Project MUSE - Auschwitz, 1270 to the Present</i (original) (raw)

Book Reviews 161 advantage). And both Nazis and fascists harbored expansionist, imperial ambitions which the pacifist-minded French never indulged to the same degree. That said, many a reader will conclude that Winock's French-style authoritarian Nationalism still stands in close relation to fascism. The movements may not have been fraternal, but they did bear a striking family resemblance, sharing numerous common traits: a revulsion for democratic government, a taste for hierarchy and authority, a cult of leadership, and a willingness to use violence to exclude undesirables. The identity of the undesirables might have varied: the Italians worried less about Freemasons and Jews than the French. But they did not vary that much. Nationalist and fascist alike nursed a visceral hatred of communism, social democracy, and liberalism. The states ofcontinental Europe spawned a variety ofauthoritarian forms in the interwar decades: fascism, Nazism, Francoism, Salazarism. FrenchNationalism, while not identical to any one of these, deserves to be counted among their number. It is worth emphasizing, moreover, that French Nationalism was no marginal phenomenon. Winock discusses the Nationalist leagues and newspapers of the 1930s, which enjoyed a popular following comparable in size to that of socialism or communism. He is less concerned with the penetration of Nationalist ideas in elite milieux, among higher civil servants, Catholic clergymen, military officers, and businessmen. Yet the phenomenon was a significant one, as attested by the prominent role such elites played in the Vichy regime of Mart~chal Philippe petain. So, while Winock may be right to chip away at Sternhell's notion ofa "fascist impregnation," it still remains possible to speak of a Nationalist impregnation. Winock's effort to distinguish his vision of French Right-wing politics from Sternhell's works, but only up to a point. The distance between the two positions shrinks when the anti-democratic, anti-communist, and authoritarian characterofFrench Nationalism is stressed, when its power to attract a combination of popular and elite backing is highlighted. The nature ofthe modem French Right remains a troubled and troubling subject. For an accessible introduction to the debates in the field, Winock's book is an excellent place to begin. He takes a strong stand which prompts reflection and commands respect, even if it does not persuade in every detail. Philip Nord Princeton University Auschwitz, 1270 to the Present, by DebOrah Dwork and Robert Jan van Pelt. New York: W. W. Norton, 1997. 443 pp. $22.50. The Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp began as aPolish labor exchange. Later the Polish army commandeeredthe facilities for soldiers' barracks. The Webrmacht took over after the invasion of Poland in September, but, on 27 April 1940, leased it to the 162 SHOFAR Summer 2000 Vol. 18, No.4 Schutzstaffel for use as a holding pen for recalcitrant Poles pending their transfer to work camps. The new S.S. owners soon changed the temporary detention center into a permanent concentration camp. Materials at first were in such short supply that camp commander RudolfHoss even had to scrounge around for enough barbed wire to secure the camp's perimeter. Hoss also commissioned the camp's most lasting symbol: the forged-iron entrance gate with the infamous words "Arbeit machtfrei" (Work leads to freedom)-a false promise, to be sure, but one which underlined the camp's initial purpose. The Auschwitz area, which had not been part ofthe German Reich since 1457, now became part ofthe newly created province ofUpper Silesia. The area would be cleared of its native inhabitants and prepared for German "resettlement." Its resources would be exploited. Thus the concentration camp became a center for the extraction ofnearby sand and gravel resources, raw materials intended for Third-Reich building projects. Butjust as Auschwitz was acquiring a new present it also had a past, one stretching back 700 years, a past which, according to Dwork and van Pelt in this monumental study, coincided neatly with the Germanpassion for Drang aus Osten. Expansion to the East had its soul in "a return to the pristine, lost past of the Teutonic Order and Frederick the Great, and heralded a paradise to be regained." The First World War, the authors claim, made such imperium irresistible: "Many Germans believed that large annexations...

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