Hellstorm: The Death of Nazi Germany, 1944-1947

Hellstorm by Thomas Goodrich documents the Allied atrocities against Germans toward the end of World War II and during its aftermath. The rape of German women is graphically described. On page 159, for example, when a German counterattack temporarily recaptured the town of Neustettin, a German soldier describes what he saw in houses where Russian soldiers had raped German women: Naked, dead women lay in many of the rooms. Swastikas had been cut into their abdomens, in some the intestines bulged out, breasts were cut up, faces beaten to a pulp and swollen puffy. Others had been tied to the furniture by their hands and feet, and massacred. A broomstick protruded from the vagina of one, a besom from that of another…. The mothers had had to witness how their ten and twelve-year-old daughters were raped by some 20 men; the daughters in turn saw their mothers being raped, even their grandmothers. Women who tried to resist were brutally tortured to death. There was no mercy…. The women we liberated were in a state almost impossible to describe….Their faces had a confused, vacant look. Some were beyond speaking to, ran up and down and moaned the same sentences over and over again. Having seen the consequences of these bestial atrocities, we were terribly agitated and determined to fight. We knew the war was past winning; but it was our obligation and sacred duty to fight to the last bullet. Goodrich also documents the terror bombing of Dresden and other German cities toward the end of the war. Evidence of the ruthless mass bombings of congested German cities was provided by many of the British bomber crews themselves. The almost total lack of German opposition to the British bombings toward the end of the war made the bombing of cities less like war and more like murder. While open criticism of government policy was not allowed, the guilt of young British flyers occasionally surfaced. One British crewman confesses on page 38: “There were people down there being fried to death in melted asphalt in the roads, they were being burnt up and we were shuffling incendiary bombs into this holocaust. I felt terribly sorry for the people in that fire I was helping to stoke up.” After Dresden, Joseph Goebbels angrily urged Hitler to retaliate by abrogating the Geneva Convention. However, Hitler and his military staff continued to abide by the Geneva Convention throughout the war. As a result, Goodrich states on page 127 that almost 99% of Allied prisoners of war survived the war to return home. After the war the Allies required the Germans to perform forced labor. The rape of German women continued unabated. A German woman from the Soviet zone states on page 298: "We had to build landing strips, and to break stones. In snow and rain, from six in the morning until nine at night, we were working along the roads. Any Russian who felt like it took us aside. In the morning and at night we received cold water and a piece of bread, and at noon soup of crushed, unpeeled potatoes, without salt. At night we slept on the floors of farmhouses or stables, dead tired, huddled together. But we woke up every so often, when a moaning and whimpering in the pitch-black room announced the presence of one of the guards." As this woman and others make clear, German women could be raped even when performing forced labor for the Allies. As one German woman who worked at planting potatoes said, “If they wanted a girl they just came in the field and got her.” Goodrich also documents the brutal denazification process in Germany. For millions of Germans the worst part of the denazification process came after a 12-page questionnaire had been completed. After reviewing the questionnaire, Allied intelligence officers would frequently visit German homes for additional examinations and interrogations. Many of these intelligence officers were Jewish refugees who had fled Nazi persecution in the late 1930s with old scores to settle. The additional interrogations were often structured to inflict as much pain and suffering as possible, and often resulted in internment or even death. Goodrich also documents beginning on page 280 that the Red Army began the plundering of Europe as soon as it entered Germany in 1944. The Soviet looting in the Russian zone became prodigious after the end of the war. Factories, refineries, processing mills, and other heavy industries were taken apart and sent east to the Soviet Union to be reassembled. All secondary rail lines, electric and steam locomotives and their rolling stock were sent to the Soviet Union. The plants that were left in Germany were operated by Germans solely for the benefit of the Soviet Union. While the United States did not take German plants and factories, Goodrich states on page 282 that it did take its share of German treasure. Billions of dollars in gold, silver, currency, priceless paintings and art works were stolen from their hiding places in caves, tunnels, and salt mines throughout Germany and shipped to the United States. Germany also experienced “mental dismantling” in that hundreds of German scientists were compelled to immigrate by the victors. One U.S. government agency quietly admitted that Operation Paperclip was the first time in history where conquerors had attempted to confiscate the inventive power of a nation. Life magazine added that the real gain in reparations of this war was not in the confiscated factories, gold, or artworks, but in the German brains and the German research results. Goodrich states on page 287 that the destruction of the German infrastructure during the war had made it inevitable that some Germans would starve to death before roads, rails, canals, and bridges could be restored. However, even when much of the German infrastructure had been repaired, the Allies deliberately withheld food from Germany. Continuing the policy of their predecessors, U.S. President Harry Truman and British Prime Minister Clement Attlee allowed the spirit of Henry Morgenthau and the Yalta Conference to dictate their policies toward Germany. The result was that millions of Germans were doomed to slow death by starvation. In Chapter 8 Goodrich discusses the mass starvation of German prisoners of war by the Western Allies after the war. Goodrich also documents in Chapter 10 the horrific torture and death of Germans after the war in former German concentration camps. In Chapter 11 Goodrich briefly discusses the mass expulsion of ethnic Germans from Poland and other Eastern European countries, resulting in the deaths of millions of ethnic Germans. I wish Goodrich would have discussed these postwar Allied atrocities in more detail. However, if he had gone into more detail his book probably would have been too long and cumbersome for most people. Hellstorm is an important and very disturbing book concerning the end of World War II and its aftermath. I highly recommend this well-written book to anyone interested in World War II history.

