Michael Dobbs (2) (1950–)

For years, Christians and Jews lived peacefully side by side in Kippenheim, a small town in Germany. However, after Hitler was appointed chancellor in 1933, the Nazi regime began to systematically remove Jews "from all aspects of German society." During Kristallnacht, the "Night of the Broken Glass," bands of Nazi thugs went on a murderous rampage. The Germans robbed the Jewish citizens of their civil rights, livelihoods, access to education, and personal possessions. Some individuals who saw the handwriting on the wall managed to emigrate, but others were unable to escape in time.

Michael Dobbs, author of "The Unwanted," obtained a wealth of information from interviews, oral histories, diaries, memoirs, newspaper articles, photographs, and speeches. He links the experiences of Kippenheim's inhabitants to the mood in Europe and America during the thirties and forties. We witness the agony and fear of desperate Jews waiting in long lines outside the U. S. consulate, hoping to acquire the necessary documents to book passage to America. Meanwhile, quite a few elected officials and their constituents in Washington, D. C. and elsewhere were isolationists and/or bigots. A few influential figures pushed to ease America's restrictive immigration quotas, but the majority of Americans were adamantly against allowing Jewish refugees to enter the United States. Mrs. Roosevelt urged FDR, at the very least, to authorize a rescue program for children, but President Roosevelt feared that if he granted her wish, he would pay a steep political price.

In this lucid and enlightening work of non-fiction, Dobbs provides an intimate, detailed, and infuriating look at man's inhumanity to man, and he demonstrates what can happen when a dictator sets in motion a "Final Solution" for eliminating "undesirables." Sadly, although newspapers published articles outlining the atrocities that were occurring in Europe, this knowledge did not lead to widespread efforts to assist the "huddled masses yearning to breathe free." "The Unwanted" is a wrenching work of non-fiction that is enhanced by its evocative photographs, superb introductory essays, and powerful epilogue.… (more)

Disclaimer: I received this book as part of GoodReads' First Reads program.

The Unwanted tells the story of the town of Kippenheim, Germany on the cusp of, and during World War II. It details how the Jewish population was caught up in the Nazi efforts to rid the world of their kind and how they were deported at first to Vichy France. Some of them would be able to get visas to get out to Britain, Palestine and the US, but many more ended up in Auschwitz, with the inevitable end results. Sadly, the US chose to limit immigration and made it very difficult to get into the country. There have been many books about the holocaust, but few that I've read have such detail of so many of the people involved. With the current state of affairs in the world, the return of fascism across Europe and in the US, and the anti-immigrant, antisemitic, in fact anti-anything that isn't WASP, I'd recommend everyone read this book to remind us of the terrible place these tendencies will lead us.… (more)

I'm a relative of one of the people who was involved with the Saboteurs. When I was 12 years old, I read my relative's own, unpublished account of these events. But now that I've read Michael Dobbs' excellent novelized retelling of these historical events, I know for certain why my relative's "memoirs" (which I'm currently re-reading) have never been accepted by any publisher; they sympathize with the one and only real Nazi among the Saboteurs.

Naturally I knew the ending of the book from the memoirs, but despite that the book never gets boring. On the contrary - reading about how the FBI screwed this case up makes you doubt their entire credibility.

Six of the saboteurs were executed, two were imprisoned. Only one of them still believed in Nazi ideology, none of them had the slightest intend to fulfill their sabotage plans - they all viewed "Operation Pastorius" as a means to escape the corrupted fatherland and continue their former lives in the USA. But for publicity's sake they were executed nevertheless, and even those who ratted them out, those who were the only reason why the FBI even caught the saboteurs, were imprisoned instead of being treated as the heroes they should have been.… (more)

Ever since my AP Gov. teacher made us watch ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN back in 1983, I have been fascinated by all things Watergate. I even read the book ATPM at least a dozen times! In this book, I enjoyed the point of view of the last 100 days of Nixon's second term, for it allowed the reader to be inside the White House (and the EOB; who knew Nixon actually preferred his office over there than in the oval one) as if one were privy to the conversations (which we were, thanks to Nixon's flawed idea of having all dialogue secretly taped). Fifty years later, and I still can't believe what happened and am even more stunned by the Jan. 6th hearings and what has been discovered there (way worse than Watergate, IMHO). What people will do for power and what they will do to hang on to that power is a stunning study in the psyche of certain individuals. I now have to read more and even delve into reading about the Vietnam War, something I did not pay as much attention to in high school as I should have. Mr. Dobbs, thank you for leading me to other interesting historical avenues through this book.… (more)