As one who wishes to know more about the "nuts and bolts" of jazz, I always insist on reveling in the research conducted by these, the finest jazz authorities on the planet. Unlike the contributions of Ken Burns and others of his genre, this is the real stuff written by the real guys. Very Highly Recomended!!

Readers of this book must be going out of their way to avoid its nightmarish implications; even the author sidesteps them. Indeed, the book is mis-titled. It should properly have been called 'The Great Boycott and its Tragic Abandonment.' The transfer agreement was simply the rationale for the staggering historic blunder whereby Jewish organizations in the diaspora allowed themselves to be persuaded by Zionist forces to puncture the spontaneous and swelling worldwide Jewish boycott of German goods taking place in 1933, a movement with enormous and growing non-Jewish support as well, which, had it been supported rather than undercut by major Jewish organizations, could very well have toppled Hitler from power by the spring of 1934. Not only would this have spared 5-6 million Jewish lives, it would have spared another 45 million or so non-Jewish lives lost in the Nazi holocaust. I once believed like many that the Holocaust led to the fulfillment of Zionism; this book shows rather that it was the fulfillment of Zionism which led to the Holocaust. And it was all for nought. Israel would still have come into being and moreover would have had several million extra potential immigrants to draw from. This book is all about a simply horrific wordwide catastrophe that resulted from an incredibly BAD choice based on ethnic nationalism, and it is made instead to appear as merely a somewhat sordid chapter re. a road to nationhood that featured a few nasty bumps along the way. Mind-boggling!

This book is an amazing insight into Israel's tremendous historic drama--one obviously overlooked by others. Anyone who reads this book should be prepared for a whodunit style history, with gripping and tragic moments that stay with you long after the book is put down. No wonder The Transfer Agreement continues to thrill and inform people.

I originally read this book when it came out as a Macmillan hardback some years ago. The new Carrol Graf edition has some fascinating new insights by the author as of 2001. Undoubtedly this re-issue was timed to coincide with Edwin Black's other major book, IBM and the Holocaust. Although I have read both books, I am still gripped by the power and drama of Transfer Agreement--must reading for those who to understand the State of Israel, Zionism and its intersection with the Nazis. Powerful reading, this is history written as no one else can.

If you are a person wanting to have ALL books about Gestapo buy it. Otherwise do no spend your money. The author does not hide what he thinks: "although a Nazi, Helldorf retained to the end a certain feeling of decency" in page 106 is part of a very long list of personal disqualifications. This kind of book is not history but rubbish.
Nevertheless, I was suprised to find that the members of the Gestapo were only 40,000. This is a rather small number for all Europe (1944). It is widely known that the USA-backed military regimes in Latin America (in the 60's and 70's) have more people in their security services for minor populations.
All the other facts mentioned in the book can be found in more serious texts about the same topic.

This book has very good information about the founding of the Gestapo and what it did. It also features in-depth descriptions of how people like Goering, Himmler, and Heydrich, among others, played a role in the Gestapo. The book is well researched, easy to read, fairly fast paced, and is broken down into small, easy to read chapters. My one quarrel with the book was that Crankshaw often described what the SS as a whole was doing rather than what just the Gestapo was up to. Still, a very good book and one of the few on the Gestapo.

This is the first history of the Gestapo -- the Nazi instrument of terror used within Germany and beyond -- that I have seen. The Gestapo is traced back to the start of the reign of National Socialism in 1933 through the Final Solution until its collapse in 1945. Special attention is paid to the individuals of this instrument of tyranny, namely Hermann Goering, the one who first controlled the Gestapo right through to Reinhard Heydrich, Heinrich Himmler and Heinrich "Gestapo" Mueller, who became its rightful chief. The Crimes of the Reich Security Main Office, the branch of the SS that controlled the SD and the Gestapo, are revealed with the greatest of force, leaving individuals like Adolf Eichmann, Otto Ohlendorf, Christian Wirth, Rudolf Hoess and others with no chance to plea, seeming that they were some of the main perpetrators of this terrible crime against humanity. Edward Crankshaw's book, first published in 1956, has not yet shown signs of old age, seeming that he was one of the few historians that attempted to report on an elusive organization that all came to recognize as another word for mayhem.

