Moral Combat begins with great promise, describing the conditions and events that combined to effect the massive moral sinking within, primarily, the axis nations of WWII. It is detailed, well-researched and complete, becoming, by the end, an uncompromising and utterly depressing accounting of the inhumanity that occurred in that specific conflict. It is a fairly easy read for the most part, although Burleigh’s attention to detail can bog things down… I think that I counted about 14 different committee and organization names on a single page; the information is admirably complete, but probably not useful unless one is engaged in drawing organization charts and ‘family trees’ within the Nazi hierarchy.
More troubling, to this reader, is that it is very much an example of ‘history is written by the victors’. While I would never argue that the allies and the axis were equal in their manifestation of the nastiness that is war, the larger part of the book that deals with Nazi and Japanese atrocity is written in unflinching detail, while the decisions and actions of the allies, a much smaller portion of the book, are effectively rationalizations for the what was done, with Burleigh clearly impatient. of those who now might wish to debate whether incinerating Dresden actually furthered the war effort, or whether alternative targeting of the atomic blasts might have wrought the same result. Debate as to the fairness of the Nuremberg trials is set aside with the sentiment that “One needs only to imagine a war crimes trial conducted by Nazis to reach the conclusion that Nuremberg was fair by the lights of the day.” While I don’t doubt that the Nuremberg trials were essentially fair, and vastly more fair than any trials that might have been conducted by Nazis, I’d prefer to see Burleigh lead to address, in a sense, ‘absolute morals’ in addition to ‘relative morals’.
Much of the immorality described in the book is of the visceral and immediate ‘bullet in the head’ variety. Only passing references are made to other, also fascinating questions: Is it moral that the war crimes trials proceeded with a list of topics that could not be raised by the defence (Russian massacres, area fire-bombing?) Is it moral that some perpetrators who aided the axis war cause were tried and punished severely, while others…more potentially useful, but not necessarily any less involved in the prosecution of war, ended up being buried in Alexandria, Virginia after a long and decorated life in the U.S? The answers are too complex and perhaps perceived as too divisive, but they are valid questions that apparently warranted barely a superficial survey by Burleigh.
The most effective part of the book, for me, was the chapter “‘We Were Savages’: Combat Soldiers”, which performed the worthwhile function of describing the horror of war – and the moral abyss-- from the foot soldiers perspective. My father fought in Italy, Holland, France and Germany, and this chapter is another contribution to the understanding that I’m now gaining, that I wish I had had while he was still alive.
More troubling, to this reader, is that it is very much an example of ‘history is written by the victors’. While I would never argue that the allies and the axis were equal in their manifestation of the nastiness that is war, the larger part of the book that deals with Nazi and Japanese atrocity is written in unflinching detail, while the decisions and actions of the allies, a much smaller portion of the book, are effectively rationalizations for the what was done, with Burleigh clearly impatient. of those who now might wish to debate whether incinerating Dresden actually furthered the war effort, or whether alternative targeting of the atomic blasts might have wrought the same result. Debate as to the fairness of the Nuremberg trials is set aside with the sentiment that “One needs only to imagine a war crimes trial conducted by Nazis to reach the conclusion that Nuremberg was fair by the lights of the day.” While I don’t doubt that the Nuremberg trials were essentially fair, and vastly more fair than any trials that might have been conducted by Nazis, I’d prefer to see Burleigh lead to address, in a sense, ‘absolute morals’ in addition to ‘relative morals’.
Much of the immorality described in the book is of the visceral and immediate ‘bullet in the head’ variety. Only passing references are made to other, also fascinating questions: Is it moral that the war crimes trials proceeded with a list of topics that could not be raised by the defence (Russian massacres, area fire-bombing?) Is it moral that some perpetrators who aided the axis war cause were tried and punished severely, while others…more potentially useful, but not necessarily any less involved in the prosecution of war, ended up being buried in Alexandria, Virginia after a long and decorated life in the U.S? The answers are too complex and perhaps perceived as too divisive, but they are valid questions that apparently warranted barely a superficial survey by Burleigh.
The most effective part of the book, for me, was the chapter “‘We Were Savages’: Combat Soldiers”, which performed the worthwhile function of describing the horror of war – and the moral abyss-- from the foot soldiers perspective. My father fought in Italy, Holland, France and Germany, and this chapter is another contribution to the understanding that I’m now gaining, that I wish I had had while he was still alive.
March 16, 2014
I first read Burleigh when I was stationed in Turkey in 2000 and had the time to tackle his massive book on the Third Reich. I liked his approach to the subject--Nazi lawyers depriving select groups of people of their rights so that the thugs could roll in and rob the deprived of their property and lives (a.k.a., why the Bill of Rights is important). The legal and moral examination was engaging and it clarified the bureaucratic apparatus that put a professional gloss over the nastiest right-wing regime in recent history. In "Moral Combat" Burleigh again goes after the suits and uniforms of Nazi Germany (i.e., arguing that the Wehrmacht officer corps all the way up to Manstein were complicit in the atrocities to the East and citing recorded conversations from high-ranking German officers captured in North Africa to prove it), taking time to assail Hannah Arendt's famous "Banality of Evil" work along the way; but he also takes a hard look at the victors who narrated our previous histories of the Second World War. Nations, according to the Realist school of geopolitics, will do things to protect and nurture their own interests--even repellent things. In the 1940s it was harder to get the word out regarding these things, but now we know that every combatant in WWII made some pretty ugly choices, and now historians can put their expertise to analyzing them. Burleigh uses the credibility gained from his previous work to also wrestle with some of the more controversial decisions allied commanders made in the conflict (I personally think a lesser-known historian would be pilloried for some of the statements he made in "Moral Combat"). He presents, for example, the best explanation I have seen to date on why the British government crimped the volume of refugees it would allow into Palestine during the Holocaust, as well as a sound treatment of the Combined Bomber Offensive's (CBO) refusal to bomb Auschwitz and the camp's support apparatus when the opportunity emerged. There are other gems in this book as well. If you're looking for a new mind-blowing Pink Floyd experience, read Chapter 19's description of what it was like trying to egress a flaming Lancaster bomber, then go put on your parents' giant headphones and listen to "The Gunner's Dream." The author also applies non-fiction to Vonnegut's and Len Deighton's treatments of the Dresden bombing; I couldn't help but surmise after reading all the statistical analysis that went into the aforementioned CBO that it wasn't a long journey from calculating houses destroyed:displaced workers:sorties to the body-count system quantifying progress in Viet Nam (McNamara worked for Curtis LeMay doing just that in the Pacific Campaign, after all). My only gripe about this book is its abrupt ending. I agree that we should be periodically reminded of the atrocities committed by Japanese soldiers in places like Nanking and Bataan, but wrapping up Nuremberg and the trials of men like Tojo with a single paragraph is hardly adequate; the next edition needs a concluding chapter to tie the sack shut. Indeed, if a reader can digest 562 pages of this crucial material, he can probably take on another 10 (and if he's like me he'll read them with interest).
