![\"\"](\"http:\/\/ahoy.tk-jk.net\/Images_Oct_2010\/The-End-by-Ian-Kershaw-bookcover.gif\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The End<\/a><\/strong> by Sir<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0Ian Kershaw<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n I am currently reading The End<\/strong>, about the last year of the Third Reich<\/strong> and the Nazi<\/strong> death spiral toward Germany’s <\/strong>absolute\u00a0destruction. It is a fascinating, mass suicidal, political dynamic that was mirrored to an even greater degree of fanaticism by Nazi Germany’s Axis<\/strong> partner, the Imperial Japanese<\/strong>. Facing the prospect of certain defeat, the Germans with very few exceptions, collectively refused every opportunity to shorten the agony or lighten the consequences of defeat and stubbornly followed their Fuhrer to the uttermost doom. It made no sense then and still does not now, seven decades later.<\/p>\n Adolf Hitler’s<\/strong> personal authority over the life and death of every soul in Germany did not end until his last breath. When surrounded by Soviet armies, trapped in his Fuhrerbunker<\/em> in the ruin of Berlin, all it took for Hitler to depose his most powerful paladins, Hermann Goering<\/strong> and Heinrich Himmler<\/strong> was a word. They still commanded vast military and paramilitary security forces – Himmler had been put in charge of the Home Army as well as the SS<\/strong>, Gestapo<\/strong> and German police – but when Hitler withdrew his support and condemned them, their power crumbled. Goering, the glittering Nazi Reichsmarchal and second man in the state, was ignominiously arrested.<\/p>\n Even in Gotterdammerung<\/em>, the Germans remained spellbound, like a man in a trance placing a noose around his own neck.<\/p>\n Currently, the chattering classes of the United States are uneasily working their way toward a possible war with Iran, or at least a confrontation with Teheran over their illegal nuclear weapons program (some people will object that, technically, we are not certain that Iran has<\/em> a weapons program. This is true. It is also irrelevant to the diplomatic dynamic created by Iran’s nuclear activities which the regime uses to signal regularly to all observers that they could<\/em> have one). \u00a0There is much debate over the rationality of Iran’s rulers and the likely consequences if Iran is permitted to become a nuclear weapons state. There is danger and risk in any potential course of action and predictions are being made, in my humble opinion, far too breezily.<\/p>\n In the run-up to war or negotiation, in dealing with the Iranians and making our strategic calculations, it might be useful to recall the behavior of the Germans.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The End by Sir\u00a0Ian Kershaw I am currently reading The End, about the last year of the Third Reich and the Nazi death spiral toward Germany’s absolute\u00a0destruction. It is a fascinating, mass suicidal, political dynamic that was mirrored to an even greater degree of fanaticism by Nazi Germany’s Axis partner, the Imperial Japanese. Facing the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[680,232,360,216,361,46,362,233,102,147,132,334,483,574,87,178,165,51,78,336,93,418,43,39,367,270,295,90,363,263,10,127,530,335,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fail","category-20th-century","category-21st-century","category-academia","category-america","category-analytic","category-deterrence","category-dictator","category-diplomacy","category-diplomatic-history","category-dystopia","category-europe","category-extremists","category-failed-state","category-foreign-policy","category-geopolitics","category-historians","category-history","category-ideas","category-intellectuals","category-iran","category-logic","category-mideast","category-military","category-military-history","category-national-security","category-nazis","category-nuclear","category-risk","category-scenario","category-state-failure","category-strategy","category-strategy-and-war","category-totalitarianism","category-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6501"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6501\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6513,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6501\/revisions\/6513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}