Cardinal Ratzinger's memoirs are brief and pleasant enough to read easily in one sitting. They are full of interesting biographical background that conjures a picture of family and professional life full of simple joys and of earnest intellectual pursuit of the truth. It is a refreshing and inspiring picture given the prevalence of cynicism and nihilism in our modern Western societies. His vignettes once again demonstrate that simplicity of life is the best route to lasting joy.

But in addition to the personal, we also have insight into the theological and cultural currents in the Church from the end of the Second World War into the late seventies. Especially interesting is Ratzinger's view of the Second Vatican Council from within and how destructive forces have exploited the Council in ways unimaginable to the Council Fathers. The other related facet is the frank portrayal of the ongoing conflict within the Church-- a conflict between those who accept the revelation of the living God given in both Scripture and Tradition always necessarily together (and never apart), and those who wish to remake the Church into an essentially agnostic society whose beliefs fluctuate with the latest academic fads. This book makes a perfect introduction to Cardinal Ratzinger's theological works.

In "Milestones" Ratzinger, the Cardinal, allows us a little glimpse at the soul of Joseph, the man. Yes, there truly is a human individual behind the persona which catches the headlines; and not always in the most favorable of lights. This brief, interesting, easily read 150+ pages shows us a man who loves and is loved by a family with encounters, some normal and others not so due to the times in which lived. We are permitted to see a man, priest, scholar making decisions based sometimes upon very ordinary and personal considerations.

"Milestones" in a quite simple way ties together some great Catholic, theological thought represented by the individuals who walked across the stage of the Cardinal's life; Rahner, Kung, de Lubac, Congar, von Balthasar, Danielou, Bouyer, et alii. Individuals some of whom I have met only in their works were his contemporaries. I find it interesting that this present papacy reflects the theology of not only John Paul II himself but of that of the likes of de Lubac, Congar, von Balthasar, etc.; theological currents with an appreciation for Scripture, the Apostolic Tradition, and the Fathers of the Church. And in its midst is a man comfortably familiar with it all, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger.

The book includes a selection of illustrations which give it a very warm and inviting setting. We see the Cardinal not only in his official capacities but also in some very personal moments with family and friends.

"Milestones" is a simple but important introduction to a man who, one suspects, is far more than just Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. At its end it leaves one wanting more.

Without hesitation, I give "Milestones" a five star recommendation.

This book was wonderful to read and have a sense of the author's personal experience from childhood, living under the Nazi's and Communists, becoming a Priest, Bishop, and Cardinal. The focus is not so much theology but that comes into focus at various times as the author describes his involvement with pre-Vatican II events , the Council itself and the aftermath. It is very insightful for anyone wishing to have a overall picture of the process of the Vatican council and the theological processes that were there at war with each other. Great way to get a picture of the mind of Cardinal Ratzinger.

The author came to adulthood in Germany in the late 1930s, but because his mother was Jewish he was not allowed in the German Army, so he was a civilain during most of the war. He himself was Catholic and his account of the life he led is extraordinarily interesting. I found this book utterly absorbing and one of the very best books I have read in a long time.

I am a student at a local high school, and after learning about WWII and the horrendous accounts of the Holocaust I read this book to continue to feed the growing hunger of interest for the topic. Mixed Blessings by Heinz Kuehn is a fantastically written and EXTREMELY interesting account of a half-Jewish young man in a Nazi Germany. From the explanation of his intriguing family to the force and hardship of being a drafted Jew, this book can make the toughest of the tough realize how hard life truly was and, at times, force them to break down and cry. Seeing an actual person going through such hateful treatment just blows my mind. I recommend fully to anyone who has a heart or an interest in WWII: READ THIS CAPTIVATING AND BEAUTIFULLY WRITTEN NOVEL!