August 26, 2016
-De la evolución del sentimiento de superioridad moral antes, durante y después de la Segunda Guerra Mundial y de su influencia en la misma.-
Género. Ensayo.
Lo que nos cuenta. Relato, desde una perspectiva histórica y cronológica, del sustrato de la Segunda Guerra Mundial, de su desarrollo y conclusión pero orientado desde el posicionamiento de los líderes, gobiernos, políticas e individuos a la hora de tomar decisiones, y de cómo dicho posicionamiento cambió, mutó, se desarrolló o se afianzó según evolucionaron los acontecimientos y las situaciones.
¿Quiere saber más de este libro, sin spoilers? Visite:
http://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com/...
Género. Ensayo.
Lo que nos cuenta. Relato, desde una perspectiva histórica y cronológica, del sustrato de la Segunda Guerra Mundial, de su desarrollo y conclusión pero orientado desde el posicionamiento de los líderes, gobiernos, políticas e individuos a la hora de tomar decisiones, y de cómo dicho posicionamiento cambió, mutó, se desarrolló o se afianzó según evolucionaron los acontecimientos y las situaciones.
¿Quiere saber más de este libro, sin spoilers? Visite:
http://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com/...
April 8, 2018
This is a very detailed work I recommend to people that do want to deepen their knowledge of WW2. No intense battle scenes, little military strategy, but very detailed analysis of the social and moral aspects related to the events between 1939 and 1945 and even later. The motivations and actions of both sides are analyzed, starting with leaders like Emperor Hirohito and Hitler and ending with the Danish women who betrayed hidden Jews to get her German lover stationed close to her. Reading this book, one's faith in humanity comes and goes, but mostly goes. However, this book is not so much aimed at creating emotion, but at informing people about w wide range of topics. Did the Allies willingly refuse to bomb Auschwitz? How much did they know? How much did the average German know? Why does everyone turn a blind eye to what the Soviets did? Why was Dresden destroyed? How does that compare to Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
Overall a very informative and long work that requires a lot of patience.
PS: a very strange thing I noticed is that sometimes the author's own opinions make themselves be seen at times (it's quite hard not to, considering the topic) and at least to me he seems to be more bothered by prostitutes that collaborated with the Nazis than by collaborators that actually hurt people. Just found it odd.
Overall a very informative and long work that requires a lot of patience.
PS: a very strange thing I noticed is that sometimes the author's own opinions make themselves be seen at times (it's quite hard not to, considering the topic) and at least to me he seems to be more bothered by prostitutes that collaborated with the Nazis than by collaborators that actually hurt people. Just found it odd.
January 16, 2012
Concisely written overview of the moral questions that haunt wars in general & World War 2 in particular. Michael Burleigh has a tremendous command of the historical scope of the war... and it's refreshing to read history of that time written from a British perspective.
The book stutters to a close - I kept waiting for him to sum up what he'd found but he (on purpose, I think) chose not to write that kind of book... preferring instead to chronicle the choices & consequences rather than speculate on meaning.
The book stutters to a close - I kept waiting for him to sum up what he'd found but he (on purpose, I think) chose not to write that kind of book... preferring instead to chronicle the choices & consequences rather than speculate on meaning.
April 4, 2018
I started reading this book, knowing that some of my friends weren’t able to finish it. I also got to some reviews saying that it is entirely not what one expects and that it is just another book of the WWII history. Also, I read that the author is just too much Allied-sided.
Well, first, I believe that saying it is just another WWII narrative is simply wrong. There are no battle descriptions, no movements of armies. The history of WWII is being told through stories and events that have a very clear connection to the name of the book – moral combat. Things one should or shouldn’t have done. And this is what I wanted and expected. What I also appreciated was that the emphasis was not so much on the concentration camps, but rather on other events, both on the Allied and Axis sides. No one needs to explain or remind us, why the holocaust was bad. That would be a waste of time. But destroying the image of the “chivalrous Wehrmacht”, full of soldiers with honour, is something this book excels at. The same goes for the Japanese army, which we in Europe tend to forget was also part of the horrors of the WWII.
The author is definitely Allied-sided. As he SHOULD BE. I don’t know what someone imagined, but if anyone expected a prosecution of the Allied actions, perhaps (s)he should turn to reading Goebbels’ diaries instead. I believe that the politics and decision-making behind, for example, the Allied bombing of Germany is explained to great depth and even such horrors like Dresden are put in context. We can argue for hours about the necessity to drop tons and tons of bombs on Germany, or two nuclear bombs on Japan. But that would require a separate book. Long story short, I did not feel like leaning constantly on the Allied side without any reason.
However, there is one thing that makes the book sometimes really difficult. And that is the language. I have read many, many English non-fiction books about history and politics, but none brought me so much trouble. At various points I really struggled to “get it done”. Long sentences, where one gets lost mid-way through are probably the reason why I cannot give it more than four stars. This, unfortunately, happened repeatedly. I also probably know, why some Czech folks don’t like the book as much as they expected. The Czech translation of Moral Combat is “Moral Dilemma”, which does not exactly cover the idea of the book.
If you are not interested in this topic, then the book will be a 3*, but for me, in the end, I go with 4*. The work has been done.
Well, first, I believe that saying it is just another WWII narrative is simply wrong. There are no battle descriptions, no movements of armies. The history of WWII is being told through stories and events that have a very clear connection to the name of the book – moral combat. Things one should or shouldn’t have done. And this is what I wanted and expected. What I also appreciated was that the emphasis was not so much on the concentration camps, but rather on other events, both on the Allied and Axis sides. No one needs to explain or remind us, why the holocaust was bad. That would be a waste of time. But destroying the image of the “chivalrous Wehrmacht”, full of soldiers with honour, is something this book excels at. The same goes for the Japanese army, which we in Europe tend to forget was also part of the horrors of the WWII.
The author is definitely Allied-sided. As he SHOULD BE. I don’t know what someone imagined, but if anyone expected a prosecution of the Allied actions, perhaps (s)he should turn to reading Goebbels’ diaries instead. I believe that the politics and decision-making behind, for example, the Allied bombing of Germany is explained to great depth and even such horrors like Dresden are put in context. We can argue for hours about the necessity to drop tons and tons of bombs on Germany, or two nuclear bombs on Japan. But that would require a separate book. Long story short, I did not feel like leaning constantly on the Allied side without any reason.
However, there is one thing that makes the book sometimes really difficult. And that is the language. I have read many, many English non-fiction books about history and politics, but none brought me so much trouble. At various points I really struggled to “get it done”. Long sentences, where one gets lost mid-way through are probably the reason why I cannot give it more than four stars. This, unfortunately, happened repeatedly. I also probably know, why some Czech folks don’t like the book as much as they expected. The Czech translation of Moral Combat is “Moral Dilemma”, which does not exactly cover the idea of the book.
If you are not interested in this topic, then the book will be a 3*, but for me, in the end, I go with 4*. The work has been done.
