23 Aug 2010
An Edinburgh writer discovers his grandfatherÂ’s past in HitlerÂ’s SS.

This is at the same time a brave and repulsive work. It also provides a thorough and morbidly fascinating insight into the circumstances that led ordinary people to descend into Hitlerian madness and become monsters. The bravery in this particular story is borne by that fact that the monster is one Bruno Langbehn, the authorÂ’s grandfather. The courage it surely took to confront and reveal his own familyÂ’s Nazi past is commendable and noteworthy.

How shocking it must have been for Davidson, who grew up in Edinburgh with his Scottish father and German mother, to discover in 1993 that his charming, “benign” maternal grandfather, who seemingly spent the war as an unassuming dentist in Berlin, was in fact an unrepentant Nazi.

But the sympathy does not extend to Bruno himself – especially when it becomes clear what kind of man he actually was.

Subtitled “Uncovering My SS Grandfather’s Secret Past And How Hitler Seduced A Generation”, this is the tale of a fanatic steeped in Hitler’s fetid ideology of race hatred that spawned crimes of enormous proportion – not only in the death factories, but in the ghettos, the rear areas of the Eastern Front and in the hospitals for the disabled and the mentally ill. Though not the worst of Nazis – Davidson says his grandfather was “not an architect of the Holocaust, a Hess or an Eichmann” – he was a rabid anti-Semite by choice, a thug by choice and indeed a “perfect Nazi” by choice.

Thus The Perfect Nazi is an important and engrossing story that throws up many questions – even if we refuse to tolerate Davidson’s premise of national seduction, as I feel we must – and throws the spotlight on one of the Nazi’s middle-ranking, indispensable and busy minions.

He was, in Davidson’s own words, an “enabler of evil”, and it was men Langbehn who “propelled the Nazi movement from the fringes into the mainstream”.

Nonetheless, it begs many questions. How do we explain the passivity of the German population as it watched the persecution of its Jewish neighbours? How do we explain the cruelty of the killers? How do we explain why the conscience of Christians did not compel them to think again as they took aim to shoot small children or send thousands of innocents at a time to their deaths in gas chambers?

Davidson attempts to provide an answer. Page by page, through painstaking research, the book follows the life of Langbehn in parallel with early 20th-century German history – the degradation of the First World War defeat, the humiliation of the Versaille Treaty, mass unemployment and hyperinflation, through to the rise of the Nazi movement.

Amid all this, Langbehn joined the Bund as a child, graduated to the beer halls of the brownshirted Sturmabteilung, and signed up for the Nazi party as soon as it became legal, seven years before Hitler came to power. Before long he was a fully fledged SS member, by which time it has become clear that Bruno was something more than a Nazi by default.

On the contrary, Langbehn, essentially a mediocre man with a nasty streak, a penchant for marching music and a ruthless eye for self-preservation, was also a zealot. There are hints that he may also have been torturer of political opponents of the Nazis in the orgy of revenge that followed HitlerÂ’s seizure of power.

While in the SS, he was taken in by the Sicherheitsdienst, or SD, the ReichÂ’s intelligence service, which was headed by Reinhard Heydrich. This was the Nazi who in 1942 devised the plan for the gassing of almost two million Jews in the death camps of Sobibor, Belzec and Treblinka.

But Langbehn was not the kind of man to have nightmares or suffer pangs of conscience – either for his part in torture or for his part in a system that brutalised and sent millions of innocent people to their death. Essential mediocrity ensured that he spent much of the war oiling the wheels of the Nazi machine. Nonetheless, we are left in little doubt if he had been appointed kommandant at a Nazi death factory, he would have performed his duty with gusto.

As Davidson trawls through war-time archives and personal documents, he comes closer and closer to the disturbing possibility that his grandfather may have worked with Adolf Eichmann sending 700,000 Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz. In Edinburgh, Langbehn dropped a bombshell: “I knew Eichmann ... he even offered me a job.”

In Prague, during the final days of the war, he was saved by luck he did not deserve. In the chaos of revenge that followed German capitulation, Langbehn was one of a dozen or so Germans dragged from a cellar and into the street for execution. All but two of them received bullets in the head. Langbehn survived only after a Red Army officer called a halt to the bloodshed. In the chaos of post-war Europe, he evaded arrest. He should have been jailed.

Was Langbehn and the rest of the German population really duped by Hitler? A better word would be manipulated. If nothing else, this book demonstrates how the inherent racism of the herd can be manipulated into acts of unspeakable evil. Moreover, the greatest excesses of this evil could not have been carried out without the cowardice to which the German population had been reduced by HitlerÂ’s terror machine, enforced by men precisely Langbehn.