The reading of Hellstorm was necessary study! I had been curious to research the plight of Germany unshackled from United State propaganda and Hellstorm delivered in spades! My initial awakening to the lies was back in 1984-1987 stationed as an a "Cold War" soldier in Goppingen, Germany. My 3 year experiences were a revelation to the kindness of the German people (especially in small rural communities) and also pure hatred of American soldiers, after all these years I now understand why. Hellstorm was no sugar coating of tragic, horrific events perpetrated by Britain and United States against an enemy which was defeated on the battle field and large portions of civilians vanquished by war criminals IMHO. Sharing the book to Gen Z family members who are awakened to the lies. A MUST read if you are on the journey!!

This poignant book documents horrific events that can only be considered war crimes by the Western Allies both during & after WW2, which resulted in the deaths of several million mostly ethnic German women & children! Unfortunately, these events have been conveniently ignored for most of the last 80 years. This is one of the few books to expose what the "great" Churchill, FDR & Eisenhower & other Allied leaders allowed to happen. Honest books re WW2 & biographies of these "great" men would discuss these matters.

What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason! How infinite in faculty! In form, in moving, how express and admirable! In action how like an angel! In apprehension how like a god! ― William Shakespeare, Hamlet Would Shakespeare have written these words if he had witnessed the twentieth century? His heartache would be immense if he had witnessed the disgrace of what happened to the German people, during and after the war, and the Russian people, from both sides of the conflict who told their stories for the first time, in Hellstorm- The Death of Nazi Germany, 1944-1947, by Thomas Goodrich. Through the Freedom of Information Act, the release of files pertaining to this time period from England and Russia, and eyewitness testimony from the survivors, we finally understand what really happened. And the truth is appalling. It’s no wonder these accounts have never been released to the American public, in any form. There have been many reviewers of this book, so there is no reason to dwell on their elucidation. Hellstorm is that book that comes along that can’t be ignored, and needs to be read. Included in Hellstorm is this statement from Freda Utley, from her 1949 book, the High Cost of Vengeance, where she stated: I thought it was high time we stopped talking about German guilt, since there was no crime the Nazis had committed, which we or our allies had not also committed. I had referred to our obliteration bombing, the mass expropriation and expulsion from their homes of twelve million Germans on account of their race; the starving of the Germans during the first years of the occupation; the use of prisoners as slave laborers; the Russian concentration camps, and the looting perpetrated by the Americans as well as the Russians……Compared with the rape and murder and looting engaged by the Russian armies at the war’s end, the terror and slavery and hunger and robbery in the Eastern zone today, and the genocide practiced by the Poles and Czechs, the war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by the Germans condemned at Nuremberg to death or lifelong imprisonment appeared as minor in extent if not in degree. The pre and during the war propaganda unleashed human savagery to an obscene degree, to the point it’s embarrassing to be even considered a human being. What a pathetic species. Fortunately, the Allied troops ultimately began to understand and identify with the Germans. Too late, most came to the shocking realization that in no appreciable way was their former enemy different from themselves. Ashamed by the sadistic, blood-thirsty propaganda they had swallowed so eagerly and obeyed so blindly, many young men- Americans, British, French, and the Russians, knew all too well from experience that neither the Nazis or Germans had a corner on crime and that there was nothing “unique” about guilt or evil. But, as our awareness of World War II has increased, the wounds of this war run deep, and it continues to cut across the generations. Fortunately for humanity, there is always hope. As long as there are souls whose hearts are more full of love than hate, I hope to one day see that all the imbecilic propaganda against our fellow man that leads to the mindless slaughter of millions, ceases to be part of the human condition. It is said that those who ignore the past are doomed to repeat it.