January 31, 2018
Veľmi hrubá knižka o druhej svetovej vojne zobrazuje trošku iný pohľad na vojnu. Samozrejme, je to kniha plná bojov, ale bojov psychologických a morálnych, bojov v hlavách hlavných predstaviteľov ako spojencov, tak i nacistov, fašistov alebo nacionálnych Japoncov. Z toho potom ten výstižný názov Morálna dilema. Človek sa v nej dočíta o tom, čo sa odohrávalo v pozadí spojeneckej politiky appeasementu (Kniha sa dosť venuje Churchillovi a britskej politike). Ako je možné, že národ Goetheho či Bacha bol schopný všetkých tých zverstiev (vraždenie Židov, zajatcov, odporná ideológia). Píše sa o všetkých tých spojenectvách - zaujímavá je časť o spojenectve Osi a o jej neschopnosti spolupracovať, koordinovať svoju činnosť a vôbec dohodnúť sa na niečom. Človek sa dozvie aj čo to o kolaborácií, holokauste (napríklad francúzskej - Vichistickej) či spojeneckom bombardovaní hlavne nemeckých miest (a samozrejme neustále otázky o tom, čo bolo a čo nebolo správne). Autor sa samozrejme venuje aj odboju (hlavne partizánskemu), dobrým ľuďom, ktorí "robili len to, čo museli" a pomáhali Židom a všetkým, ktorí to pomáhali, ale aj ľuďom, ktorí za to niečo chceli. Kniha je plná konkrétnych výpovedí a citácií páchateľov aj obetí a autor svoje tvrdenia demonštruje mnohými a mnohými príkladmi. Možno aj preto dávam len štyri hviezdičky, pretože to bolo na mňa veľmi vyčerpávajúce čítanie.
March 26, 2020
A very decent book on the history of the WW2 from a moral, rather than a historical or strategic perspective. Burleigh attempted to explain why things like the holocaust, the bombing of Dresden, the rape of Nanking, etc. happen, and he was - to a degree – successful. Many things that should be involved in such a book are missing, there is very little on East-Central Europe and its collaboration regimes (basically nothing on Slovakia for example) and the focus is mainly on Nazi crimes, though others are mentioned as well. He also has the anglo-american viewpoint of events, which is expected and is fine. It is far from being "groundbreaking" research but still a very good book. I was thinking about giving it 3/5* but Burleigh is a brilliant historian and a very good writer too and I actually enjoyed this book a lot despite some reservations. So its 4.
April 22, 2014
The book was quite a surprise as the focus was mainly on NAZI Germany's crimes. Discussion is had on the USSR, Japan and on Allied Bombing of Germany, but the mass slaughter by the Germans is the main course. The book rightly points out that while Stalin was responsible for as many deaths as Hitler, the USSR never launched a war of annihilation and extermination as Germany did against Poland and the Soviet Union. If you were not immediately killed, the German plan was starvation as a helot for the master race.
Interesting Facts From Moral Combat
This is already well known, but given current events, it is useful to remember: At least 6 million Ukrainians died of starvation due to forced farm collectivization by Stalin starting in 1932.
One of the initial mass murderers introduced is Otto Rasch, an SS brigade leader and commander of Einsatzgruppe C. Rasch was responsible for the massacre of Babi Yar. He received his first doctorate in Marburg in 1912 for the work “dialect geography of the circle Eschwege” and his second PhD in 1922 at the University of Leipzig. Having advance degrees was evidently common among leaders of the Einsatzgruppen. Rasch died during his trial after the war.
The Soviets deported 1.25 million Poles from their Polish occupied zone before the German invasion of the Soviet Union.
Das Generalgouvernement, by Karl Baedeker (1943)
From Salon, "The iconic Baedekers of Leipzig, pressured by the Nazi government into producing a vacation guide to occupied Poland, published the most inadvertently creepy guidebook ever, complete with Reichminister General Governor Hans Frank promising visitors the charms of home—"ein stark heimatlich anmutendes Gebilde." Those charms include an Adolf-Hitler-Platz in the foldout Warsaw map and a brief entry for Auschwitz listing it only as a "train station.""
During the invasion of France in 1940, German Wehrmacht troops, not SS, murdered 180 French Senegalese who had fought well against them. They were black and that was reason enough.
Some 300 million bottles per year of French wine were diverted to Germany during the occupation of France..
In Odessa, the Romanians carried out the single largest slaughter of Jews. The Romanian soldiers used live Jewish babies for "trap shooting" by tossing them in the air and shooting them.
A quote from German General Manstein demonstrating that the entire German Army knew their role in the USSR -- "This is about wiping out Red sub-humanity..."
Female Red Army soldiers that were captured were immediately shot.
During Barbarossa, sixty to eighty thousand Jewish Red Army prisoners were taken. By April, 1942 only 68 were alive in German captivity.
Even Hermann "Papa" Hoth was implicated -- "pity and gentleness towards the population is totally out of order... every manifestation of active or passive resistance or any machinations by Bolshevik-Jewish agitators is to be pitilessly exterminated."
In 1940, the Soviet Commander Konstantin Rokossovsky went straight from an NKVD torture center to command of a Soviet Army. Rokossovsky endured 3 mock executions, the pulling of his finger nails, three broken ribs and nine teeth knocked out. In 1956 as Poland's defense minister, he sent tanks against demonstrating workers.
From July 1944 to the German capitulation on May 8, 1945, more Germans died than the previous combined 5 years of war. Much of this is a result of increased civilian casualties due to bombing of German cities along with fighting taking place in Germany itself.
“8th Co., SS-IR 8 platoon leader Alois Knabel enters Russian village in 1941, informed by the village headman that there’s a Jewish cobbler, wife and child in the town.
Knabel has the Jewish man and wife brought to the company’s quarters, where they are forced to wash and scrub the area while Knabel shouts insults and beats them with a club.
Then Knabel and 2-3 of his fellow SS troopers escort the couple to the edge of the village, where they shoot them in the back of the neck, while Knabel hold the hand of their three-year old child.
Witnessing the sudden, bloody execution of the parents, the child starts screaming. Knabel cradles the child, shushing and stroking the child’s hair with his left hand.
And with his right hand brings a service pistol to the child’s neck and fires a bullet to the base of her skull.
One of the fellow SS troopers later commented, “Look and see how finely Knabel did that, how he first calmed the child down and then shot it.””
Gustav Lombard admittedly murdered at least 6500 Jews in the Soviet Union and served 8 years as a war criminal.
In December 1941, in Simferopol the capital of Crimea, Manstein’s troops worked with Einsatzgruppe D to kill thirteen thousand Jews. Manstein’s staff officers received watches from the victims that Manstein had requested.
Out of the 403,272 Red Army tank soldiers deployed, 310,000 were killed.
Interesting Facts From Moral Combat
This is already well known, but given current events, it is useful to remember: At least 6 million Ukrainians died of starvation due to forced farm collectivization by Stalin starting in 1932.
One of the initial mass murderers introduced is Otto Rasch, an SS brigade leader and commander of Einsatzgruppe C. Rasch was responsible for the massacre of Babi Yar. He received his first doctorate in Marburg in 1912 for the work “dialect geography of the circle Eschwege” and his second PhD in 1922 at the University of Leipzig. Having advance degrees was evidently common among leaders of the Einsatzgruppen. Rasch died during his trial after the war.
