“Europe’s twentieth century was a century of war, “ Ian Kershaw baldly declares by way of opening sentence of his new work, before clarifying this statement in the following sentence. “Two world wars followed by over forty years of `Cold War’ – itself the direct product of the Second World War – defined the age.”
Through almost 600 pages, the distinguished historian and Hitler specialist traces the corrosive fall-out from the First World War and leads the reader skilfully through the years of inexorable build-up towards the Second World War, with The Spanish Civil War conflagration also part of the brief. Kershaw sees the Second World War in dramatic terms, producing nothing less than “the devastating collapse of civilization.”
In every epoch, there is new weaponry and sinister ways of killing, as we have ruefully learned since our own new century began. Poison gas, tanks and submarines were widely employed for the first time in the First World War and aerial bombardment also became a fact of life. Referring to Eastern Europe during the Second World War, he observes that “the cruelty, callousness and sheer contempt for human life defies belief.”
Aside from the pogroms, death marches, deportations and, ultimately, the Final Solution which resulted in the deaths of approximately 6 million Jews, some 70,000 patients of mental asylums lost their lives in an early implementation of the Nazis’ ‘euthanasia action’ plan. An estimated 200,000 psychiatric patients in total were killed by euthanasia as the war progressed, many killed simply to make economic savings for the state.
Kershaw’s story does not omit the notable progress, as advancement in medical knowledge contributed to falling mortality rates, and cures were found for tuberculosis and influenza. Penicillin became widely available towards the end of the Second World War and malaria was almost eliminated in Europe by 1950.
The rebirth of pluralist politics - in countries like Finland, which was fortunate enough to be able to facilitate such politics - after 1945 is explored, but it is the Iron Curtain which casts its shadow on the latter sections of this hugely compelling study.
Paddy Kehoe
