Scientists under Hitler

Abstract

After a brief historical review of previous proposals to erect a tidal power station in the Severn estuary, the work of the 1978 Severn Barrage Committee is described in detail, based on its 1981 report. More recent information about the benefits and risks of the proposal are reviewed. Construction, including turbines, benefits, including employment, tourism, and economics are all dealt with in detail, as are environmental aspects. The recommendation of the committee, for an immediate start of a major design and acceptability study, was not accepted.     

Napoleon and Hitler

This essay discusses the question: is Napoleon Bonaparte in any significant sense the predecessor of Adolf Hitler? Is this simile a good heuristic device for bringing out hidden qualities or dimensions which we would not otherwise perceive in Napoleon? Or, at the end of the day, was Hannah Arendt right in explicitly repudiating the notion that Napoleon was comparable to Hitler? And the essay concludes that for a host of reasons—structure, politics, ideology, personality, posterity—she is correct. It argues that the simile should be withdrawn from serious conversation.     

History,Hitler, and the Holocaust

EBERHARD JACKEL. Hitler in History. Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England, 1984. Pp. 115; GERALD FLEMINO. Hitler and the Final Solution. Berkeley, Cal.: University of California Press, 1984. Pp. 219; MALCOLM c. MACPHERSON. The Blood of His Servants. New York: The New York Times Book Co., Inc., 1984. Pp. 310; ISABELLA LEITNER. Fragments of Isabella: A Memoir of Auschwitz. New York: Cowell Publishers, 1978. Pp. 112; JAMES BENTLEY. Martin Niemöller 1891–1984. New York: Free Press, 1984. Pp. 253; SAUL s. FRIEDMAN. The Oberammergau Passion Play: A Lance Against Civilization. Carbondale, Ill.: Southern Illinois University Press, 1984. Pp. 270; DAVID s. WYMAN. The Abandonment of the Jews: America and the Holocaust 1941–1945. New York: Pantheon Books, 1984. Pp. 445; WALTER N. BANNING. The Dissolution of Eastern European Jewry. Torrance, Cal.: Institute for Historical Review, 1983. Pp. 239.