Royals and the Reich: The Princes von Hessen in Nazi Germany

I always loved hystory books. This one is great.

Ich komme aus Darmstadt, und diesen Aspekt habe ich - solange ich dort wohnte - nie näher gebracht bekommen, auch nicht im Geschichtsunterricht des Gymnasiums :-(. Insofern hat das meinen Blick auf meine Heimatstadt schon verändert. Bzw. gerade gerückt.

Philipp and Christoph von Hessen-Kassell were great-grandsons of Queen Victoria and nephews of Kaiser Wilhelm II. They were born into the highest circles of wealth and privilege in pre-World War I Germany, living in a variety of palaces and castles and secure within a wide family circle which extended into nearly every royal dynasty in Europe. Petropoulos' central story examines how such men could have been seduced into participating in the highest levels of one of the most thuggish regimes in modern times.The Hessen family, like other royal/noble clans, was severely shaken by World War I. Although they did not lose all their property (or their lives) as so many of their relations did, Philipp and Christoph's family saw their status slip and some of their wealth vanish. This, along with the terrible suffering more ordinary Germans underwent in the post-World War I period, made the Hessen princes prime targets for the appeal of Nazism: militarism, aggressive nationalism, revenge for past defeats.After Hitler's coming to power in 1933 and the establishment of the Third Reich, the Nazi Party made a concerted effort to win the support of highly placed individuals and families. Much of the German aristocracy and many members of former royal houses joined the Party, and while they may have privately sneered at the lumpenproletariat side of the Nazis and contrasted it with their own urbane sophistication, they were not above working for and doing the bidding of those they considered so uncouth. Philipp and Christoph were two prime examples. Philipp assisted Hitler in cultural affairs and, since he was married to a daughter of the Italian king, often served as an envoy to Mussolini. Christoph ran one of the Nazi intelligence agencies and served as a fighter pilot in World War II. Both were members of the SS, and both were used by Hitler to try to win influence with their cousins, the British royal family.Having so much access to Hitler meant making a lot of moral compromises for the Hessens. Neither was particularly anti-Semitic (at least by the standards of the time) and had Jewish friends, but both were silent participants in the early stages of the Final Solution and similar atrocities. Both were artistic and fairly well educated by the standards of their caste, but neither protested the Nazi book-burnings or the destruction of art deemed insufficiently Aryan. Petropoulos does a good job contrasting this lack of action by the Hessens with the opposition of such aristocrats as Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria, who with his family suffered enormously because he refused to collaborate.As so often happens to those who cooperate with evil, Philipp and Christoph became victims themselves. Philipp and his wife (the beautiful Princess Mafalda of Savoy) ended up in concentration camps where Mafalda died after terrible sufferings. Christoph was killed in a suspicious plane crash after he too lost the Nazis' favor. After the war Philipp spent time in POW camps and went through a long drawn out denazification process before being allowed to retire, poorer and hopefully wiser, to what was left of his estates.Petropoulos had the cooperation of many members of the Hessen family and other German nobles as well as that of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, who was Christoph's brother-in-law. He does a good job depicting the two men as the cultivated, charming cosmopolitans they were, and the reader is left with a disturbing question: If men such as these could be corrupted by the Nazis, is anyone really safe from similar extremism?

Thrilling insight of the Von Hessen brothers and their adherence to a madmans ideology in the belief that Hitler would restore the monarchy in their favour

A VERY WELL DOCUMENTED BOOK REGARDING THE RELATIONS BETWEEN GERMAN PRINCELY FAMILIES AND THE NAZI REGIME FOCUSING PRIMARILY ON THE HESSEN-KASSEL BRANCH.UPON READING IT WE CAN SEE HOW THE PROMISES OF THE REICH AND THEIR DEFINITE HOSTILITY TOWARDS COMMUNISM MADE THESE PRINCES SUCEPTIBLE TO THE NAZI REGIME. AFTER ALL ON THE WAKE OF THE DISASTER OF WW I, THEY WERE DISPOSSED OF THEIR TITLES, POSITIONS AND IN MANY CASES THEIR SOURCE OF WEALTH.HOWEVER, IT IS NOT QUIET CLEAR IF THEIR ASSOCIATION WAS A MEANS OF SURVIVAL AND FINANCIAL BETTERMENT (OR AT LEASE A STATUS QUO) OR AN ACTUAL POLITICAL/ECONOMIC CONVICTION BY THEM OF THE NAZI RPHILOSOPHY AND REGIME.THE BOOK IS VERY WELL DOCUMENTED...BUT A BIT TEDIOUS READING. NOT SOMETHING YOU READ FOR ENJOYMENT BUT FOR ITS SCHOLARLY INFORMATION.STILL, AN INTERESTING BOOK ON AN INTERESTING CHAPTER IN HISTORY.