It is difficult to believe that this book was written by someone whose native language was not English, because it flows so well and its rhetoric is firmly on the ground of American English (and Kuehn discusses this in the book). A very engaging account of a young man's coming of age during the rise of Hitler as a "Mischling," or one who had one Jewish parent, and how he slipped through the cracks of the German bureaucracy--up to a point. This autobiographical work has all the suspense of a murder mystery, and follows the author's life up until the time he forsakes a successful writing/editing career in Germany for a new life in America in the 1950s. I loved it!

I purchased this particular book, since the entire book talks about the village my ancestors lived in. They left in 1853 to emigrate to America. No one in my family has been able to ever find any information regarding this village.

This book is simply a delight for me to read. Opening a window to the past: finding how my ancestors lived; their beautiful surroundings; with very interesting information how Oberschopfheim came into being; with it's developments through out the centuries.

I am also interested very much in WWII history. It is a very interesting to see how the Nazi's influenced such a small village. This question has always been in my mind, and now I have an insight into the WWII atmosphere, created by the Nazi's.

Since I have been searhing for information on Oberschopfheim, the discovery of this book has been an answer to a prayer for me. Once, I was about to give up with my search, but now I feel like a have a real understanding of the passage of time in the village. I am so grateful for such a wonderful book!!!

Either way, if your approach is getting information of this particular village, or for an insight into the impact of the Nazi's, this is a wonderfully written book.

My thanks go out to Mr Rinderle, and Mr. Norling!

Walter Rinderle (Vincennes University) and Bernard Norling (Notre Dame) have written one of the most conscientious possible reconstructions of life in a small Catholic town of 2,800 gnarled and busy souls before, during and after the period of Nazi power (1933-1945). The town is Oberschopfheim located in southwest Baden and the joint authors depict all aspects of the daily life, toil and vital interests of the town's citizens.

The book is based on the Oberschopfheim archives which "contained copies of correspondence sent and received and detailed information about such matters as agriculture, local government, the manifold endeavors and concerns of the church, the distribution of welfare, community discord, and the activities of the politice. The pastor, village officials, and ordinary citizens alike were generously cooperative." (p. 3) It is one of the most level-headed books about the whole period.

Here, for example, you have an account of the town's voting patterns in one of the elections. "The ingrained political responses of Oberschopfheimers likewise offered little to comfort the Nazis. In many German villages, both Catholic and Protestant, clerical influence on the voting habits of church members was so effective that it was sometimes positively embarrassing, producing results that approached in predictability those in post-1945 Communist states. In most elections in the 1920s only about half of the eligible voters in Oberschopfheim had bothered to go to the polls. Of those more than 80 percent routinely obeyed the pastor and voted for the Center (Catholic) party, thereby earning for themselves the sobriquet, "black nest of reaction." (pp. 95-96).

Here is another. "Contemporary Anglo-Saxon, especially American, writer frequently distort the history of people who live under any authoritarian regime because they assume that democracy is the natural, normal form of government anywhere, that the mass of 'normal' people everywhere admire and desire it, and that any deviation from it is some sort of civil disease of 'problem' requiring diagnosis. If one begins merely by noting the historical record-that some form of absolutism has been the usual mode of government at most times and places and that democratic experiments have generally been short-lived historically-then fascism does not appears to be a social sickness but only another variant of authoritarianism. At once, all sorts of human conduct in Nazi Germany and elsewhere becomes demystified. By focusing relentlessly on the most bizarre features of Nazi ideology and the most base cruelties of Nazi practice it is easy to forget that for the ordinary nonpolitical person day-to-day life in some authoritarian society does not differ markedly from that in a democracy. One must be wary of exchanging political opinions with others, to be sure, and a prudent individual should not attract attention to himself. One should also be careful to obey the law, since authoritarian regimes are usually less lenient to transgressors than are democracies. But these are not especially onerous restrictions to most conventional, nonideological persons. Even under the most strident despotism more of the time of judges and courts is spent dealing with taxes, licenses, applications, civil lawsuits, thievery, public drunkenness, brawling, and marital discord than with the persecution or enslavement of political dissidents." (pp. 133-134) Highly recommended.