In the end, all rationalisations aside, the worst atrocities originate with – and are then propelled by – the conscious decisions of as much as leaders. Not only were Heydrich and Eichmann very conscious and proud exterminators, but those who carry out the legwork of the atrocities, whether German civilians or Rwandan Hutus, do not function as unthinking robots.

Ironically, with the publication of this book, LangbehnÂ’s grandson has now become one of the geheimnisfrager, a bearer of secrets, who in the end the Nazis had tried so hard to eliminate.

Send to a friendPrintBookmarkContact usShareholocaust-literature13 s DROPPING OUT297 1 follower

This had to be a terribly stressful book to research and then to write, hence the five stars.

We are taught to respect, love, and revere our grandparents. But what if one learns that a grandparent had been party to one of the greatest atrocities in history? The reaction of many would be, I can only assume, to bury that knowledge and avoid it at all costs.

After Davidson's grandfather's death in 1992 did Davidson feel comfortable delving into what he had long suspected, that his larger-than-life grandfather in Berlin had a past that either begged to be researched or ignored. Fortunately for us Davidson chose not to look away.

Using archival material in Germany, the United States, and the Czech Republic, Davidson reconstructed as best he could the facts of his grandfather's life, but went farther, and using contemporary materials, paints a portrait of a generation of Germans who enabled the rise of Hitler and embraced his ideology.

What would you do if you learned your grandfather had been a member of the Nazi Party since 1926 (and the proud possessor of a relatively low Member Number in the 26,000s), had been a member of the SA and after the decline of the SA had become a member of the SS, and then of the SD (the State Security apparatus)?

Writing biography is a very difficult business, for it is all too easy to reconstruct a person and his/her times from a comfortable distance. Davidson did not shrink from the task, but was often brutally stark in detail.

In the end Davidson had to conclude that his grandfather was hardly in the same league as Hitler, Goebbels, Goering, or the second tier of Nazi leaders such as Eichmann (whom Opa claimed to have known) of Bormann, but was lower down - yet one of those faceless anonymous thousands who enabled, applauded, and ultimately benefited from the Third Reich, at the expense of untold millions of victims.

A final note: Five stars because I read Davidson's book in two sittings. I was so drawn into a world for which I feel utter revulsion that a macabre fascination set in. I dare say that some may have given the book two or three stars because of the readers' own discomfort with the subject matter. Still and all, how does one go on living knowing that in his DNA are the genes of a monster?

11 s Jim1,220 73

This is an incredible story. Davidson investigated the story of his German grandfather, only to discover that he had been in the SS and a devoted follower of Hitler. As he uncovers more of the story,we also get a good history of the rise and fall of the Third Reich. Davidson tries to understand why such men as his grandfather could give their complete loyalty to such a loathsome regime. Moreover, he shows that his grandfather was unrepentant to the end. It's a deeply personal story and fascinating as well as important...11 s Dolf Patijn703 43

First of all: this is a great book for people who don't know a lot about the rise and fall of the Nazi party/regime. For that it gets 5 stars. But I know all that stuff and the title says that it's also about uncovering his grandfather's secret past and that is where it falls short in my opinion. When his grandfather was still alive, Davidson didn't really ask him about his past even though his grandfather hinted on wanting to tell him. I can understand that Davidson was disgusted about the fact that his granddad still seemed to be proud of his past but he missed an opportunity to hear about that time first-hand. So after his grandfather died, he started digging but found only little information a CV that he wrote to get into the SS and a few entries in administrative books and that was about all. So all the diary quotes in the book are actually from different Nazis with the added line that his grandfather would have had the same experience.

I read a lot about the general history of WW II but I'm particularly interested in personal stories because my parents lived through it in the Netherlands, my father was forced to work in Germany and had a horrible time there. They hardly spoke about it, even when asked, but Davidson uses the fact that his grandfather was a Nazi to tell the broader story of the rise and fall of the Nazi party and not a whole lot more because he simply doesn't have anything to go by. For that he gets 2 stars, which brings the average to 3 stars. I would also have d to see more of the search for information, the discussions within the family, the talks he had with people he met when he was digging and his experiences during the search, including emotions. Not a whole lot of that in it either, simply because the emphasis is mostly on the general story of the Nazi party.

