John Wheeler Wheeler-Bennett (1902–1975)

This is the last book Bennett wrote before his death. It is a memoir of his time spent in Germany, Austria, and Czechoslovakia between the wars. Bennett was a man with an inheritance and spent most of his life observing and cavorting with the great and near great: Wilhelm II, von Papen, General Groner, Jan Masaryk and his son, Leon Trotsky, and Benes, just to name a few. He drew the line at Nazi's, whom he despised; although he had met Hitler, Goebbels and Rohm on at least one occasion. He was in Berlin during the Reichstag Fire and just fled Austria as the Nazi tanks were roaring in. According to von Papen, Bennett was to have been liquidated on the Night of Long Knives in Berlin. He started out working for the foreign press, then moved on to delicate political negotiations in Locarno, The League of Nations, and among other things, aided the prosecutor at the Nuremburg Trials. His memories of these historical personages are invaluable as well as poignant. It is my personal opinion that he went out of his way to be fair to all-telling the good and the bad. I will be collecting books as I find them at a good price from this author. 200 pages… (more)

The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and Germany's Eastern Policy by Sir John W. Wheeler-Bennett A small (52 pages) but mighty book! Mr. Wheeler-Bennett was quite a distinguished and well-respected journalist, historian, and statesman of which I was unaware before I read a previous book he had written; I now have 3 additional on my shelf to read. This was by far his shortest book and the topic, the price Russia had to pay to get out of WWI to the Germans, was a topic that I only knew one word about: pricey! Bennett makes no bones about the predatory nature of the Germans in this treaty and also posits that this did as much to ally Russia and the US during WWII more than anything else and also saved the Bolshevik revolution. Among other things discussed was the German desire for the detachment of the Ukraine from Russia to become a German satellite state, the restoration of a Polish kingdom under the auspices of German/Austrian nobility, the installation of a German King in a semi-independent Finland, and the annexation of all the Baltic States. The basic purpose, as seen by the Germans, was the elimination of the Russian state, altogether. At this particular time, nobody was really sure what Bolshevism was. I have taken 5 pages of typed notes from this book and will probably go down a rabbit hole for quite some time as many things here piqued my interest. 52 pages 5 stars… (more)