I have read this book from a very personal view. Many events and persons that are described in the book I have heard from my parents. Many Informations of the history of my home-village I've heard the first time. Unfortunately the book is written in English. The content of the book merits also readers who are not able to read the book in English.

In the 1937 preface to the first edition of this book, Leni Riefenstahl remarked 'it is the timeless document of a great idea -- a hymn to beauty and competetive endeavour.' Sixty-five years later, the graceful images of athletes competing in the 1936 Berlin games has more than withstood the test of time and validated Riefenstahl's original estimation of this work's ground-breaking importance, not only as a document, but as an exercise in the aesthetics of the idealised beauty of the human body in movement.

Leni Riefenstahl was something of a Renaissance woman: Photographer, motion picture director, editor, dancer, skier, and all-around athlete, no one could have been a better match for documenting the 1936 Olympics on film, from which stills were culled to create this volume. True to the spirit of Ancient Greece, it is fitting that it was captured on silver nitrate by this gifted cinematographer christened Helene (her birth name, for which 'Leni' is a German nickname).

Actually, the term 'stills' does injustice to the photographs contained with -- so alive are they, capturing the essence of athleticism and motive power.

The beginning of the book is devoted to Ancient Greece, and documenting the ruins which monumentalise her greatness: The Parthenon, Myron's discus thrower, the gods, such as Apollo and Achilles. Riefenstahl has brought many of the famous statues of athletes alive, as she photographs naked men and women engaged in the ancient sports, such as the javelin throw, the shot put, eurythmics, dance and the discus throw. Her athletes epitomise the grace, sensuousness and taut, muscular efficiency of the male and female bodies.

Another striking sequence is of the young Greek torch bearer, who ignites the torch at Athens and delivers it on his long route through Thermopaylae, the Grecian shore, Delphi and Corinth. The poise and determination in the runner's body and eyes convey the Olympic spirit with the same glowing certitude as the eternal flame, which the runner holds aloft like a beacon in the night.

Once in Berlin, the bulk of this volume is dedicated to the athletes themselves. Leni's cameramen captured all the events, and some of the images are just astounding for their sense of motion and eloquent simplicity of composition. Among my favourites are: p. 60, the Flame from Greece, which shows a German youth standing before the crowd of athletes, holding the flame erect before lighting the stadium torch; p.62, Start of the 80 meter hurdles, as seen from the timekeeper's point-of-view, the lines demarcating the oval track's lanes sweep into a bird's eye view of the pensive hurdlers as they await the starter's gun; p. 68, Jesse Owens in the starting blocks, the great athlete is the very embodiment of concentration; pp. 98, 99, German Gisela Mauermayer, discus thrower, shows the female athlete in motion, and in joyous release on her way to the gold medal; p. 137, shadows of marathon runners, which convey the fleeting rush of the events; p. 247, finale, which shows the Berlin Olympicstadion encircled by pillars of searchlights just before the flame is extinguished.

'Olympia' is, to me, the greatest expression of graceful motion ever captured by a photographer. A tone poem for camera, these images better convey the concept of motion than 99% of the movies today, which are motion pictures in name only.

The glorious work of Leni Riefenstahl (admit it: love her or hate her, she is incredibly gifted as a photographic artist!!) is shown off on the printed pages of this impressive edition. Fans of her films will love it...sports fans will love it...anyone impressed by the beauty of the human form will love it. You must fall into at least one of those categories, eh? A treasure for your library!