So I said at the start of this review: this is a great book for people who want to know how it all started and also what the mindset was of the people joining the Nazi party but the grandfather/grandson part is only small so it isn't a detailed personal account.
7 s cameron416 118

Brave book to write. Well worth reading.6 s Mary288 2

This is an interesting social/political history told with a personal twist. Growing up, Davidson and his sister had always been aware that there were secrets in his mother's family. She was German and had married a Scot. Her children were raised in Britain but spend holidays visiting relatives in post-WWII Germany. Although various interactions with Bruno Langbehn led Davidson to conclude that his grandfather had sympathized Nazi beliefs Davidson did not pursue the matter, did not question any of his German relations about their history. Soon after Bruno died, his daughter revealed that he had not only sympathized with the Nazis but had been a member of the SS. That revelation pushed Davidson to reconstruct his grandfather's history within the context of the rise and fall of the Nazi party. This book is not really a biography of Bruno Langbehn who left little direct documentary evidence behind him. Instead, Davidson tries to understand why his grandfather joined the Nazi party early in its history, why he participated in the one of the most violent SA (Brownshirt) Sturms, and what propelled him into the SS (and the more elite SD). The second half of the subtitle (How Hitler Seduced a Generation) is a bit misleading. I don't see that Hitler so much seduced a generation as he reflected the anger, frustration, and bitterness of that generation and focused it. Germans who came of age during and just after WWI were angry and confused over the sudden end of a war they thought they were winning. Hitler provided the explanation for the sudden reversal of fortune: they had been betrayed. And he identified the betrayers: Jews and Communists. Hitler's vision of Aryan supremacy provided both a balm for wounded German pride and 'proved' that Aryans were through historical and biological necessity the future masters of humanity. He provided a project people Langbehn could lose themselves in. It is clear from Davidson's account that his grandfather never abandoned his loyalty to that world view.done4 s Eva-Marie1,674 129

I found this at Costco earlier this year and just reading the title I knew I had to read this. I was on a self-imposed book buying ban but it was put on hold and I took this home.
I've wanted to read a book this for a long time. Mostly because of my own questions and curiosity surrounding my grandparents from Germany. Part of me wishes I had enough info to start a search Davidson did. The other part doesn't really want to know.
The Oma and Opa I know couldn't have been the others I've read so many times about. But then I think about how those people had granddaughters too that thought the world of them. Could my grandfather have been Davidson's? My heart tells me no so I go with that.
The author did a fantastic job with his research here, he was nothing if not thorough. And I appreciate it because this isn't the sort of subject you want to go into halfway. I would want facts and nothing less and apparently Davidson felt the same exact way.
Davidson covers so much ground in 350 pages, give or take. And there are certainly times when he didn't have facts to rely on. Instead of using his own opinion to make up what he though should be inserted he used his grandfather's past, precisely what he should have done IMO.
The reader can see the build up so it's easy to see how Davidson himself came to this or that conclusion and ___ or ____.
I'm surprised I hadn't heard of it before honestly. The Perfect Nazi is well written, extremely interesting and one of those books that are hard to put down. I could have kept reading for quite awhile.
I had a few notes but I didn't take them well enough to know now what I wanted to say. I'd recommend to anyone interested in reading it to read it and read it soon. It's that good.a-nonfiction3 s Pearl309

I hadn't planned on reading any more books about Nazi Germany, but after Eric Larsen's "In the Garden of Beasts...," I was left unsatisfied. Larsen didn't seem to deal adequately with the horrors of that time at all. Perhaps that was because his subjects, the American Ambassador to Germany in 1933-34 and his gad-about daughter, hadn't.

Martin Davidson does a better job on this score. His account is more personal; yet, as with Larsen, there is so much recitation of facts that the reader gets lost and wants to just skim for long periods in the book.

Davidson is a respected producer of history documentaries at the BBC. He's a natural for research, although it's usually not this personal. Davidson's father is Scottish, his mother German. He grew up in Scotland. Occasionally his German grandfather came to visit, but not often. Davidson knew his grandfather grew up in Nazi Germany and served in the German army. He assumed he had been conscripted, but he also knew there were family secrets that no one wanted to talk about or uncover. His grandfather had a swagger and an arrogance that Davidson didn't and he didn't want to satisfy his grandfather by asking him anything about what he obviously wanted to tell him.

When his grandfather died, Davidson was older and felt it was time to know more about his grandfather's past. His search to discover the family secrets, especially those of his grandfather, is the story of this book. He discovers that not only was his grandfather not conscripted but that he was one of the earliest recruits to the Nazi Party and that he rose steadily through the ranks of storm trooper to the secret service to an elite unit within the secret service. Davidson is stunned and is rather angry at his mother for refusing to discuss her father's past.

Davidson takes us from the beginning build up of Nazism to the war through to the post war defeat. Although the family was captured by the Allies and separated from their father before finally coming together again in post-war Berlin, Bruno, his grandfather, never renounced his Nazi past or regreted it. Never thought that either he or Nazi Germany had done anything to apologize for. All could be rationalized.

Davidson is horrified. His research into his family's past and his uncovering many details that even Bruno's immediate family did not know was painful to his family. Yet Davidson felt it was important, and rightly so I think, to tell the story of how a fairly ordinary man, thousands of others, became enthralled with Nazi ideology and so helped perpetuate evil. In the end, Davidson says he understood his mother's silence. What he once thought was a simple lack of curiosity, he came to see their way of refusing to let Bruno glorify his past in their presence.

