“Servants of Evil”, by Simon Trew

320 pages, Carlton Publishing Group, ISBN-13: 978-1842222379

Say, did you know that Servants of Evil by Simon Trew was, in fact, a companion book to a series broadcast on the BBC? Me neither. So, anyway, seeing as History is written by the victors, it should come as no surprise that they should also be put in charge of recounting the memories of the losers; this book consists of German soldiers, pilots and submariners’ first-hand accounts interspersed in a summarized recounting of WWII in the Atlantic, the Balkans, Russia and Western Europe. Overall, this book is illuminating, shedding light as it does on the Other Side on these men and boys who were serving their country in what seemed to be a great adventure that, eventually, turned into a miserable struggle merely to survive. With that in mind it makes sense to evenly split the book in two, with one half representing the period of German military success and the other representing Germany’s decline and fall; each half is further separated by an unusually large segment of pictures that depict many of the “voices” accounted for throughout the book; thus, the air of confidence that exudes in the victorious years is replaced with misery and fear after the tide of war turns against Germany.

But all of these voices are rather muted, in my opinion, as are all void of representing any sort of hardline political perspective or Nazi ideals, even though many of the men and boys speaking here were active participants in the Hitler Youth prior to military service. The accounts represented are centered on a sense of chivalrous duty to Germany and void of any Nazi-indoctrinated hate toward the enemy, as if the participants were all just patriots fighting for their country, right or wrong, the same as the men and boys in the Allied ranks. There are a multitude of references that attempt to humanize the German soldier – such as the Luftwaffe fighter pilot rationalizing that his goal was to destroy the plane, not the pilot or crew – and so there are really no “servants of evil” in the book, only ordinary soldiers following orders. Some readers may wonder if there are additional stories these men are less willing to tell. This is a disservice, I believe, for although the ranks of the Wehrmacht, Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine were not the sole domain of the Nazis, the Nazis were represented throughout, and to deny that their ideology did not filter down through the ranks is disingenuous, at best.

Aside from some rather poor editing, and the less-than-obvious contrast between the narration and the first-hand accounts, Servants of Evil does add to one’s overall sense of World War II as seen through German eyes, humanizing an otherwise inhuman enemy.