Inside Europe

by John Gunther

John Gunther's brilliant study of personalities and politics in contemporary Europe has already, in the few years since its first appearance, achieved the status of a classic.
It is a portrait gallery of European dictators and statesmen of the 1930's and early '40's, their rivals and associates and underlings. But it is also much more than that. For the men personify policies, are shown tackling the vital problems of a war-scarred continent; and the book as a whole becomes a complete, fast-moving close-up of Europe of the period.
It is a big book, running now to some 265,000 words. It bulges with inside, backstage facts, dictators' secrets; for Gunther is a consummate reporter who knows the European capitals like the back of his hand, has an unerring nose for news even in the most unlikely places, and goes after the human as well as the political items.
The present edition contains a bibliography of the changes that have been made in the various editions.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Journalism, Politics

606 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1933

About the author

John Gunther was one of the best known and most admired journalists of his day, and his series of "Inside" books, starting with Inside Europe in 1936, were immensely popular profiles of the major world powers. One critic noted that it was Gunther's special gift to "unite the best qualities of the newspaperman and the historian." It was a gift that readers responded to enthusiastically. The "Inside" books sold 3,500,000 copies over a period of thirty years.

While publicly a bon vivant and modest celebrity, Gunther in his private life suffered disappointment and tragedy. He and Frances Fineman, whom he married in 1927, had a daughter who died four months after her birth in 1929. The Gunthers divorced in 1944. In 1947, their beloved son Johnny died after a long, heartbreaking fight with brain cancer. Gunther wrote his classic memoir Death Be Not Proud, published in 1949, to commemorate the courage and spirit of this extraordinary boy. Gunther remarried in 1948, and he and his second wife, Jane Perry Vandercook, adopted a son.

Reviews

[Noah · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best, most succinct books I've ever read on any topic. Written leading up to (and in a brief forward immediately after) the outbreak of WWII, John Gunther manages to go throughout Europe and give brief sketches of the persons and political issues at play. Some, like Hitler and Nazi Germany, get chapters upon chapters devoted to them, while others, like Salazar in Portugal, get a couple paragraphs. But it's all done extremely well, meaning that Gunther's choice of emphasis is good for both narrative and educational purposes. It is an interesting look at the factors and personalities as play leading up to war and how contemporary individuals perceived them, and gives as "balanced" a viewpoint as is possible. Still, as it was written at the time, there are a lot of contextual gaps that hindsight provides us, such as the full extent of what Nazi antisemitism would lead to, the bloody insanity of Stalin's Great Purge and the Gulag system, among other subjects which I am not informed enough to critique. Still, I think you would be hard-pressed to find a better overview of WWII's origins giving such a balanced look into both major and minor players and events.

[Aaron Million · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was the first of John Gunther's celebrated "Inside" books. The edition that I read, while being a first, is not the very first edition that he wrote. This one was published in 1938, but due to the rapidly changing events going on in Europe at this time, it was updated from the original version that Gunther wrote just a couple of years before. While of course much of this is dated, I still find it valuable because it gives an impression of people and events seen and interpreted as they were at that time, just before WWII started. The negative here is that there is much that was going on that was not known to Gunther at the time. The positive though is that his reporting and judgments are not biased by anything that came later on. Plus, Gunther is a very engaging writer with a sense of humor.

PROLOGUE

This was extensive, and owing to Adolf Hitler's increasing lust for territory and power. Gunther wrote this addition in October 1938, in the midst of the crisis over Czechoslovakia, around the time that British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain returned from meeting Hitler in Germany, erroneously declaring "peace in our time". Even at this point in time, it was clear to Gunther that Hitler was not going to be appeased, by Chamberlain or anyone else, and that his demands for the lands and peoples of neighboring countries would continue to grow. Gunther, while not outright saying that war was inevitable, thought that it was highly likely. He felt that Hitler would at some point take it too far, resulting in hostilities between France and Great Britain, which is exactly what happened not quite a year later when Hitler invaded Poland.

HITLER

Gunther pens a chapter on Hitler and his legal rise to power in Germany. Gunther saw then what is evident today - the vast stupidity of many German leaders of that time who allowed Hitler to seize power, either by looking the other way or not being sufficiently concerned about it, thinking that Hitler was such a fanatic to be more of a harmless joke than anything else. How wrong they were. Gunther also writes about Hitler's top goons such as Goebbels and Himmler, and about Nazism in general and how corrosive it was being to German society. Seven years before Hitler shot himself, on page 202 Gunther writes: "Hitler, the story goes, keeps a small revolver in his desk drawer. Suicide would be understandable with Hitler if his regime collapsed."