The Soviets deported 1.25 million Poles from their Polish occupied zone before the German invasion of the Soviet Union.
Das Generalgouvernement, by Karl Baedeker (1943)
From Salon, "The iconic Baedekers of Leipzig, pressured by the Nazi government into producing a vacation guide to occupied Poland, published the most inadvertently creepy guidebook ever, complete with Reichminister General Governor Hans Frank promising visitors the charms of home—"ein stark heimatlich anmutendes Gebilde." Those charms include an Adolf-Hitler-Platz in the foldout Warsaw map and a brief entry for Auschwitz listing it only as a "train station.""
During the invasion of France in 1940, German Wehrmacht troops, not SS, murdered 180 French Senegalese who had fought well against them. They were black and that was reason enough.
Some 300 million bottles per year of French wine were diverted to Germany during the occupation of France..
In Odessa, the Romanians carried out the single largest slaughter of Jews. The Romanian soldiers used live Jewish babies for "trap shooting" by tossing them in the air and shooting them.
A quote from German General Manstein demonstrating that the entire German Army knew their role in the USSR -- "This is about wiping out Red sub-humanity..."
Female Red Army soldiers that were captured were immediately shot.
During Barbarossa, sixty to eighty thousand Jewish Red Army prisoners were taken. By April, 1942 only 68 were alive in German captivity.
Even Hermann "Papa" Hoth was implicated -- "pity and gentleness towards the population is totally out of order... every manifestation of active or passive resistance or any machinations by Bolshevik-Jewish agitators is to be pitilessly exterminated."
In 1940, the Soviet Commander Konstantin Rokossovsky went straight from an NKVD torture center to command of a Soviet Army. Rokossovsky endured 3 mock executions, the pulling of his finger nails, three broken ribs and nine teeth knocked out. In 1956 as Poland's defense minister, he sent tanks against demonstrating workers.
From July 1944 to the German capitulation on May 8, 1945, more Germans died than the previous combined 5 years of war. Much of this is a result of increased civilian casualties due to bombing of German cities along with fighting taking place in Germany itself.
“8th Co., SS-IR 8 platoon leader Alois Knabel enters Russian village in 1941, informed by the village headman that there’s a Jewish cobbler, wife and child in the town.
Knabel has the Jewish man and wife brought to the company’s quarters, where they are forced to wash and scrub the area while Knabel shouts insults and beats them with a club.
Then Knabel and 2-3 of his fellow SS troopers escort the couple to the edge of the village, where they shoot them in the back of the neck, while Knabel hold the hand of their three-year old child.
Witnessing the sudden, bloody execution of the parents, the child starts screaming. Knabel cradles the child, shushing and stroking the child’s hair with his left hand.
And with his right hand brings a service pistol to the child’s neck and fires a bullet to the base of her skull.
One of the fellow SS troopers later commented, “Look and see how finely Knabel did that, how he first calmed the child down and then shot it.””
Gustav Lombard admittedly murdered at least 6500 Jews in the Soviet Union and served 8 years as a war criminal.
In December 1941, in Simferopol the capital of Crimea, Manstein’s troops worked with Einsatzgruppe D to kill thirteen thousand Jews. Manstein’s staff officers received watches from the victims that Manstein had requested.
Out of the 403,272 Red Army tank soldiers deployed, 310,000 were killed.
June 13, 2016
Review originally posted at Book of Bogan.
I don't think it takes much imagination for anyone who has even the slightest knowledge of world history to believe that World War 2 was one of humanity's low points, and could probably list off a litany of evil acts which took place during that conflict. So I had to wonder just what Michael Burleigh might bring to the topic which hasn't been done before.
One thing that stood out to me in reading this book was the author's criticism of Hannah Arendt's book titled "The Banality of Evil" - arguing that there is nothing about Evil - particularly the events of the second world war, which is in fact banal. I found, however, that this assertion was somewhat belied by the dispassionate tone which I felt the whole book was told in.
It's easy to see the war in terms of good vs evil... the allies vs the axis... but the lengths to which both sides engaged in war-making, including the firebombing of Dresden, and Japanese cities, culminating ultimately in the dropping of the atomic bombs... must call into question where one draws the line between the two sides. There are large aspects of history which are at best glossed over by the author for the purposes of serving this narrative.
I will give the author credit - this is a long book, and comprehensive... as far as it goes. It focuses heavily on the stories of the Nazis, and their victims, and covers then in a depth that is impressive in a book which aspires to such heights as this one. However, while it discusses the war crimes of the Japanese, I felt that it largely ignored, or only gave passing mention to the Prisoner of War camps.
Ultimately I felt like this book was an academic essay without a conclusion, and perhaps that is as the author intended, leaving the question up to the reader to decide. After spending hundreds of pages beating the reader over the head with the gory details I was ready for something of a wrap and cap.
A comprehensive, and yet ultimately flawed read.
I don't think it takes much imagination for anyone who has even the slightest knowledge of world history to believe that World War 2 was one of humanity's low points, and could probably list off a litany of evil acts which took place during that conflict. So I had to wonder just what Michael Burleigh might bring to the topic which hasn't been done before.
One thing that stood out to me in reading this book was the author's criticism of Hannah Arendt's book titled "The Banality of Evil" - arguing that there is nothing about Evil - particularly the events of the second world war, which is in fact banal. I found, however, that this assertion was somewhat belied by the dispassionate tone which I felt the whole book was told in.
It's easy to see the war in terms of good vs evil... the allies vs the axis... but the lengths to which both sides engaged in war-making, including the firebombing of Dresden, and Japanese cities, culminating ultimately in the dropping of the atomic bombs... must call into question where one draws the line between the two sides. There are large aspects of history which are at best glossed over by the author for the purposes of serving this narrative.
I will give the author credit - this is a long book, and comprehensive... as far as it goes. It focuses heavily on the stories of the Nazis, and their victims, and covers then in a depth that is impressive in a book which aspires to such heights as this one. However, while it discusses the war crimes of the Japanese, I felt that it largely ignored, or only gave passing mention to the Prisoner of War camps.
Ultimately I felt like this book was an academic essay without a conclusion, and perhaps that is as the author intended, leaving the question up to the reader to decide. After spending hundreds of pages beating the reader over the head with the gory details I was ready for something of a wrap and cap.
A comprehensive, and yet ultimately flawed read.
May 25, 2020
Michael Burleigh has written a fascinating history of World War II in Europe concentrating on moral dilemmas that faced both sides. Of course, quite quickly the Germans jettisoned these concerns, shortly after the Polish campaign Hitler issued a blanket amnesty for Germans charged with war crimes. There would never be another instance of mass prosecution of Germans for such offences by their own Army. The Allies too wrestled with concerns created by aerial bombardment, but as Burleigh showed military efficiency trump moral consideration nearly every time.
