Analysis Of Timothy Snyder s Book Bloodlands Europe...

The mid-20th century was a time of mass murders and totalitarian regimes. Many know of the atrocities committed under Hitler’s Nazi Germany and consider it to be the cause of the highest death count of the time. However, this may not be the case. Timothy Snyder argues in his book entitled Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin that Hitler was not the sole bad guy of the time period. Despite the differing goals of Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin, the two regimes intertwined to create a death toll in the bloodlands region of Europe that neither could have achieved on its own and was unprecedented in western history. The â€Å"bloodlands† region was named to represent the massive loss of life inflicted by the Nazi and Soviet regimes on Poland, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and the Baltic States. Between 1933 and 1945, an estimated 14 million civilians were starved, shot, or imprisoned as a result of the interwoven efforts of Hitler and Stalin (citation). The interweaving of the plots was not always intentional, and history does not represent the two as being codependent. Snyder argues, however, that neither system could have independently led to as many deaths as they did with the assistance of the other. This is why Snyder includes in the bloodlands only â€Å"territories subject to both German and Soviet police power and associated mass killing policies† (Snyder 409). Additionally, of the 14 million killed in the bloodlands during this time period, almost all were noncombatant;