FRANCE

What a mess these few chapters were - not from Gunther's writing, but from the overall portrait that emerged about the French political system. The French were stuck in a series of falling governments and with a rotating cast of ineffectual Prime Ministers, some serving multiple short stints in office. Regardless of who was in office at a given time, whether Pierre Laval or Edouard Daladier or whoever, they were largely unable to accomplish much of anything. The main issues were corruption, especially in the munitions industry with companies profiting off of the rearmament measures that were being taken, and economic issues and management of the Banque of France. Gunther was correct when he wrote that the French were (rightly) worried about the increasing strength of Germany. Yet, France just could not get its act together, and they largely piddled around while Hitler continued to build up his defenses. I finished these chapters thinking "Wow you fools screwed around with dumb stuff like petty corruption trials, when you had a lunatic next door getting stronger everyday, and you knew he was crazy and you knew he was going to be a problem, yet still you could not get it together."

SPAIN

This chapter focuses on the Civil War that was still ongoing at that time. Francisco Franco and the rightists were attempting (and later did succeed) to overthrow the state government. Franco was not fascists to begin with, but he needed help from both Germany and Italy with materiel and arms, so he latched onto the fascist mantra in a successful effort to gain their support. Without Hitler and Benito Mussolini backing him, it seems quite doubtful that Franco would have succeeded in his coup efforts. Also a factor here: both France and Great Britain dithered, not sure whether to intervene on the side of the real government and thereby risk angering Hitler and Mussolini, or just allowing events to play out as they did.

One side note here: Portugal does not get its own chapter, and only gets about a single page of attention from Gunther. I know that it is a relatively small country, but I thought it was deserving of far more than one page. I suspect that this is one country that, for whatever reason, Gunther was either just not that interested in or not that familiar with.

MUSSOLINI

Gunther spends a lot of time on the Italian dictator. From what he could gather, Mussolini seemed to have a somewhat difficult childhood, and as a young man also had some legal trouble in Switzerland. He was a fascist before Hitler came to power, and Mussolini just had to be the one in charge. The King allowed him to take power in 1922 and nobody really stood up to him. Gunther correctly notes that he had a rivalry with Hitler, and was increasingly becoming frustrated at having to play second banana to Hitler in the fascist world as the latter's power grew.

Gunther also includes a chapter on the Abyssinian War and explains the reasoning behind Mussolini's decision to go to war. Italy, a densely-populated country, was running out of land for its growing population. It also was not self-supporting in that it mostly relied on imports for foodstuffs. But the biggest reason was Mussolini's ego; he wanted a colony and Abyssinia provided that since he could take it over, and despite some sanctions from the British, make it stick.

GREAT BRITAIN

Gunther spends a few chapters on this island nation, starting by talking about the dominance of the ruling classes which resulted in a highly caste society. Wealth was concentrated to power, and it was a good-old-boys club, with people going to certain schools like Eton have out-sized influence on British society. Some of the people in charge were also mildly pro-German; some were like this out of hatred for France, others because British foreign policy largely operated around a "balance of power" strategy where Britain attempted to keep all of the countries on the continent at roughly equal strength so as to preserve British dominance over all of them, or at least to the point where none of them were strong enough on their own to challenge Britain.

There is a chapter on the abdication of King Edward VIII, with Gunther depicting then Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin as being one of the biggest influencers in that direction. Was it Baldwin's fault? Gunther made it seem so, to an extent. Baldwin was uppity and generally kept his feelings to himself, until he attacked out of the blue. Gunther thinks that he influenced other powerful men in Britain to force the King to abdicate or give up his intention to marry Wallis Simpson. Honestly the whole thing now seems so dumb, yet it did happen. Yet Gunther seemed to sort of like Baldwin, while disliking to an extent his successor Chamberlain. I think the latter had mostly to do with Chamberlain's well-intentioned but ultimately misguided attempts to appease Hitler. As for Winston Churchill, Gunther is yet again prophetic when he writes on page 289: "...but most people agree that in a great upheaval he would emerge as Britain's national leader."

SIMON DE VALERA

Next up is an interesting chapter on Irish leader Simon De Valera. Gunther mostly confines himself to De Valera's biography, and does not focus as much on The Troubles. De Valera is one of the leaders that Gunther was able to interview personally, and the anecdotes and background that he provides about this personal interview were interesting.