The most chilling passages deals with the Holocaust. Burleigh takes exception to the "banality of evil" interpretation by Arendt and others pointing out that many Jews and other "racial undesirables" were killed by a single man who shot them at a close range. That wasn't banal but personal. And some Germans who committed these crime actually wrote (in violation of strict rules against keeping diaries) that they were doing these things for future generations (for the children!).
For a work like this it is impossible for there not to be gaps. More consideration could have been given to the strange war of partisans that involved hostages, assassinations, terrorist like activity, and even deals made between the resistance and the Germans. Burleigh uncritically accepts the now discredited thesis of Marshall that only a small percentage of front line infantry returned fire. I laughed out loud when he wrote that the British didn't hero worship Generals unlike the Americans when I thought of how they idolized the cowardly incompetent Montgomery. Still highly recommended.
The most chilling passages deals with the Holocaust. Burleigh takes exception to the "banality of evil" interpretation by Arendt and others pointing out that many Jews and other "racial undesirables" were killed by a single man who shot them at a close range. That wasn't banal but personal. And some Germans who committed these crime actually wrote (in violation of strict rules against keeping diaries) that they were doing these things for future generations (for the children!).
For a work like this it is impossible for there not to be gaps. More consideration could have been given to the strange war of partisans that involved hostages, assassinations, terrorist like activity, and even deals made between the resistance and the Germans. Burleigh uncritically accepts the now discredited thesis of Marshall that only a small percentage of front line infantry returned fire. I laughed out loud when he wrote that the British didn't hero worship Generals unlike the Americans when I thought of how they idolized the cowardly incompetent Montgomery. Still highly recommended.
October 24, 2021
Book Review: Moral Combat: Good and Evil in World War II, by Michael Burleigh.
Synopsis: The Nazis were bad people who did bad things for bad reasons. The Soviets under Stalin were bad people who did bad things for one good reason. The Japanese did a lot of bad things, but since the legal definition of conspiracy is unfathomable, those things just happened – and some of them were good people who loved their families, so there's that. The Americans were good people who did good things but were too naive and unsophisticated to know why they did what they did. The British are good people who did good things for good reasons, except when they did bad things for good reasons, so those were good things too, really. The Italians changed sides so that 99% of the Fascists could escape punishment for the not so terribly bad things they did. The Croatian Ustashe are beneath notice, and while Polish and French resistance is remarkable, the Yugoslav Partisans turned out to be Commies, so there is no reason to acknowledge them.
Reinhold Neibuhr and Martin Niemöller can't hold a candle to CoE (Church of England) clergy when it comes to the theological implications of morality in wartime, so are justly ignored. Also, lawyers, and moral philosophers, the political “left,” the New York Times, and all other historians are ignorant. And you can tell whether someone is morally virtuous by their appearance and personal habits. Lastly, apparently there is no problem with using terms like “Apache-like” and Gypsy.
TL, DR: Hitler bad, Churchill good.
Synopsis: The Nazis were bad people who did bad things for bad reasons. The Soviets under Stalin were bad people who did bad things for one good reason. The Japanese did a lot of bad things, but since the legal definition of conspiracy is unfathomable, those things just happened – and some of them were good people who loved their families, so there's that. The Americans were good people who did good things but were too naive and unsophisticated to know why they did what they did. The British are good people who did good things for good reasons, except when they did bad things for good reasons, so those were good things too, really. The Italians changed sides so that 99% of the Fascists could escape punishment for the not so terribly bad things they did. The Croatian Ustashe are beneath notice, and while Polish and French resistance is remarkable, the Yugoslav Partisans turned out to be Commies, so there is no reason to acknowledge them.
Reinhold Neibuhr and Martin Niemöller can't hold a candle to CoE (Church of England) clergy when it comes to the theological implications of morality in wartime, so are justly ignored. Also, lawyers, and moral philosophers, the political “left,” the New York Times, and all other historians are ignorant. And you can tell whether someone is morally virtuous by their appearance and personal habits. Lastly, apparently there is no problem with using terms like “Apache-like” and Gypsy.
TL, DR: Hitler bad, Churchill good.
May 8, 2017
I don't normally review books i couldn't finish, but this was such a disappointment I had to say something to try and warn off others. This is a broad, confusing book that alternates between sweeping, poorly-sourced statements and overwhelming detail. Burleigh tries to explain why the principal players made their decisions without doing a very good job of hiding his contempt for them.
A quote:
A quote:
But the ineffable uniqueness of suffering can also mutate into its sacralisation, a finite quantum that is forbidden to subtract from or to diminish through revised totals or lateral comparisons...??????????????????????
June 1, 2016
Burleigh argues that while the Western Allies occasionally committed acts of brutality beyond the scopes of what was necessary to win the war, the Axis powers engaged in an immoral war that placed barbarous behavior at the core of their methods and goals, and the Soviets not far behind in bad conduct.
September 30, 2011
Somewhat dry but considering the topic that is understandable. Makes the case that the German army and people were well aware of what was going on. Has only a small amount on the Japanese. Phrase that stuck with me about the German behaviour in occupied Europe was "shopping with a gun".
May 27, 2011
Burleigh's book is detailed and interesting, but Michael Bessing's "Choices Under Fire" and A. C. Grayling's "Among the Dead Cities" bring a more thoughtful mpral analysis to the war. Read all three.
March 18, 2018
Overall, this is worth reading. Although it covers a lot of familiar territory (I am one of those mentioned in the blurb who has read hundreds of books on the subject), Burleigh approaches the war from a moral, rather than a historical or strategic viewpoint. He examines the moral dilemmas faced (or often not) by both leaders and individuals.
I have quibbles with it; his style can be rather florid and sesquipedalian, especially in the early chapters. I found myself yawning and having to reread paragraphs, as well as taking breaks to watch movies, etc. The sequencing can be a bit jarring, too; for example, he comes and goes from the German slaughter in the eastern occupied countries (SS, Wehrmacht and local militias) around 3 times (oddly, he spends proportionally little ink on the death camps). My biggest complaint is when Burleigh slides from moralizing to opinionating, where he display a completely unnecessary right wing bias on WW2 and contemporary subjects that should have been edited out. OK, that is my bitch-list.
It is very well researched, and it is interesting to look at WW2 and the events that preceded and led to it from a fresh perspective. He shines light on aspects often bypassed in other comprehensive works, such as what was going on in Italy in the 1930s and 1940s. His coverage of Japan before, during and after the war is good. He clearly demonstrates the moral vs. legal challenge the Allies faced: complete moral justification to prosecute Japanese bad guys, but very tenuous legal grounds, beyond the flimsy Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928. Sprinkled throughout are interesting details one might not have seen before, such as that the SS perps of the Malmedy massacre got off lightly because of pressure from senator Joe McCarthy (yes, the red menace swine), who had a lot of German constituents. In the end, if one enjoys WW2 lore, this is worth reading. Just be prepared for a bit of a slog through the first hundred pages-or-so.
