This is going to sound pretty obvious to some folks, but I articulated this thought myself just recently:
I read history not so much to learn about people in the past, but to learn about people today.
I'm sure you can find that little epiphany in the introduction to any junior-high history text. I know that I've heard it before and I know that I've thought it before, but it wasn't really driven home until I started reading Inside Hitler's High Command by Geoffrey P. Megargee.
I found myself curious about Germany and World War II. At the time I was less interested in the origins of National Socialism, in its atrocities, and in the battles fought during the war. The questions that burned the brightest for me were:
So I browsed through Amazon and found some recent (2000), favorably reviewed scholarship that seemed to fit the bill. I then skipped over to the public library site and put a hold on the book. Thank goodness for libraries!
Some folks might consider Megargee's book a little dry. Not a shot has been fired in 170 pages and the author spends pages detailing the morphing structure of the High Command.
The book is a synthesis of 20 years of scholarship that has been poking holes in the notion that Hitler was the sole architect of Germany's defeat. The common belief, as perpetuated by Hitler's generals after the war, has been that Germany would have won the war but for the meddling of the Little Corporal. Megargee plots the trajectory of Nazi Germany using group psychology and interpersonal dynamics rather than bullets and blood. Some day I may get around to reading about the bullets and the blood, but right now, it's most amazing to watch the High Command warp reality to fit their preconceived notions.
My epiphany was sparked by the following lines:
"Hitler often made decisions on the spot, either during his briefings or in separate meetings on special military problems. He would express these decisions through verbal orders that, during this early phase of the war, were often vague. Different listeners interpreted them in different ways—and usually to their own advantage. Moreover, Hitler did not always care to whom he directed his orders. Rather than work with the person or agency that normally handed a specific function, the Führer would simply give a task to whomever was handy. The results were often chaotic, as individuals and organizations, sometimes with competing interests, attempted to sort out what Hitler really wanted."
I just about swallowed my tongue in shock. The executives in my company are all Hitler!
Some pages later:
"…Major General Erwin Rommel, a talented tactical leader but also an acerbic and independent officer with a large reserve of faith in his own abilities."
The CTO of my company is Rommel!
Even more pages later:
"Some staff elements worked on longer-range projects that events at the front did not drive; their personnel worked more regular hours."
The tech writers at my company are all intelligence officers of the General Staff!
There may be some uncomfortable parallels between my company and the German High Command, but we appear to have survived our own Barbarossa… at least for now.
Pakeha