AUSTRIA

Gunther spends a few chapters writing about Austria and the upheaval that was then going on there. He details the assassination of Engelbert Dollfuss, who was the Chancellor. Gunther lived in Vienna at the time and had first-hand experiences of that day that really brought the events to life. While Gunther did not witness the assassination, he was able to report on it in detail (some of them a bit gory). There was a battle going on Austria at that time between the Socialists and the rest of the the country - until the Nazis moved in and disrupted things even further.

HUNGARY

What I came away with from this chapter were a few things: that a bunch of Royal houses were constantly fighting for control of the country; that it was a big exporter of grain but the Treaty of Versailles really hobbled Hungary because it lost 68.5% of its land. Think about that! Two-thirds of the country was arbitrarily taken away from it. No wonder it was struggling.

CZECHOSLOVAKIA

This chapter was primarily taken up with Gunther providing biographies of both Thomas Masaryk and Eduard Benes. Masaryk was very old and had essentially founded the country a few decades earlier. By the time Gunther published this edition, he had passed away. Gunther had managed to interview him before he died, and like with De Valera, provided interesting details about the actual interview. Benes was the Foreign Minister who worked diligently on mutual assistance pacts with both France and the USSR. Like most of the rest of Europe at this time, the country was greatly worried about Hitler and his intentions, and rightly so as Hitler shortly thereafter gobbled up Czechoslovakia.

RUMANIA

King Carol comes across as a jerk here, and rules as a dictator along with his mistress, Madame Lupescu. Rumania was enemies with Hungary and had an internal problem with the Iron Guard, which was a sort of revolution attempted by young men who were perilously close to behaving as Fascists.

YUGOSLAVIA

King Alexander had recently been assassinated, leaving the throne to his 14 year-old son Peter. Gunther talks about the ancient conflicts between the Serbs (who were Balkan, Greek Orthodox, and anti-European in outlook) and the Croats (30% of the population, Roman Catholic, and European in outlook).

BALKAN KINGS

This is a brief chapter that covers King Zog in Albania, Boris III or Bulgaria, and General Metaxas in Greece. Zog was rich and liked to play his country off between Italy and Yugoslavia. Bulgaria also lost a lost of land as a result of the Treaty of Versailles. Metaxas had recently taken dictatorial control in Greece.

TURKEY

Kamal Ataturk was the dictator there at the time, and would make arbitrary changes such as introducing phonetic spelling just because he wanted to. Gunther said that Ataturk lived alone and was somewhat of a recluse.

POLAND

Josef Pilsudski dominated this chapter, along with Gunther stating that Poland's lack of stable borders really weakened its position as a viable country. Poland was in a no-win geographical position of being wedged in between two heavyweights who wanted it (Germany and the USSR). And of course, given what happened to it less than a year after Gunther wrote this, he was once again prescient in his analysis.

NEUTRALS

A nice chapter followed on several countries: Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, and Switzerland. The first three got along well together and were quite similar in viewpoint. None of them wanted to get involved with the boiling cauldron in the rest of Europe. They were, however, re-arming due to the menace of Hitler. Belgium was relieved of its duty to come to the aid of France were it to be attacked, but both France and Great Britain were pledged to its defense should it be attacked.

LEAGUE OF NATIONS

Gunther follows with an interesting chapter of the League of Nations, the unhappy predecessor to today's United Nations. While offering up justifiable criticisms of the League, Gunther notes on page 447: "The trouble was that the powers overstepped themselves, and created - as we have seen - new minorities by grabbing what didn't belong to them. But it should be pointed out that some frontier lines, like that between Hungary and Rumania, can never be drawn without leaving some miserable folk on the wrong side of the border. Another point should be kept in mind. If Germany had won the War, the Treaty of Versailles might not have been nearly so nice a one."

SOVIET UNION/STALIN

Gunther finishes with several chapters on the USSR in general and Stalin in particular. I thought these were the weakest chapters of the book, as Gunther seemed to think that Stalin was much less ruthless than history has shown him to be. To be sure, Gunther did point out the famines and the trials, but he also had some praise for Stalin as well. I will be interested to read his much later book that was just about Russia, and written after WWII, to see what his opinion was then.

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

John Gunther was a journalist that always seemed to always be at the right place at the right time in the mid 20th century and this is the book that started it all.