I have quibbles with it; his style can be rather florid and sesquipedalian, especially in the early chapters. I found myself yawning and having to reread paragraphs, as well as taking breaks to watch movies, etc. The sequencing can be a bit jarring, too; for example, he comes and goes from the German slaughter in the eastern occupied countries (SS, Wehrmacht and local militias) around 3 times (oddly, he spends proportionally little ink on the death camps). My biggest complaint is when Burleigh slides from moralizing to opinionating, where he display a completely unnecessary right wing bias on WW2 and contemporary subjects that should have been edited out. OK, that is my bitch-list.
It is very well researched, and it is interesting to look at WW2 and the events that preceded and led to it from a fresh perspective. He shines light on aspects often bypassed in other comprehensive works, such as what was going on in Italy in the 1930s and 1940s. His coverage of Japan before, during and after the war is good. He clearly demonstrates the moral vs. legal challenge the Allies faced: complete moral justification to prosecute Japanese bad guys, but very tenuous legal grounds, beyond the flimsy Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928. Sprinkled throughout are interesting details one might not have seen before, such as that the SS perps of the Malmedy massacre got off lightly because of pressure from senator Joe McCarthy (yes, the red menace swine), who had a lot of German constituents. In the end, if one enjoys WW2 lore, this is worth reading. Just be prepared for a bit of a slog through the first hundred pages-or-so.
April 11, 2020
Sandwiched between chapters on the rise and fall of what Burleigh accurately describes as "predator nations", i.e. The Axis. this survey of World War II examines the war in terms of the moral and ethical choices leaders and ordinary citizens were forced to make. Perhaps in no conflict in history has morality, good vs. evil, and the enormous array of choices and calculations upon the sliding scale between the two, presented such a challenge to the people that lived through it. Burleigh often doesn't pass judgment on choices made, simply pointing out the factors that decision-makers great and small had to weigh; at other times he is more than clear about his judgments and rightly so in the case barbarous actions of the Nazis, Soviets and Japanese.
Burleigh is an astute historian and is often contemptuous of latter-day muddle-headed analysts who, for example, morally equate the Holocaust with the Allied bombing campaign. His chapter comparing the Soviets and the Nazis I found especially revealing. I had never considered that both regimes attempted to replace the Judeo-Christian ethic with an entirely different moral universe, to redefine the definition of right and wrong.
One somewhat jarring comment was his mention in passing that the US State department was riddled with Soviet agents. Although there were undoubtedly some Alger Hiss-like fellow-travelers, as far as I know, this assertion is a relic of the McCarthy era.
This would be an excellent read for anyone who has not read or thought very deeply about the War or uncritically subscribes to the national mythologies about it.
Burleigh is an astute historian and is often contemptuous of latter-day muddle-headed analysts who, for example, morally equate the Holocaust with the Allied bombing campaign. His chapter comparing the Soviets and the Nazis I found especially revealing. I had never considered that both regimes attempted to replace the Judeo-Christian ethic with an entirely different moral universe, to redefine the definition of right and wrong.
One somewhat jarring comment was his mention in passing that the US State department was riddled with Soviet agents. Although there were undoubtedly some Alger Hiss-like fellow-travelers, as far as I know, this assertion is a relic of the McCarthy era.
This would be an excellent read for anyone who has not read or thought very deeply about the War or uncritically subscribes to the national mythologies about it.
May 10, 2021
The premise of the title sounds good, but its playing out falls short.
Not really a lot of new discussion here. Hints at one possible area of discussion were over Soviet collaboration with the Nazis in the period between the invasion of Poland and Barbarossa. But, Burleigh doesn't go into more depth, and also, that's not a period of combat.
And, there are several failings.
First, yes, Pius XII may have intervened once to help Roman Jews. He also repeatedly stood silent with chances to help either Italian Jews or those of all Europe. Burleigh says nothing.
Second, he talks about US generals being holystoned by a "febrile press." And Monty wasn't?
Third, not just once but twice, he seems to equate anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism.
Fourth, he seems to overrate Churchill as a strategist, though that's outside the issue of morals.
Fifth, on the Manhattan Project, he was wrong that Oppie's best work was past him. MANY astrophysicists believe his late life work on star development was Nobel-class stuff.
I was going to three-star this, as a gentleman's C, but just can't do it. The absence of good stuff combined with the errors above undercut it.
Not really a lot of new discussion here. Hints at one possible area of discussion were over Soviet collaboration with the Nazis in the period between the invasion of Poland and Barbarossa. But, Burleigh doesn't go into more depth, and also, that's not a period of combat.
And, there are several failings.
First, yes, Pius XII may have intervened once to help Roman Jews. He also repeatedly stood silent with chances to help either Italian Jews or those of all Europe. Burleigh says nothing.
Second, he talks about US generals being holystoned by a "febrile press." And Monty wasn't?
Third, not just once but twice, he seems to equate anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism.
Fourth, he seems to overrate Churchill as a strategist, though that's outside the issue of morals.
Fifth, on the Manhattan Project, he was wrong that Oppie's best work was past him. MANY astrophysicists believe his late life work on star development was Nobel-class stuff.
I was going to three-star this, as a gentleman's C, but just can't do it. The absence of good stuff combined with the errors above undercut it.
February 17, 2019
This book is aimed for those who are fairly familiar with the events of the 2nd World War. It goes behind those events and attempts to explain some of the motives that led to those events.
It discusses an issue of why the Allies did not bomb the Auschwitz concentration camp. It questions Hanna Arendt's the banality of evil in relation to Eichmann.
The dominant tone throughout the book is the fact that a large number of the monsters described there through the innumerable examples of their depravity, managed to evade any form of justice.
In the last sentence of his book Michael Burleigh says that: "for although the events of the Second World War seem so far behind us, in many ways they continue to structure mentalities of the contemporary world".
It discusses an issue of why the Allies did not bomb the Auschwitz concentration camp. It questions Hanna Arendt's the banality of evil in relation to Eichmann.
The dominant tone throughout the book is the fact that a large number of the monsters described there through the innumerable examples of their depravity, managed to evade any form of justice.
In the last sentence of his book Michael Burleigh says that: "for although the events of the Second World War seem so far behind us, in many ways they continue to structure mentalities of the contemporary world".
April 26, 2026
Moral constraints and sentiments of leaders and their societies at the start, middle and end of a world war that encompassed vast killing fields, civilian destruction and a rapid pace of events.
Why I started this book: WWII is my touchstone and history that I return to when the world or my life is too crazy.
Why I finished it: I was looking for more moral takes and it took me a while to warm up to this history. Burleigh first explains the history, then offers the moral arguments and why they fail or succeed in the history, noting who knew what, when and what power they had to shape events.
Why I started this book: WWII is my touchstone and history that I return to when the world or my life is too crazy.
Why I finished it: I was looking for more moral takes and it took me a while to warm up to this history. Burleigh first explains the history, then offers the moral arguments and why they fail or succeed in the history, noting who knew what, when and what power they had to shape events.
September 10, 2022
Un libro denso y lleno de fechas, datos y eventos sobre la Segunda Guerra Mundial; si no se está familiarizado con el tema es muy fácil perderse o abrumarse.