I read "Olympia", so to speak, with greatest pleasure--for this is really a picture-book of the most exquisite kind and, like the best of them, one that can be enjoyed by adults as well as children. It is made of stills from the film "Olympia" directed by the German woman Helene (Leni) Riefenstahl, which is of course about the 1936 Berlin Olympiad. As well as being a filmaker, Leni was a dancer, mountaineer, skier, and actress, all of which gave her a great understanding of the primary subject-matter shown in "Olympia"--the art of the moving human body. Though this artist has been much slandered by many a critic, her film is a festival of beauty and nations, lauding the aesthetics, athletics, and daring of mankind no matter the race, religion, or creed. I have seen the film, and can attest that this book gives a fine and thorough overview thereof, doing justice not only to one of the finest films ever made, but also to art, life, and humanity

The bottom line for anyone reading about the subject Speer is that he has convinced himself of his innocence by an intelligent phsycological re-construction of events.

He always knew and was aware of what was happening...period. But a facinating individual he was nevertheless. Detached and aloof he twisted the truth in one of the worlds great pieces of fabrication.

Albert Speer, Hitler's architect and minister of armaments, is a fascinating figure. This book examines his inner struggle with personal responsibility for crimes of the 3rd Reich. Should be read with Gitta Sereny's "Albert Speer His Battle with Truth." Miriam Pollard has written a wonderful book.

To say that Albert Speer "repented" is to insult the entire concept. I believe it is possible that a person as evil as Speer could repent. I just don't believe that Speer ever really did - he did what he had to do to save his own hide. To raise Speer to the level of some sort of icon is ludicrous.

I agree with the other reviewers. These two books are excellent! If you have any interest in German panzer, tactics and deployment i strongly recommend you to buy them. The 'combat reports' from the officers writing about there experinence during there fight with the enemy, trying to explain the good and bad how to use there tanks is great and gives you a deeper feeling of the problems they had. A must buy!

Both this volume and volume 2, are excellent sources of primary documentation. Both use war diary, and after-action reports to describe tactics and weapons evolution. As I said in a review of vol.2, by allowing the crews and their platoon-battalion commanders to speak the book has an immediacy that can't be duplicated in other works of the same subject. The author assumes the reader has at least general familiarity with German operations, and knowledge of German WWII military terms and ranks. Probably not for a general interest reader.

This work is outstanding!! It has become an irreplaceable edition to my library. Thomas Jentz's research has produced an outstanding work that displays the evolution of the German Panzer machine. This book is a must for anyone with a desire to learn more about the German military genius. This book covers from platoon to division and corps level. It adds battle reports discussing the positive and negative aspects of each machine and the tactics and techniques used to fight them. I also suggest volume two which covers 1943 to 1945 to complete the history.

This is a superb book on a little-told aspect of World War II espionage -- the infiltration of OSS spies into Nazi Germany, and their tales of survival (or capture) while trying to collect intelligence, and send it to the Allies, from inside one of the most repressive police states during wartime. This book is FULL of fascinating tales and insights, providing enough detail to be rich, but not enough to be stilted. The book reads like a good spy novel, except fiction is bounded by realm of the possible, and these are real people.
This book goes well beyond "this happened, and then that happened." The author explains the relevant history and structure of Nazi Germany, and examines the political and psychological pressures on the various countries, spy organizations, and on the agents themselves. Worker activists and communists were helpful to the Allies as spies during the war, but dumped soon afterward.
One tale is of "Cicero," the Albanian valet to the British ambassador to Ankara, who stole volumes of critical information from the ambassador's safe and sold it to the Germans, including the "Overlord" code name of the Normandy invasion. Even after being warned, the British allowed Cicero to stay in his position for months. Yet another twist happens as conflicts and jealousies within German intelligence led the Germans to discount the actual intelligence Cicero provided. And as the final twist, the £300,000 paid by the Germans to Cicero was all counterfeit money.
One of the most fascinating stories is how the Germans came to build their "last stand" National Redoubt in Austria. It started as a wholly mistaken OSS intelligence rumor -- the Germans had no such plan. But when the Germans intercepted the American radio report of such "German plans," the National Redoubt idea was sent to Hitler and implemented. A lot of our scarce espionage capabilities were misdirected to examining enemy plans in the "National Redoubt" area during the war. American troops at the end of the European war left Berlin to the Russians, and turned to Austria to vanquish the very same almost-empty "National Redoubt" chimera we'd created.
One helpful insight of the book was on the issue of whether the majority of ordinary Germans knew the purpose of the concentration camps. One capable spy, doing his best to make observations, with an anti-Nazi bias (both characteristics unlike most Germans), reported that the only information most Germans had of the purpose of the concentration camps came from what they may have heard from American propaganda, which they dismissed, because Allied anti-German propaganda in World War I had been so exaggerated. The majority of Germans, if they knew of the camps, assumed they were places of confinement and not extermination. This did not apply, of course, to the minority of Germans involved with the camps, and perhaps those living near the camps.
The author goes into the psychology of what makes a good spy, in a very paranoid "papers, please" regime, who is always pushing the envelope, always at the the risk of capture and torture and perhaps execution, but yet must survive in order to pass his/her information back to the Allies. What was the right type of man or woman to send into Nazi Germany with an important and delicate mission? (One description: "The ideal candidate was honest and devious, inconspicuous and audacious, quick and prudent, zealous and cool.") Should the OSS recruit ordinary captured German soldiers? Was it ethical to make promises to potential spies which couldn't be kept? How could the OSS tell who was telling the truth, and who had contrary motives -- or determine who had the character to perform well in extreme circumstances?
I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in politics, history, or espionage.

