Prison Elite: How Austrian Chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg Survived Nazi Captivity By Erika Rummel. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2021. Pp. 224. Paperback $27.95. ISBN: 978-1487527587.

Abstract

an overwhelming source base. The book’s focus on dysfunctionality may leave novice readers wondering what the HJ did accomplish and to what extent specific constituencies were taken in by the propaganda. Also unclear is the reasoning behind Postert’s choice of examples. While they demonstrate widespread shortcomings, might a more systematic approach complicate the narrative of organizational failure? Such questions notwithstanding, Die Hitlerjugend is a rich and eminently readable study and clearly animates the scholarly consensus that lived experience resists both structural confines and propagandists’ reductionism. This message seems particularly salient in the current age, as extremists again strive to oversimplify multifaceted realities.