Para quienes somos fanáticos del tema me parece una excelente lectura, ya que trata de adentrarse al desarrollo de la guerra de la manera más imparcial posible, dando voz a los soldados rasos y sus acciones.
Para quienes somos fanáticos del tema me parece una excelente lectura, ya que trata de adentrarse al desarrollo de la guerra de la manera más imparcial posible, dando voz a los soldados rasos y sus acciones.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 10, 2025
At around 700 pages this is a comprehensive look at the war, the events told in chronological order, and with a surprisingly new perspective on a lot of it. Michael Burleigh, a historian, also keeps it interesting, without the dry prose so many academics use to write. Highly recommend!
September 26, 2020
Too Britain centric, with clear bias towards Churchill and other men, but still full of interesting facts and providing thoughts.
September 7, 2016
Finished "Moral Combat" last night, read cover to cover. Have mixed feelings about it...
On the one hand, about as vivid description of the horrors of WW2 as one can find...excellent discussions on all kinds of things - Allied bombings, the Nazi invasion of Poland, what was going in Italy, the einsatzgruppens in Poland and Lithuania (who killed my relatives), the resistance movements. His portrait of Churchill is interesting, but self-serving, that of Mussolini very well done. While I am quite familiar with the Nazi death machine in all its aspects, still, the way he treated that was fresh and thoughtful. And of course the man can write like few can.
On the other hand, a careful reading suggests Burleigh's many prejudices. He is particularly "soft" on British imperialism and its connivances, seems to suggest that British and/or American capitalism is as good as it gets and so we might as well be satisfied with it because the alternative will inevitably turn into Stalinist gulags. This is consistent with an earlier book he wrote - Small Wars, Far Away Places - which I read with great interest and was, unfortunately very disappointed with.
The man exhibits nothing short of a visceral hatred of any political movement left of center. While his criticisms, well that is too weak a word, his pulverization, of Stalin's USSR - including before and during the war - are accurate - Burleigh cannot resist taking a shot at anyone, any movement that is even a little left of center. Thus he speaks of Einstein's "flakey pacifism", makes dumb comments about Chavez of Venezuela whom he calls "stupid", savages Vera Brittain, the British pacifist, and seems very happy that the CIA undermined the campaign of the Italian Communists in 1948. He seems to be arguing that the resistance movement in different countries was useless and even worse, provoked massive Nazi counter measures and so were not worth the effort. His defense of dropping the A bombs on Japan is, in my view, quite pathetic. He exhibits something approaching a visceral contempt for pacifism, movements of social change and throughout the book is constantly taking cheap shots - really dumb remarks - sprinkled among which, is, still a fascinating and valuable book.
Even after what I wrote above, it is an important book and I'll use it as a source of much of what I write, think on World War II
On the one hand, about as vivid description of the horrors of WW2 as one can find...excellent discussions on all kinds of things - Allied bombings, the Nazi invasion of Poland, what was going in Italy, the einsatzgruppens in Poland and Lithuania (who killed my relatives), the resistance movements. His portrait of Churchill is interesting, but self-serving, that of Mussolini very well done. While I am quite familiar with the Nazi death machine in all its aspects, still, the way he treated that was fresh and thoughtful. And of course the man can write like few can.
On the other hand, a careful reading suggests Burleigh's many prejudices. He is particularly "soft" on British imperialism and its connivances, seems to suggest that British and/or American capitalism is as good as it gets and so we might as well be satisfied with it because the alternative will inevitably turn into Stalinist gulags. This is consistent with an earlier book he wrote - Small Wars, Far Away Places - which I read with great interest and was, unfortunately very disappointed with.
The man exhibits nothing short of a visceral hatred of any political movement left of center. While his criticisms, well that is too weak a word, his pulverization, of Stalin's USSR - including before and during the war - are accurate - Burleigh cannot resist taking a shot at anyone, any movement that is even a little left of center. Thus he speaks of Einstein's "flakey pacifism", makes dumb comments about Chavez of Venezuela whom he calls "stupid", savages Vera Brittain, the British pacifist, and seems very happy that the CIA undermined the campaign of the Italian Communists in 1948. He seems to be arguing that the resistance movement in different countries was useless and even worse, provoked massive Nazi counter measures and so were not worth the effort. His defense of dropping the A bombs on Japan is, in my view, quite pathetic. He exhibits something approaching a visceral contempt for pacifism, movements of social change and throughout the book is constantly taking cheap shots - really dumb remarks - sprinkled among which, is, still a fascinating and valuable book.
Even after what I wrote above, it is an important book and I'll use it as a source of much of what I write, think on World War II
May 29, 2018
With so many histories of World War II on offer, students of that world-changing event have a wealth of options for study. There are books tightly focused on key individuals or specific battles, others offering a wider view by examining a specific country or demographic group, and still others try to take in the broad sweep of the entire event (though to be thorough multiple volumes would be needed or else would fall short by giving short shrift to certain theaters or groups). Here Burleigh approaches this watershed of 20th century history by attempting to take in the immensity of the war through the frame of morality during the war. The aforementioned students of World War II history would be well-served by picking up this book, which manages to be both familiar and surprising.
Burleigh spends some time discussing morality, giving a framework to the people, policies, heroism, and tragedies that he will recount. In a wonderful preface, he discusses his aim in the book, including what it isn't meant to do (specifically, this book does not cover the Nazi atrocities in depth but rather just some prime examples, as he has covered it in other books, as have other authors). The preface highlights that this is a book of history, not of philosophy or law or prescriptions for future wars.
As a history, Burleigh is able to move across the years and the countries, the combatants and the civilians, the honorable, the questionable, and the abhorrent. He is scrupulously careful in setting the stage and giving background, never offering the actions of the participants in a vacuum or pretending that war does not operate outside of the normal parameters of peacetime. That said, he works very hard at not giving a pass to actions that push bounds of both war and peacetime morality, and pointing out that just because the Germans and the Japanese may have done things that are still the stuff of nightmares, that does not mean that immoral acts of the Allies (though perhaps fewer in number or amplitude) are not so bad in comparison. Chapters on collaboration (and how it differed in different countries) and air raids, atomic weapons and fire bombings, treatment of prisoners of war and women, manage to broaden the reader's view of the war and what people are capable of. Not to be missed.
Burleigh spends some time discussing morality, giving a framework to the people, policies, heroism, and tragedies that he will recount. In a wonderful preface, he discusses his aim in the book, including what it isn't meant to do (specifically, this book does not cover the Nazi atrocities in depth but rather just some prime examples, as he has covered it in other books, as have other authors). The preface highlights that this is a book of history, not of philosophy or law or prescriptions for future wars.
As a history, Burleigh is able to move across the years and the countries, the combatants and the civilians, the honorable, the questionable, and the abhorrent. He is scrupulously careful in setting the stage and giving background, never offering the actions of the participants in a vacuum or pretending that war does not operate outside of the normal parameters of peacetime. That said, he works very hard at not giving a pass to actions that push bounds of both war and peacetime morality, and pointing out that just because the Germans and the Japanese may have done things that are still the stuff of nightmares, that does not mean that immoral acts of the Allies (though perhaps fewer in number or amplitude) are not so bad in comparison. Chapters on collaboration (and how it differed in different countries) and air raids, atomic weapons and fire bombings, treatment of prisoners of war and women, manage to broaden the reader's view of the war and what people are capable of. Not to be missed.