The book was first published in the mid 30s with a few updated editions, including this one written shortly after the war began. In the introduction to the latter edition he describes flying over Eastern Europe, looking down at the peaceful towns and the forests. It was extremely eerie reading the descriptions in light of knowing what was about to happen down there.

The entire book is a valuable perspective of a Europe about to be destroyed. When he says "Inside Europe," he does means "Inside Europe." This doesn't just France, Britain, and Germany. He goes on about Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Romania, Turkey and other oft neglected regions, not just through cursory blurbs but often in more than satisfactory detail. He even discusses the League of Nations, an idealistic set of internationalists reminding me not much of the UN, but actually more of the EU. I kept wondering where he found the time to do all the research, at times I felt like I was reading a book by a professor and not a journalist.

It is not only encyclopedic but well written. His engaging style is half the reason to read this. It's a great place to begin if you're interested in this period and if you want to learn more there is even an impressive bibliography at the end which I also highly recommend.

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was 100% totally fascinating. John Gunther was one of the most prominent political journalists of his generation, and this is his tour around the different countries of Europe. It was written in the 1930s and new editions were continually put out as the political situation deteriorated towards war. I read the 1938 edition, which came out just after the Munich Agreement--you hardly ever get a sense of what people were thinking in the year between then and WWII.

Beyond the interesting timing, Gunther was really thorough in exploring the internal and foreign politics of all the different countries in Europe, describing who all the power players were in each country and how their systems changed over the 20s and 30s. Because of how the War turned out we tend to think of the Allies and Axis as immutable alliances, so it was interesting to read about how Italy and Germany were pretty antagonistic well into the 1930s, and the US actually had fairly good relations with Italy. I also hardly knew anything about how Austria turned to fascism, for instance, or the internal politics of the Balkan countries (or even the UK or France during this time). And Gunther was a great writer, and built his analysis off of interviews with an astonishing range of people, including Hitler's aunts and uncles. Highly recommended for anyone interested in WWII or European history!

[Mickey · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was one of my favorite books growing up. I enjoyed the author's point of view. He was knowledgeable about the places he wrote about, and was not afraid to predict, even when it turned out faulty. He has an old world charm that I find refreshing.

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gives incredibly short shrift to many countries (the ones you'd expect--the Scandinavian nations, the Low Countries, the Baltics, the Balkans), but the "inside dope" provided on the major powers and their interior politics remains fascinating even today.

[Erik · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating contemporary look at Europe in the mid-1930s with detailed portraits of Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin.

[George · Rating 5 out of 5]

I stumbled upon this book as a footnote on Mussolini’s Wikipedia page. There was an excerpt detailing the Duce’s penchant for large rooms and high ceilings - specifically his office at 60 feet x 40 x 40. I followed the lead, found the book online and flipped to the Mussolini section and read: Mussolini is built like a steel spring, Stalin is a rock of sleepy granite and hitler a blob of ectoplasm… I knew I’d found my next book.

The remarkable thing about the edition I read (published November 1938) is that they of course have no idea what’s around the corner. As such, all the catalysts that we’d intuitively associate with thebuilding blocks of ww2 are either totally rationalised (Rhineland and Anschluss - can’t hold the Germans responsible forever!) or thrown in relief against all the other turbulence of the time (dolfuss, the league’s weakness, rearmament). Churchill is even seen to have too impetuous and unstable a character for the top job… within a year, he’s in the top job!

This was a great read. He writes at the pace of an above average jog and that’s how you essentially traverse the continent. What an extraordinary life Gunther must have lived - and this might be as close as we get to getting a glimpse of it.

[Nick Pengelley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anything and everything you ever wanted to know about Europe in the 1930s, in the run up to World War II. Superbly recounted by one of the leading foreign correspondents of the day (see the brilliant "Last Call at the Hotel Imperial by Deborah Cohen).

If you ever doubted the veracity of the famous Karl Marx quote, that history repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce, consider the opening words of Chapter 1: "Adolf Hitler, irrational, contradictory, complex, is an unpredictable character; therein lies his power and his menace. To millions of honest Germans he is sublime, a figure of adoration; he fills them with love, fear, and nationalist ecstasy. To many other Germans he is meager and ridiculous - a charlatan, a lucky hysteric, and a lying demagogue." Sound familiar?

[Bashkim Krasniqi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant.

[Gerard Hofman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Een beeld van de Europese politiek uit 1936. Griezelig actueel.

[Cws]

940.5