Had Wonderful Time

The supersonic inferno of Nazi power, with Gauleiters and Gruppenfuehrers strutting before a decaying god, is no more; and from such survivors as write books about it, we expect a mea culpa. We do not get one from the late Walter Schellenberg, Hitler’s onetime chief of Foreign Intelligence at thirty-five and one of Himmler’s brightest young men. Schellenberg enjoyed it all. He writes not to alibi but to reconstruct what, to him, were the good old days.

For exactly this reason, he has produced memoirs of real historical interest. Not for accuracy, to be sure; for he undoubtedly exaggerates his own power and importance. But for the mood he recaptures, and the intimate portraits of the Heydrichs and Muellers, this is a rich source book.

JM

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J. P. McFadden

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The supersonic inferno of Nazi power, with Gauleiters and Gruppenfuehrers strutting before a decaying god, is no more; and from such survivors as write books about it, we expect a mea culpa. We do not get one from the late Walter Schellenberg, Hitler’s onetime chief of Foreign Intelligence at thirty-five and one of Himmler’s brightest young men. Schellenberg enjoyed it all. He writes not to alibi but to reconstruct what, to him, were the good old days.

For exactly this reason, he has produced memoirs of real historical interest. Not for accuracy, to be sure; for he undoubtedly exaggerates his own power and importance. But for the mood he recaptures, and the intimate portraits of the Heydrichs and Muellers, this is a rich source book.