April 22, 2014
Like Antony Beevor's big book on the Second World War, Michael Burleigh's Moral Combat belongs to the new genre of 'Hammer Horror' History. Grotesque carnage and mutilations abound, described in obsessive detail, like the torments and tortures from a late-medieval martyrology.
Such obsessive description—amputations, disembowelments, flayings, beheadings, cannibalism—is a recent development. This stuff was generally left out of popular-scholarly historical commentary until the last decade or so, mainly for reasons of taste. That people like Beevor and Burleigh are dwelling on them now, and no one seems to be balking, suggests that our mid-to-high-cultural sensibilities have coarsened a great deal. You can now discuss the most disgusting carnal practices on TV or print an F-bomb in The New Yorker, and no one notices. Wherefore this perversity? I would guess it is the result of our porn-saturated media, the numbing effect of televised wars, and decades of Holocaustomania.
Burleigh's main focus is on the nasty nazis, because they seem to have had more weird, occult pseudo-religions than anyone else, and Burleigh's specialty as an historian happens to be weird, occult pseudo-religions. The Soviets are basically just thugs with a personality cult. It is a shame that Burleigh never really puts Great Britain under the microscope to see what popular obsessions it might have had that would account for its behavior. In fact, Burleigh is thoroughly partisan about the British role in WW2, mounting a unique and hearty defense of "Bomber" Harris. France he doesn't have much time for, likewise America. He doesn't like the fact that the USA did not immediately jump in to help when Britain bumbled its way into war in 1939. He's downright shoddy on American political history, in fact, mixing up the names of cabinet secretaries and senators, and placing the Presidency of William Howard Taft in the 1920s.
Such obsessive description—amputations, disembowelments, flayings, beheadings, cannibalism—is a recent development. This stuff was generally left out of popular-scholarly historical commentary until the last decade or so, mainly for reasons of taste. That people like Beevor and Burleigh are dwelling on them now, and no one seems to be balking, suggests that our mid-to-high-cultural sensibilities have coarsened a great deal. You can now discuss the most disgusting carnal practices on TV or print an F-bomb in The New Yorker, and no one notices. Wherefore this perversity? I would guess it is the result of our porn-saturated media, the numbing effect of televised wars, and decades of Holocaustomania.
Burleigh's main focus is on the nasty nazis, because they seem to have had more weird, occult pseudo-religions than anyone else, and Burleigh's specialty as an historian happens to be weird, occult pseudo-religions. The Soviets are basically just thugs with a personality cult. It is a shame that Burleigh never really puts Great Britain under the microscope to see what popular obsessions it might have had that would account for its behavior. In fact, Burleigh is thoroughly partisan about the British role in WW2, mounting a unique and hearty defense of "Bomber" Harris. France he doesn't have much time for, likewise America. He doesn't like the fact that the USA did not immediately jump in to help when Britain bumbled its way into war in 1939. He's downright shoddy on American political history, in fact, mixing up the names of cabinet secretaries and senators, and placing the Presidency of William Howard Taft in the 1920s.
March 2, 2013
Writing an overall history of morality in WWII, encompassing the entire conflict, is a major challenge, especially if the author wishes to do more than summarize what others have written in works with a more limited scope. Burleigh partially succeeds. Through a careful selection of topics, he has written a book that is not a complete history of the war, but contains enough of the historical framework to support his discussion of politics, combat, resistance, and the Holocaust.
It is not really the "panoramic history" that the back cover claims it to be, and its subtitle ("A History World War II") is rather misleading. In fact it his highly selective. That doesn't necessarily make the book flawed, as the choices are justified by its attention to detail where it matters, and it is logical that the author of such a work would devote most attention to the gravest crimes.
There are some flaws, mostly because Burleigh occasionally falls into angry opinionated rants, which are entertaining but not backed up by much argumentation. Sometimes these are mere throwaway insults to academics and philosophers, but Chapter 19, his strong defense of RAF Bomber Command's operations during WWII, is more a polemic (and in places an ill-informed polemic) than a serious history.
However, such are exceptions. In most of the chapters, Burleigh manages to find an good balance between factual description and analysis, providing rich detail and avoiding too easy explanations.
It is not really the "panoramic history" that the back cover claims it to be, and its subtitle ("A History World War II") is rather misleading. In fact it his highly selective. That doesn't necessarily make the book flawed, as the choices are justified by its attention to detail where it matters, and it is logical that the author of such a work would devote most attention to the gravest crimes.
There are some flaws, mostly because Burleigh occasionally falls into angry opinionated rants, which are entertaining but not backed up by much argumentation. Sometimes these are mere throwaway insults to academics and philosophers, but Chapter 19, his strong defense of RAF Bomber Command's operations during WWII, is more a polemic (and in places an ill-informed polemic) than a serious history.
However, such are exceptions. In most of the chapters, Burleigh manages to find an good balance between factual description and analysis, providing rich detail and avoiding too easy explanations.
November 6, 2016
A balanced, albeit Anglo-American-centric, account of the moral issues raised by the Second World War. The book is very well written, highly opinionated, occasionally biting and scathing, with particular contempt for modern revisionist tendencies of the sort that equates Allied bombing of Dresden and Hamburg with the Holocaust: 'No serious person can compare the hard-fought bombing campaign with slaughtering innocent civilians in circumstances where the only risk the perpetrators ran was to be splashed with blood and brains in some ditch in the Ukraine.’
With Western liberal democracy under threat from rising populism and demagoguery never has the time been more right to examine where encouraging one group (national, religious, ethnic) to believe itself 'good' and others 'evil' can lead apparently civilised, cultured people, extremism fed by fear. What about drone warfare, for e.g.? Do we think about what is being done?
Burleigh's book unrepentingly adheres to the Good War vs Evil Nazis narrative. He doesn't shirk entirely from examining Allied culpability but finds ways to justify and exonerate the British and Americans whom he obviously regards as righteous. So probably a book some might find 'problematic'. One aspect missing from Burleigh's consideration of morality in wartime is the choice by Switzerland and Sweden to remain neutral, which seems a curious omission in the context of Moral Combat.
With Western liberal democracy under threat from rising populism and demagoguery never has the time been more right to examine where encouraging one group (national, religious, ethnic) to believe itself 'good' and others 'evil' can lead apparently civilised, cultured people, extremism fed by fear. What about drone warfare, for e.g.? Do we think about what is being done?
Burleigh's book unrepentingly adheres to the Good War vs Evil Nazis narrative. He doesn't shirk entirely from examining Allied culpability but finds ways to justify and exonerate the British and Americans whom he obviously regards as righteous. So probably a book some might find 'problematic'. One aspect missing from Burleigh's consideration of morality in wartime is the choice by Switzerland and Sweden to remain neutral, which seems a curious omission in the context of Moral Combat.
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