Peter H. Merkl

4052 The Making of a Stormtrooper, by Peter H. Merkl (read 2 Aug 2005) This is an 1980 book based on a study of some 337 biographical accounts written by persons who joined Hitler's stormtroopers before 1932. It considers why they became stormtroopers, what induced them to become such. It is full of statistics and I admit that I did not always find it interesting. The book concludes: "A careful examination of all the factors, economic, political, and social-psychological, shows the complexity of the setting, but in the end there remains the free decisions and acts of folly that enabled Hitler to take over Germany and to make war on the world--the folly of von Hindenburg, von Papen, Hugenberg, von Schleicher, and many others, and most of all the folly of hundreds of thousands of violent young stormtroopers whose motives we have sought to explain." On balance there is good to be said for this not overly exciting book.… (mehr)