Google translation from english review Dieses Buch war sehr schwer zu lesen, nicht weil es schlecht geschrieben ist, ist es nicht, sondern weil der Gegenstand. Ich hatte häufig, es wegen der schieren Schrecken, was mit den hilflosen deutschen Volkes getan legte. Ich habe seit Jahren das große Verbrechen wurden von den "Befreier" Europas während und nach dem Krieg begangen bewusst. Die dämonischen Kreaturen, die den Krieg geplant angezettelt und ausgeführt die Zerstörung von allem, was am besten über die europäische Zivilisation und seine Menschen in einer Flut von Blut, Mord, Vergewaltigung, Folter und Hunger war. Allerdings hatte ich nur absorbiert Schnipsel von dem, was im Laufe der Zeit durchgeführt. Goodrich bringt sie alle zusammen in einer Litanei von Leid, die schwer zu nehmen, vor allem wenn man bedenkt, dass die meisten Täter wurden nie zur Aufgabe ihrer widerlichen Verbrechen genannt, einige leben ihr Leben in Komfort in Israel. Tatsächlich gediehen die meisten von ihnen, und viele waren und sind bis heute verehrt. Es sagt viel über Propaganda, dass blutgetränkten Monster wie Churchill, Rooseveldt, Eisenhower, Benes et al sind auch heute noch als heroische Führer angesehen. Man fragt sich, an der Mentalität der Menschen wie die amerikanischen Piloten, die mit Maschinengewehren beschossen Tausende von Überlebenden schockiert von Dresden, waren die überwiegende Mehrheit von ihnen Frauen und Kinder, und verletzt, als auch die Rettungskräfte. Kein Zweifel, sie stehen stolz auf veterens Beisammensein für die Rolle, die sie in ", die Welt sicher für die Demokratie" gespielt. Bemerkenswert ist auch, dass das System immer noch darauf besteht, dass eine bloße 35.000 starben in Dresden, als sie ganz genau, dass die tatsächliche Zahl muss mindestens zehnmal größer sein wissen. Die Geschichte ist eine vereinbarte Reihe von Lügen von den Siegern, wenn die behaupteten Verbrechen der besiegt werden in keinem Verhältnis und den umfassenden und sehr reale Verbrechen der Sieger übertrieben minimiert oder ignoriert. [.....]

And these are the countries that feel they have the right to judge the others? and To define the concepts og justice, peace, democracy, and human rights? Shame on you!

We all know less about this half of the truth of WW2.... this book was very educating,although , not the easiest to read !!

This is an amazing book that tells the story from the point of view of the civilian women and children that were subject to the bombings and subsequent military occupations. I was not able to read more than one chapter at a time because of the gruesome atrocities that these civilians were subjected to. This book is a very graphic reminder of why war should be avoided at all costs. It is a must read.

We’re all taught from a young age that we need to hear both sides of the story. Well, I think that adage applies nowhere more than to our World Wars. If you have one half of the world fighting for a cause and the other half of the world fight for another, I think it’s reasonably fair to honestly and impartially review both sides of the story and each side’s tale of events. And yet, most of us only feel it necessary to give “our” side the time of day. This phenomenon is largely due to the propaganda produced by our own governments. Do you really think the controllers of our countries want us being objective about their enemies? Possibly sympathizing with them? Hearing them out? Well, if you want to come to an unbiased, realistic conclusion, you have to investigate the other side of the story regardless of what your own governments insists. There is in fact evidence to suggest the Danzig massacre did occur, which would justify Germany’s invasion of Poland and the reclaiming of German land that was taken from Germany post-WWI. Dating back to WWI, Germany was blamed for that war, despite the outbreak of the war beginning between Austria and Serbia, with Germany only coming to the aid of its closest cousin. As a result, a massive anti-German sentiment was wrongfully stirred up post-WWI, and it has persisted ever since. The extortionist dictates of the Treaty of Versailles heaped unpayable war reparations upon Germany, reducing the country to a debt slave and its eventual economic collapse in 1929. The misappropriation of German land fragmented Germany and allotted portions of the country to the victors of WWI. Czechoslovakia was formed from portions of German land, which was composed of many ethnic Germans. Hitler nearly ordered the invasion of Czechoslovakia for the persecution of Sudetenland Germans, but Germany and Czechoslovakia were able to come to a peaceful reconciliation by repatriating the Sudetenland Germans to Germany. Unfortunately, Poland refused to respond to Hitler’s negotiations and Germany consequently invaded. After WWII, the largest ethnic cleansing in history took place when more than 12 million ethnic Germans were expelled from Eastern Europe. The scale and savagery of the reprisals – shootings, forced death marches, the rape of two million German women and children, the public humiliation, torture and execution of countless ethnic Germans, particularly in Czechoslovakia and Poland - all lend much credence to the legitimacy of the Danzig massacre. Few people have suffered more than the Germans and yet none of their misery has been allowed our attention.