This is the true story of America's first espionage service the OSS. This book contains story of adenture and heroism. For anybody that likes adventure and spies this book is for you. ONe of the truely great spy books of the century

This is the amazing story the the O.S.S america's first true intelligence service. This is the dazaling story of the 200 O.S.S agents that risked their life and pierced the German 3rd reich. it will compell you with it's stories of heroism and danger. This is truly one of the greatest spy books ever written and if you don't read you miss a part of America's classic spy history.

Perhaps the two Aristotelian emotions of the tragic are relevant, pity--and terror.
Some of the great cultural advances come through the blending of differences. Human tribalism notwithstanding, nature seems to have done this trick on the divide of Christians and Jews, starting in the period of the Enlightenement, and then at a floodtide in the post-Napoleonic era of the liberation. This book demonstrates such a flowering--and then its unreasonable destruction just at the point where Jews/Christians were set to escape from a terrible legacy. It is a story with many fascinating vignettes, starting with Moses Mendelssohn's early youth, and many vital characters, from Maimon, who appears from nowhere to expound on Kant, to Heine and his ambivalent poetics, to, of course, Marx, said to be the self-hating jew, but not so different from type in this strange and brief generation of 'conversions'. Whence this tragedy, whose collosal waste has deprived a civilization of its own fruits? As the finale approaches the answer seems to recede from the conventional issues of anti-semitism to the mysteries of radical evil.
But I think nature benign, and the future should ask for the original path once on its way to its splendid flowering and mutual enrichment.

Reading Amos Elon's fine history of the German Jewish population is somewhat like watching a horror movie in which you know who is going to meet a horrible end. Even with this knowledge, you hold out some hope, some expectation that everything will turn out alright in the end. Most of the book is filled with this hope, that Germans and Jews would get along and form a new and powerful society through their collective efforts. It is disturbing to know that such tangible dreams and ideas were to meet such a horrific end.

Elon begins his history in a very suitable place. In 1743, a young Jewish cripple limped into the Prussian capital of Berlin. The gate in which he entered was reserved for cattle and Jews. When questioned by the gatekeepers on his intent, the eleven year old Moses Mendelssohn replied that he sought to learn. This young boy would become one of the greatest philosophers and writers of the European enlightenment. The enlightenment brought down many walls that had held German Jews in virtual bondage. People like Mendelssohn could contribute and were welcomed by the more learned elements of German society. It became clear to many in the Jewish community that the only way out of their situation was to become educated, assimilate into German culture and in many cases to convert to Christianity. All these themes are examined in detail, as are the contributions to German society that Jews made. The contribution that Jews made to the European revolutions of the mid 19th century are fascinating. It becomes apparent that Germany would not have been the European powerhouse it became in the late 19th century had it been for the artistic, monetary, educational and technological benefits the Jews gave greater Germany. There were many years of peace between Jews and Christians, and even leading up to World War I there was an almost euphoric hope of eventual German-Jewish synthesis.

