AMD 3 - Andrew McBride

For this AMD blog post, I read some of the book Hitler's Empire: How the Nazis Ruled Europe by Mark Mazower (http://mirlyn.lib.umich.edu/Record/005878573). The book brings an interesting perspective to the history of Germany, specifically the history of the Third Reich. Mazower argues that one of the main goals of the Third Reich was to unite all Germans in Europe into one German state. This means that historians should think of the Third Reich along the lines of an imperialist state. Those in command of the Germany during the Third Reich thought of other nations, such as Poland, Austria, and Czechoslovakia, as rightfully German, as they had large German majorities and/or minorities. This helped lead to the brutal suppression and oppression of non-Germans in those conquered nations. Mazower does not simply begin his historical narrative at the start of the Third Reich. He also discusses German history as far back as the unification of the German nation-state in 1871 and claims that this desire to unite all ethnic Germans into a single state has long been with Germany.

Another interesting claim made by Mazower is in one of the key ways he says that Germany lost World War II. He acknowledges that the Nazis were extremely good at invading, defeating, and conquering various European nations. He states, though, that one of their main failings was that they were uninterested and unable to successfully administer and control those nations. Their lack of administrative ability eventually led to their downfall as they were unable to effectively control their new empire soon after they had obtained it.