Have you ever begun reading a book and gotten so distracted by the technical and English errors? Have you ever waded through a manuscript that was so filled with misspelled words, terrible grammatical constructions and English so poor that a 6th grader can spot the errors? This describes my experience with this book.

A few months ago I went on a buying binge of alternate WW2 books, which, unfortunately, included this incomprehensible piece of trash. The author has no style, no concept of how to provide the reader with any sense of continuity, absolutely no schooling in the German language, and very lame technical errors liberally sprinkled throughout the book. For instance: There is a passage that refers to the yield of the atomic device as "twenty thousand kilotons." This comes out to 20 megatons. By contrast the device that was dropped on Hiroshima was a 15 kiloton device. There are many anachronistic references to agencies (NSA, US Air Force) that didn't exist until after the war.

Then there is the junk German: "frau" is a noun and should be capitalized. "tochers" should be "Töchter," which is the plural of "Tochter," the word for daughter. "Prostituierens" is a nonsense word. In this context the author probably means "Prostituierte." "prostituieren" is a verb, not a noun. "Kornel" is not a German word. The author probably means "Oberst," the German equivalent of colonel. "Kreigsmarnie" is a poor spelling of "Kriegsmarine."

The response by an editor at this publisher who responded to my extensive list of problems replied, "In a topic of Alternative History, we depend on the author for his research. And as we come across corrections that need to be made, we apply then in the next printing." In other words, they don't even do a copy edit of the basic English, which was totally atrocious and bears no relation to the language you and I speak and write.

Not recommended on any level. I wish there were negative stars to rate this juvenile attempt.

"The Triumph of the Third Reich" will appeal to WW II afficionados as well as alternative history fans. Mr. Cooper has done his homework and it shows in the accurate historical details about the participants, tactics, weapons, policies, and economics presented in the story. In fact, it's often hard to know when truth ends and fiction begins. The minor shifts he introduces in the timing of certain key events are quite plausible and could easily have happened, perhaps leading to the alternative scenario he envisions. I found the book to be a very enjoyable read.

Readers of alternate history will find Edward Cooper's Triumph of the Third Reich an interesting and rewarding experience. It is well researched and well written.

Those of us who have wondered what would have happened during World War II if the Nazi had been the first to develop vastly superior weapons in quantity, will find Cooper's narrative frightening and compelling. Yet, in the end, it is also a triumph of sanity and humanism over the madness of war. The German people finally reject authoritarian politics, racism, and hatred. They prove themselves to be both civilized and humane. This book is very sympathetic toward the German people and their struggles to atone for their mistake of embracing Hitler and fascism. As such, it will probably not appeal to modern day Neo-Nazis.

Cooper's coordination of complex personalities and events in Germany, France, Italy, England, America, Japan, and The Soviet Union is quite remarkable. The dangers of unrestrained nationalism are demonstrated as patriotic heroes from different countries struggle and often succeed in destroying each other.

And yet the real struggle for supremacy is not on the battlefields but in the scientific laboratories where the Germans win. But ironically, there is an even more basic contest going on at the same time, which the Nazis lose. This is the struggle of the human spirit for freedom. Freedom loving people in Germany and also in other countries reject authoritarian government.

One can only hope that Cooper's optimism is somewhat based upon reality rather than a naive assessment of human nature. Eric Hoffer and others claim that the vast majority of people crave authoritarian certainty and strong leaders who will tell them what is true and false and who to love and who to hate. They claim that most people don't like the responsibility that comes with doing their own thinking and making their own decisions. They are only too willing to turn their freedom and decision making over to some authority figure. We can only hope that Cooper's optimistic view of human nature is more accurate than those who offer little hope for the future.

I have recommended Triumph of The Third Reich to my friends.