A Fresh Look At Nazidom
I highly recommend this book for anyone wishing to get a fresh perspective on the Third Reich. Stoddard travels in and around Germany,sincerely trying to get a "ground-level" view of what life was like under the Swastika. He speaks with Stormtroopers on a train,housewives at a grocery market,officials high and low of the Reich government. He also gives us his own diary-like impressions of everything German;what the food is like,how the sick are cared for, women's clothing compared to American girls,etc.. Dismissed and almost forgotten for many years,probably because of its independent spirit,this book is a welcome change from the usual "We-were-right-and-they-were-wrong" approach to Nazism. This book should also serve to correct those---apparently in large numbers today---who assume Nazism was a "far Right" movement. In fact; Hitler's "National Socialism" WAS largely socialist---and therefore politically LEFT,in orientation. "Into The Darkness" (not Stoddard's chosen title) clearly shows just how high a priority Hitler's followers placec on social-welfare and re-distribution of wealth. While not exactly Marxist,Nazism WAS socialist.
