Book Review: Sword and Swastika: Generals and Nazis in the Third Reich
| Date | 01 March 1954 |
| Published date | 01 March 1954 |
| Author | R. A. Spencer |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070205400900115 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
BOOK REVIEWS
63
SWORD AND
SWASTIKA:
GENERALS
AND
NAzIS
IN
THE
THIRD
REICH.
By
Telford
Taylor.
1952.
(New
York:
Simon
and
Schuster;
Toronto:
The
Musson
Book
Company.
xiii,
431pp.
$6.50)
Telford
Taylor,
a
wartime
intelligence
officer
in
the
U.S.
Army
and
chief
of
counsel
for the
prosecution
at
Nuremburg,
has
written
an
absorbing
book
based
largely
on
his
experiences
and
observations
at
the
trials
of
the
major
war
criminals.
Sword
and
Swastika
is
not another
account
of
"the
other
side
of
the
hill."
It
is
concerned
with
the
relations
between
the
Nazis
and
the
generals
during
the
Third
Reich's
first
half
dozen
years.
The
evidence
cited
(largely from
the
Nuremburg
records)
constitutes
a formidable
indictment
of
the
German
generals.
In
the
first
place,
they
shared
a
wide
measure
of
agreement
with
Hitler
on
objectives,
and
found
in
him
a
convenient
if
uncon-
ventional
vehicle
for
restoring
Germany's
political
freedom
and
military
dominance.
Then,
having
become
a
pillar
of
the
Third
Reich,
they
were unwilling
to
bring
the
edifice
down.
With
their
archaic
background and
anachronistic
outlook,
they
were
con-
stantly
outwitted
by
the
Austrian
corporal,
and
individual
jealousy
and
ambition
frustrated
the
efforts
of
those
who
sought
to
oppose
him.
When
Hitler
moved
too
far
or
too
fast,
they
were
either
too
inept
or
too
barren
of
moral
outlook
to
check
him.
Illuminating in
this
respect is
the
career
of
General Ludwig
Beck,
regarded
with
reverence
in
the
west
for the
courageous
opposi-
tion
to
Hitler
for
which
he
paid
with
his
life
after
the
fiasco
of
the
July
20th
plot.
Beck
had
led
the
opposition
to
Hitler's
de-
signs
against
Czechoslovakia
in
1938,
but
his
stand
was
based
entirely
on
an unsound
estimate
of
the
dangers
to
the
Reich
from
the
intervention
of
France
and
England.
"The
question",
writes
Taylor,
"was
not
one
of
peace
or
of
principle
but
of
timing;
the
German
army
would
not
be
ready
until
1941."
At
Nuremburg,
(and
in
subsequent
apologia)
the
generals
attempted
to
evade
responsibility
by
insisting
on
the
duty
of
obedience
to
the
civilian
authority
constituted
at
the
moment.
In
rejecting
this
amoral
stand,
the author
asks
the
pertinent
question:
is
it
either
the
privilege
or
the
responsibility
of
generals
to
stand
aside
from
judgments
of
basic
political
tenets
or of
fundamental
govern-
mental
habits,
or
to
act
always
by
putting
their
services
at
the
disposal
of
the
de
facto
regime,
whatever
its
nature?
The
answer
in
the
first
place
is
that
the
German
generals
were
hardly
apolitical in
their
view
of
the
nature
of German
society
and
of
Germany's
place
in
Europe.
In
the
second place,
the
trust
of
the
German
people,
in
accordance
with
long
established
tradition,
was
confidently
extended
to
them.
They
thus
had
not
only
duties
as
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