Maybe I should have given this book 4 stars. It is a brave and important book, very well researched; it gives much more context than Larsen's book did. Yet there was just too much detail from time-to-time to make this a compelling read.2 s Caroline718 145

It seems everyone is digging into their family trees these days, hoping to uncover something fascinating, something strange or novel, or even someone famous. I can't imagine what it must feel to go back and find out that a member of your family, not even an ancestor, but someone as close and as memorable as a grandfather, was a Nazi and participated in the most horrific genocide of our time. And not only that, but didn't seem to repent, didn't consider what he had participated in as wrong. I can't imagine how you could reconcile your repulsion and horror at what your grandfather had done, with the love and affection you would bear him as a grandson growing up ignorant of such facts.

This is a brave book, on a difficult subject, and it's fascinating to read it from such a close perspective. Whilst it isn't 'classic' history and doesn't pretend to be, it somehow makes it all more immediate, and more horrifying for that, to read about such an ordinary man, from the perspective of his grandson. Definitely worth the read.biography world-war-22 s Cory Snider38 2



This is an interesting book and intriguing insight into his grandfather's Nazi life. However, I don't the fact that the author fills the book with what "could" have happened. This circumstantial evidence takes away from the overall power of finding the truth in a man's dark past.2012-books 2012-summer2 s Abu.elhasan ??? ????? 310 28

- ?????? ???????? ?

?? ??? 1993 ????? ????? ???????? ?? ??? ???????? ? ???? ??? ????? ???????? ??????? ????? ????? ?????? ?? ????? ? ??? ??????.
???? ??? ????? ?? ????? ?????? ??? ??? 1926 (??? ???? ???? ?????? ????? ?????) ?? SA ???? ?????? SA ???? ????? ?? SS ? ?? SD (???? ??? ??????)? ???? ???? ???????? ?????? ??? ?????? ?? ??? ????? ??? ??? ????.

????????? ???? ??????? ?? ??????? ????????? ??????? ???????? ?????? ? ???? ???????? ???? ????? ???? ??? ????? ?? ????? ????? ???? ???? ?? ??????? ????? ?????? ???? ??????? ???? ????????????.
??????? '????? ?? ?????? ????? ???? ?? ???? ????? ?????? ???? ???? ???? ?????' ? ??? ??? ????? ???? ?? ?????????? ???? ?????? ???????? ??????? ???? ???? ????? ??? ???? ?????
- ??? ??? ?? ??????? ????? ? ???? ?? ??????? ???????? ? ??????? ??????? ?????? ??????? ??? ???????? ???????? ????????? ?????? ?????. ??? ????? ?? ??? ?? ??? ???? ????????
- ???? ???????? ?? ??? '?? ??? ??????? ?????????? ?? ?????? ??? ?? ??????'
- ??? ??? ??????? ??????? ??????? ???????? ? ????? ???????? ??? ?????? '?????? ???????' ?????????

???????? ??? The Perfect Nazi ?? ??? ????? ?????? ?? ??????? - ??? :
??? ???? ??? ?????? ??????? ???? ?????? ??????? ?????? ?
??? ???? ???? ?????? ??? ???? ????? ??????? ?? ??????? ????????? ?? ??? ???????
???? ??? ?????? ????? ????? ?????? ??? ????? ????? ??? ????? ???? ?? ????? ???? ???????? ?? ??? ???? ??? ????? ?? ??? ??????

????? ????? ???????? ?? ??????? ? ??????? ?????? ?? ??????? ???? ???? ?????. ??? ??? ?? ????? ??? 1944.
??? ??? ??????? ?????? ??? ?????? ???? ??? ?????? 700000 ????? ???? ??? ????????

?? ???????? ????? ?????? ??????? ?? ????? ?? ?????? ????? ?? ???? ? ??? ??????? ?????? ?? ????? ??????? ????? ?? ???? ?? ??? ??? ?????? ????????. ????? ?????? ????? ?? ?????. ?? ??? ??????? ??? ??? ?? ??? ???? ?? ????? ?????? ??? ??? ????? ??????? ??? ??? ??????? ??? ??? ???? ?
???? ????? ?? ???????? ???? ??? ??????. ??? ???? ??? ??? ?? ??? ????.
????? ???? ???? ?? ??? ???? ? ??? ????? ? ?? ?????? ? ?? ?? ?????? ??????? ?? ?????? ???????? ?? ?????? ?? ???????? ????? ??? ?????? ?? ????? ?????? ?????? ?????? ????? ???????? ?? ????? ?????? ?? ?????? ??????? ??? ???? ?????? ?? ????? ?? ??????? ??????? ????????? ???????
Autor del comentario:
=================================