Ion Grumeza uses the pre-World War II period to show how Hitler manipulated nationalism and prosperity to convince millions to accept his ideology. They openly admired the German military machine and economic prosperity in the midst of the global depression, and succumbed to his demands. For six years Hitler created his war machine and intentionally paraded it in front of the astonished military attaches in order to intimidate his future enemies. Grumeza describes how the German soldiers were trained for war and then crossed foreign borders unstopped while the rest of the world hoped for peace. Not only was there no effort to stop what was developing, but many countries helped Hitler’s machine.
The conclusion of this book is that the red flags raised by the foreign military attachés and journalists in the Third Reich were overlooked by their governments who were reluctant to plunge into another international war. This allowed Hitler’s armies to conquer more land than Alexander the Great and Napoleon together while unleashing one of the worst holocausts of all time. There is a valuable lesson that was ignored by leaders and governments: any demagogue is a potential enemy unless stopped in time.
Included in this book are many never-before-published astonishing photographs.