Lewis M. Weinstein's Blog, page 9
May 9, 2016
* Lew’s comments on NO WAY OUT by Emanuel Melzer
NOTE: As I await a decision on the publication of A FLOOD OF EVIL, I have been accumulating research which will be used in Volume Two of my novel, which I hope to begin drafting this summer. NO WAY OUT … This is a sad book, telling the story of the inexorable squeezing of the […]
May 4, 2016
* Lew’s comments on “The Catholic Church and Nazi Germany” by Guenter Lewy
This is a very difficult book to read, both because of the material and also Lewy’s complicated style of writing, which sometimes seems as circuitous as the Catholic pronouncements he is presenting and explaining. Nevertheless, it is a treasure of information. Lewy’s bottom line conclusion is damning … Although a few priests and even fewer […]
April 25, 2016
* Lew’s review of “The Gestapo and German Society: Enforcing Racial Policy 1933-1945” by Robert Gellately
*** A truly excellent and detailed portrayal of how the Gestapo enforced German anti-Jewish policies and how ordinary Germans played a crucial role by denouncing their friends and neighbors. Some excerpts … … Germans have been convincing themselves, in hindsight, that there was an extensive army of Gestapo agents and spies which allowed no opportunity […]
April 20, 2016
* a selection of photos from AN EVENING WITH FRANK
20 never-before-published photos of Sinatra in concert AN EVENING WITH FRANK is available at amazon … http://www.amazon.com/Evening-Frank-b... 
April 16, 2016
* Update: A FLOOD OF EVIL is now in the hands of 5 agents
*** A month or so ago, I was just about to publish A FLOOD OF EVIL as a POD book on amazon. But first I thought I would try to find an agent to represent me and sell the book to a real publisher. I sent out letters to agents who seemed interested in historical […]
April 15, 2016
April 6, 2016
* Lew’s review of “In Hitler’s Germany” by Bernt Engelmann
An excellent source for small details of how people reacted to the organized state terror of the Nazi regime. Some actually resisted, secretly to avoid being sent to concentration camps or killed. Others saw themselves as small cogs in a big machine, the overall objectives of which they supported. Still others denied knowing anything, although […]
April 2, 2016
Lew’s review of “The Hidden Encyclical of Pius XI” by Georges Passelecq … and some thoughts regarding the bounds of historical fiction
In June of 1938, Pope Pius XI asked an American Jesuit priest to prepare a draft of what the Holy Father expected to become a Papal Encyclical denouncing the racial policies and antisemitism of the Nazis. Father LaFarge went to Paris and prepared such a draft, which he brought to Rome in September 1938. What […]
March 27, 2016
* Lew’s review of Days of Sorrow and Pain: Leo Baeck and the Berlin Jews by Leonard Baker
Rabbi Leo Baeck was perhaps the most important leader of the Jews of Germany during the Hitler years. A scholar and spiritual leader before Hitler’s rise, Baeck turned down offers to leave Germany and took on the difficult and ultimately frustrating role of coordinating Jewish response to the closing Nazi net. Arrested several times, he […]
* Lew’s review of The Face of the Third Reich: Portraits of the Nazi Leadership by Joachim Fest (chapter on Reinhardt Heydrich)
Joachim Fest has created fascinating, terrifying portraits of the major figures in the Nazi leadership. I just read the chapter on Reinhardt Heydrich, described by Fest as … the architect and brain behind the SS state … a man free from humanitarian restraints … with an insatiable greed for power … and unencumbered by either […]
