Martin Davidson

In 1926, at the age of twenty, a trainee dentist called Bruno Langbehn joined the Nazi party. Growing up in a Germany that was impoverished and humiliated by the defeat of the First World War, and surrounded by a fiercely military environment, Bruno was one of the first young men to sign up. And as the party rose to power, he was there every step of the way. Eventually his loyalty was rewarded with a high-ranking position in Hitlers dreaded SS, the elite security service charged with sending Germanys racially impure to the death camps. For fifty years after the end of the Second World War, his family kept this horrifying secret until his British grandson, Martin Davidson, uncovered the truth. Drawing on an astonishing cache of personal documents, Davidson retraces Brunos journey from disillusioned adolescent to SS Officer to mysterious grandfather. In this extraordinary account he tries to understand how Langbehn and millions of others like him were seduced by Hitlers regime, and attempts to come to terms with this devastating revelation.

Martin Davidsons meticulous and scholarly research and exquisite writing has provided us with one of the most important books ever written on the subject.JAMES HOLLANDBy 1942, it was an article of faith that what the Nazis called The Jewish Question had only one answer: the mass extermination of an entire people. Six million European Jews were savagely murdered as a result of this perverted but profoundly held conviction. In this radical new perspective on Hitlers so-called Final Solution, Martin Davidson shows that the terrible fate of Europes Jews was not one Nazi policy amongst many, but the central preoccupation of the regime, one which they were determined to achieve and of which they were most chillingly proud. How were so many people convinced that the Jews deserved such treatment - or were at least persuaded to shrug their shoulders and turn a blind eye? Why did they think Germany could only be reborn with their eradication? That Jewish suffering was not only necessary, but deserved? How were the moral standards of an entire nation so warped and perverted, that the Final Solution came to be regarded as a rational, thrilling, even sacred, element of Nazi state policy? Mobilising Hate examines in detail how Nazi ideologues worked to frame and amplify anti-Jewish feeling in Germany. Davidson explores the origins of radical anti-Jewish polemic in the volcanic upheavals that swept over Germany in the months after the First World War. How it seeded a theory that claimed to explain the truth of the entirety of human history. How that theory would go on to pervert science; corrupt the law; rewrite history; taint art, music and literature; and turn the media into the servant of a brutal and pitiless regime with a single message to communicate: destroying Jews lives was the indispensable first step to making Germany - and indeed, Europe - great again. Davidson goes on to track the way in which Nazi leaders moved from theory to practice, by accident and by design, skilfully dramatising the many twists and turns that would lead to Auschwitz and beyond, many of which are not generally included in conventional accounts. Mobilising Hate is driven by the first-hand accounts of many of those defined by the Nazi genocide; both its architects and perpetrators, as well as its targeted victims. Poignantly too, the book turns the spotlight on the whistle-blowers who saw, recorded and shared accounts of the horrors unfolding across the continent - only to be greeted time and time again, with guarded and non-committal hedging from Allied governments. Many people inside Germany, and across the world, knew, but, it seemed, very few felt they needed to care. As our world once again grapples with the challenges of global mass resentment, economic insecurity and the growing desire to find people - entire populations - at whom to point the finger of blame, the issue of Hitlers Final Solution and the thinking that gave birth to it have worrying new resonance. Rarely has the warning from history been so acute, nor the refrain never again, been so heartfelt. Above all, Mobilising Hate is the story of how the Nazis spawned a vision of us and them, that taken to its logical conclusion, spelled a death sentence for millions. Hitler may have lacked an early masterplan for the mass extermination of Europes Jews, but it would be his zealously constructed policies and unflinching determination to see them through to the bitter end that would make it impossible for his Nazi Holocaust not to happen. That the Jews should face total extermination was Hitlers biggest, proudest prophecy, and the one he moved mountains to make come true, no matter the cost.

Todas las familias tienen sus secretos. ¿Pero qué sucede cuando, investigando a un abuelo encantador, el detective se encuentra con una ilustración del mal? Durante más de cincuenta años, la familia de este nazi perfecto habia conseguido guardar el secreto, hasta que su nieto escoces decidio enfrentarse a la verdad. Y se dedico a investigar quien y que habia sido realmente su abuelo materno, un joven dentista de Berlin que a los diecinueve años ya era un nazi ferviente y militante. Pero el proposito de su autor tambien es iluminar el mal que hasta los hombres insignificantes pueden hacer en las epocas en que la historia enloquece... Un libro valiente y repulsivo a la vez... sobre las circunstancias que llevaron a personas comunes y corrientes a hundirse en la locura hitleriana, y convertirse en monstruos (Mark Smith, Herald Scotland).

Todas las familias tienen sus secretos. ¿Pero qué sucede cuando, investigando a un abuelo encantador, el detective se encuentra con una ilustración del mal? Durante más de cincuenta años, la familia de este nazi perfecto habia conseguido guardar el secreto, hasta que su nieto escoces decidio enfrentarse a la verdad. Y se dedico a investigar quien y que habia sido realmente su abuelo materno, un joven dentista de Berlin que a los diecinueve años ya era un nazi ferviente y militante. Pero el proposito de su autor tambien es iluminar el mal que hasta los hombres insignificantes pueden hacer en las epocas en que la historia enloquece... Una sinceridad y un valor admirables... Una gran obra (Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post). Un libro valiente y repulsivo a la vez... sobre las circunstancias que llevaron a personas comunes y corrientes a hundirse en la locura hitleriana, y convertirse en monstruos (Mark Smith, Herald Scotland). Uno de los libros mas inquietantes que se han escrito sobre el Tercer Reich (Simon Schama). Un libro en el que Davidson ha hecho lo contrario a lo que hacen la mayoria de los mortales: mostrar las verguenzas familiares en vez de maquillarlas. Davidson es el nieto de un nazi que no cometio atrocidades, pero que se sentia identificado con quienes las cometieronUn libro que trasciende del caso particular de un joven dentista de Berlin que se afilio a los 19 años al partido nazi para reflejar un arquetipo, es del hombre vulgar que toma parte alegremente de un negro episodio de la Humanidad (Elena Sierra, El Correo Español). Un viaje a las profundidades del hombre, un libro valiente e inquietante (Luis Garcia, El Comercio). Martin Davidson, excelente escritor y magnifico investigador segun se puede deducir de su libro El nazi perfecto, estudia la trayectoria de su abuelo, un dentista berlines que puede ser tomado como perfecto ejemplo de como personas normales fueron hechizadas por la idea y la praxis de la ola nazi (Santiago Aizarna, El Diario Vasco). Un ensayo sobre la ascension y caida del nazismo contado a traves de la siniestra trayectoria de su abuelo, un capitan de la SS (Jose Antonio Sau, La Opinion deMalaga). Un magnifico ejemplo de metodologia rigurosa y de lectura apasionante a partir de una excelente investigacion (Antonio Garrido, Cordoba). Martin Davidson es un cineasta y autor especializado en temas culturales e historicos que ha abordado algunos de los fragmentos mas inquietantes de la Alemania de Hitler. El nazi perfecto tiene el enorme valor de recuperar una parte esencial de la crueldad humana tomando como referencia la vida de su propio abuelo, cuya simple presencia siempre inquieto a su nieto (El Ideal Gallego).