Paddy Ashdown (1941–2018)

This is an outstanding volume that chronicles the opposition to Hitler's regime starting as early as 1935. The research performed to create this volume is immense. Much of the book is centered on Admiral Wilhelm Canaris who command the Abwehr, the German Intelligence organization. Much of his effort was to appear to work for Hitler but at the same time undermine the regime.

However, there were many German citizens both civilian and in the military who opposed Hitler and many coup attempts were organized and many assassinations planned but foiled mostly by timing and Hitler's amazing luck.

I am fascinated by what it would have been like to live in Hitler's Germany and search out books written by people who were there. This effort explains how deeply the the dislike of Hitler and his regime was felt in Germany and to what risks its citizens went to slow him down and defeat him.… (mehr)

This was a surprising book. I expected an account of the numerous small-scale attempts by individuals and tiny groups of decent Germans to oppose the Nazi regime, such as the famous White Rose group. Instead, this book is more like a detailed account, almost day by day, of a conspiracy that began in the mid 1930s and culminated in the 20 July 1944 attempted assassination of Hitler. Central to the conspiracy was Admiral Canaris, head of the Abwehr, and secret opponent of the Nazis. Why it took nearly a decade for the assassination attempt to finally happen is explained in some detail, but the lengthy period is also an answer to those who claim that the German generals and politicians involved in the 1944 conspiracy were doing so only because Germany had already lost the war. As Ashdown points out, many of the conspirators were involved even while Hitler was triumphant. I found some of Ashdown’s conclusions a bit harsh, such as a his condemnation of Roosevelt for insisting on unconditional surrender rather than a negotiated peace with Germany. But on the whole an interesting book telling a largely unknown story. What a pity that it was Paddy Ashdown’s last, as he passed away earlier this year.… (mehr)

Ashdown narrates brilliantly, both as author and voice in the audiobook version, an account of what seems, to me at least, a marginal episode in WW2, the French Resistance attempt to defend the Vergers plateau in S France. he deploys all his experience as an ex-soldier and politician/ diplomat, to detail the detailed tactics, mussed up communications, ego-battles both among the field officers and the distant generals and statesmen. Examples: failure of the resistance to dig-in properly; inadequacy of the Sten-gun as a weapon; de Gaulle's overriding ambition to put himself at head of post war France; mixed messages from Eisenhower as to active resistance or pin-prick guerrilla actions; amateurish British officers parachuted in, motivated by a desire to see action before the show was over. There's a huge amount of detail but it all hangs together as an enthralling and slow-rolling tragedy. German cruelty is well to the fore - don't imagine it was just the SS whopper war-criminals. French pig-headedness too. Saddest is the boys, untrained and scarcely-armed who joined the Maquis, partly in brave hopes, partly just to dodge being deported to work units in Germany, to make up for the Germans all absent at the front.
A book I would not have selected, had it not turned up, far better than I might have expected. Shall read Ashdown's other recent book on the Resistance, Game of Spies.… (mehr)

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1483877.html

Paddy Ashdown is one of the people I most admire in politics; I voted for him as Lib Dem leader, was a candidate and election agent for the party in Cambridge in 1990 and 1991, and then was the head of the local branch of the Lib Dems in Northern Ireland for several years (a position in no way incompatible with my Alliance Party activities). A few years later I found myself running the major source of informed but critical commentary on his tenure as High Representative in Bosnia. So I felt that I knew him a little, through politics both domestic and international.

I feel I know him better now. The book takes us through the start of his life in India, growing up in the northern part of County Down (his grandfather, from Rathfriland a bit farther south, supposedly owned the first motor car ever seen in Ireland), his decision to join the Royal Marines and the the SBS, his slipping into diplomacy and espionage, and then the momentous decision to give it all up and concentrate on a political career.

He adopted Yeovil (and the Liberals of Yeovil adopted him) in 1976, and decided then that it would take three elections to win the seat from the Conservatives. In fact it took only two, and he won in 1983 despite limited local resources and spells of unemployment. I think this part of the book is particularly instructive for anyone wanting to take up a career in representative politics; it's tough for all political parties but particularly for smaller ones.

We then jump almost immediately from 1983 to 1988, when he was elected leader with my vote and many others, and was faced with a party in crisis, bumping along the bottom of the polls and often behind David Owen's continuing SDP. What interested me here was that Ashdown was always on the lookout for the best political terrain to occupy: equidistance was appropriate between Major and Kinnock, but when Blair moved Labour to the right, Ashdown surged to the centre-left. He allowed himself to get seduced by Blair's vision of a historic realignment of the British left, but once Blair had failed a couple of critical tests (most notably, binning the Jenkins recommendations for electoral reform) Ashdown decided that the project was over, as was his leadership.

The most moving parts of the book are about Bosnia; the prologue takes us to the camps of Manjača and Trnopolje, located in that long valley between Banja Luka and Prijedor which I came to know well at a later year. Always gifted for languages, Ashdown quoted pithy local proverbs - a particular favourite was 'Lako je tuđim kurcem gloginje mlatiti', which translates 'it is easy to beat down thorns using other men's pricks'. But he also did more in three years to create a sense of confidence and dynamism in Bosnia than the international community had managed in the previous decade. (All this progress, though Ashdown does not say it, was wilfully squandered by the indolence of his somnolent successor.)

The book ends with two bizarre episodes: first, Gordon Brown's attempt to get him to join the cabinet in 2007 as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, and second, his near miss at becoming UN special envoy for Afghanistan - an interesting case study of what happens when all the conditions have been put in place but one key actor (President Karzai) changes his mind at the last moment. I've seen some speculation that he may return to the EU as a special Balkan envoy but I fear this may just be wishful thinking from activists rather than anything based on reality.

One constant theme from about Chapter 4 onwards is the presence of his wife Jane. Despite one well-publicised wobble, this is clearly a deep and strong political and emotional partnership, as is obvious to anyone who has met the Ashdowns in action. But what comes out from the book is that Ashdown does draw his strength from his family; as he gets formally invested as a member of the House of Lords, his granddaughter shouts down from the gallery, Je veux faire PIPI! and his sympathy is entirely with the little girl.

It's a well-written and entertaining book, and I think even those with much less interest than I have in Northern Ireland childhoods, British liberal politics, or Bosnia will enjoy it.… (mehr)