Of course, however, the plague that was and is European anti-Semitism stayed alive. Many would never really accept real Jews, they could barely tolerate converts or the many non-observant German Jews. Archaic restrictions remained, keeping Jews from reaching high levels in government or the military. While many Jews succeeded in business, they were taxed disproportionately and were not allowed to attend many famous colleges. There were anti-Semitic riots and the hate newspapers remained alive. It is odd to point out though, as Elon does, that German anti-Semitism was not much worse than other countries. It is very hard to explain the eventual outcome. There are no easy answers, but the combination of economic disaster and the supposed connection seen by many between the Jews and bad business was a definite factor. It is just a sad and tragic book, to read about such hope and prosperity ending in such almost inevitable disaster. That outcome does not make it historically irrelevant however, as Elon does not fall into the trap of basing all of German Jewish history on the eventual Holocaust. That is a credit to him and his fine work.

A must for Jewish and European History enthusiasts.

On p. 148, German poet Heinrich Heine is dying and on his deathbed, apparently still wracked with doubt about his conversion and his lack of faith. But he figures as he goes to the beyond, it won't be that bad. "God will forgive me," he says. "That's His Job." After that great line I was more than a little annoyed to find Heine back alive in the next 50-100 pages, you kind of felt like you weren't moving forward, like you were stuck in some sort of mud. But nevermind, once this Amos Elon gets back on track, this is the kind of non ficiton history that gives you goosebumps it is so good and so important. Finally you get to the pre Nazi period and suddenly things you never put together before all come clear. Of course us Russian and Polish Jews- even those of us who are reform, have never been enamored of the Ger. Jews, and its clear there is little to like about them, at least the wealthy ones that are the subject of this book. Nobody would say they got what they deserved, but Elon comes close to pointing out how their devotion to the German fatherland over their devotion to basic principles of Judaism sparked the nationalist counter-reaction that led to the rise of Hitler. Nothing they teach in Sunday school was the point I was about to make. Of the son of one German-jewish leader it was said, "The most Jewish thing he ever did was convert." This is a great great and important book. No one, especially Jews obviously, should not have read this and soon.

This book is required reading for anyone interested in the ex-East Germany. From the very beginning, Naimark shows how the Moscow Germans (Ulbricht, et al) were apologists for everything and anything the Soviets did to their conquered German "friends." This more than anything else painted the Communists and their "United Front" Party, the SED, as little more than stooges for the hated Russians. Thus, the GDR leadership had no legitimacy in the eyes of the average worker. Naimark's study also describes how complete Sovietization was in the arts and education, though he only peripherally describes the Lutheran Church's involvement in the social transformation being wrought. This is curious, since it was the Church that provided a haven for dissent in the future years, but Naimark clearly had to prioritize his subjects of focus. This is a "must-have" for anyone interested in the Cold War, the GDR and the Soviet Union.

This is a quite outstanding piece of research into a subject that was once all but closed off to scholars, thanks to East German and Soviet secrecy. The author seems familiar with all the available source material in German and Russian and as a result writes with complete authority. Among his conclusions are that even the East German Communists found it hard to accept some of the sheer brutality and bullying of the Soviet occupiers. At the same time, the Soviet authorities were not too impressed with the East German comrades' plans to accelerate the imposition of a Soviet-type political and economic system. Meanwhile, rape and rapacity on the part of the occupiers proceeded apace. A remarkable work that leaves a lasting impression.

Because history is written by the victors, one seldom hears of the plight of the vanquished. The author desribes the rape, plunder, murder, and indoctrination of ordinary Germans after WWII. by the Russians and their communist allies. This book documents the terror these people indured and how they survived.