McKale, Donald M. 1943-

(Donald Marshall McKale)

PERSONAL: Born October 24, 1943, in Clay Center, KS; son of Donald Vincent and Mildred (Wedd) McKale; married Janna Fredregill, June 4, 1966; children: Emily Anne, David Marshall, Susan Ruth. Education: Iowa State University, B.S., 1966; University of Missouri, M.A., 1967; Kent State University, Ph.D., 1970. Religion: Presbyterian. Hobbies and other interests: Watching athletics on television, reading, spending time with the family, playing basketball "for seniors".

ADDRESSES: Home—116 Princess Ln., Clemson, SC 29631. Office—Department of History, Clemson University, 106 Hardin Hall, Clemson, SC 29634-0527; fax: 864-656-1015. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Writer, historian, and educator. Georgia College, Milledgeville, assistant professor, 1970–74, associate professor, 1974–78, professor of history, 1978–79; Clemson University, Clemson, SC, professor of history, 1979–, Class of '41 Memorial Professor of the Humanities, 1988–. Visiting associate professor of history, University of Nebraska, 1975–76.

MEMBER: Southern Historical Association (SHA), European History Section of SHA, German Studies Association.

AWARDS, HONORS: Charles Smith Award, European Section of Southern Historical Association, for War by Revolution; Outstanding Academic Book, Choice, 1978, for The Swastika Outside Germany, 2004, for Hitler's Shadow War.

WRITINGS:

The Nazi Party Courts: Hitler's Management of Conflict in His Movement, 1921–1945, University Press of Kansas (Lawrence, KS), 1974.

The Swastika Outside Germany, Kent State University Press (Kent, OH), 1977.

Hitler: The Survival Myth, Stein & Day (New York, NY), 1981, updated edition, Cooper Square Press (New York, NY), 2001.

Curt Prüfer: German Diplomat from the Kaiser to Hitler, Kent State University Press (Kent, OH), 1987.

(Editor and author of foreword) Tradition: A History of the Presidency of Clemson University, Mercer (Macon, GA), 1988.

(Editor and author of introduction) Rewriting History: The Original and Revised World War II Diaries of Curt Prüfer, Nazi Diplomat, translated by Judith M. Melton, Kent State University Press (Kent, OH), 1988.

War by Revolution: Germany and Great Britain in the Middle East in the Era of World War I, Kent State University Press (Kent, OH), 1998.

Hitler's Shadow War: The Holocaust and World War II, Cooper Square Press (New York, NY), 2002.

Contributor of articles and reviews to periodicals, including Research Studies (Washington State University), Jewish Social Studies, International Review of History and Political Science, Journal of European Studies, Choice, Historian, Middle Eastern Studies, Simon Wiesenthal Center Annual, and Journal of Contemporary History.

SIDELIGHTS: Donald M. McKale has written several works on the history of Nazi Germany which have shed new light on neglected areas. McKale's first book, The Nazi Party Courts: Hitler's Management of Conflict in His Movement, 1921–1945, is an in-depth study of the Nazi Party's internal court system where disputes between members were resolved. The courts also determined who was suitable for membership and who should be expelled from the party. According to a reviewer in Choice, the Nazi Party court system "contributed significantly to the transformation of Germany … into a terroristic police state." Calling the book a "compact and highly readable analysis," T.E. Willey in the Library Journal concluded that The Nazi Party Courts is "an admirable monograph, essential."

In The Swastika Outside Germany, McKale examined the overseas activities of Nazi organizations during the 1930s and 1940s, particularly the efforts made by the German government to influence Germans living in other countries. Based on the records of the German Foreign Ministry, McKale's study is "a carefully documented description of the origins and operations of the Auslands-Organisation (Foreign Organization) of the Nazi Party," stated D.P. Jensen in the Library Journal. The Choice reviewer described the book as "a comprehensive study of a complex external dimension to Hitler's Third Reich."

McKale examines the persistent rumors of Hitler's survival following World War II in Hitler: The Survival Myth. Inspired by deliberate Soviet propaganda, wishful thinking by former Nazis, and media fantasies of resurgent Nazism, the myth of Hitler's survival spawned a number of both possible and highly unlikely scenarios. These scenarios included stories of Hitler living quietly with Eva Braun in South America or in a secret Antarctic Nazi base; there were even rumors about Hitler's alleged children living on in remote parts of the world. Hitler is "well written, scrupulously researched, exhaustively documented," wrote John Yohalem in the New York Times Book Review. Yohalem found that "McKale has covered all the rumors…. He presents the evidence for us to draw our own conclusions, and he does it with lucidity."

As part of his research into how otherwise intelligent and well-educated Germans could have facilitated the Nazi party and supported Adolf Hitler, McKale looks closely at one such individual's personal and professional life in Curt Prüfer: German Diplomat from the Kaiser to Hitler. The book is a "handsomely produced and well-written biography of a minor German diplomat," noted reviewer John Heineman in the American Historical Review. McKale suggests that members of Germany's elite social classes contributed significantly to the proliferation of Nazism and the suffering Hitler spread across the world. He presents Prüfer, a career bureaucrat and diplomat, as an archetypal example of the literate and educated class that demonstrated the type of arrogance, prejudice, and feelings of superiority that "made them willing participants in Nazi crimes," Heineman noted. McKale was given full access to Prüfer's papers and diaries by his son, who also contributed important commentary on his father's life. With these primary documents as his base, McKale relates Prüfer's personal and professional story and how they related to the spread of Nazism throughout Germany. Prüfer was not a successful diplomat, but he is revealed as being quite willing to continue his service under Hitler and to do whatever he was assigned. "The historical value of this study lies less in the career activities of Prüfer than in the character insights that are revealed in his personal papers and the critical comments of his son," Heineman concluded.

War by Revolution: Germany and Great Britain in the Middle East in the Era of World War I offers a thorough analysis of the British and German rivalry in the Middle East in the early part of the twentieth century. Both Britain and Germany felt that the Middle East was important to their strategic goals, and both, therefore, invested considerable resources in trying to gain favor with the region's Arab population. McKale notes that Germany made great efforts to appeal to religious interests in order to sway Muslim sentiments against Britain. Numerous organizations were set up by the Germans to urge revolution against the British, to support individuals rising to power in the Arab countries, and to force Britain to expend disproportionate effort to contain Middle Eastern challenges to British power. "One of the most interesting features of McKale's book is his account of the organizations set up by Germany to conduct these ventures and of the activities of Germany agents and expeditions," commented M.E. Yapp in Middle Eastern Studies. He also looks carefully at the "extent to which the fear inspired by these German activities influenced British decision-making regarding the Middle East and, more particularly, concerning the Arab-speaking regions," Yapp noted. "The great merit of this book is that it directs attention to the question of the influence of fears of internal discontent in India and Egypt on British policy in the Middle East during the war," Yapp concluded. The Germans' activities led to "an intensification of Arab nationalism," the 1916 Arab revolt, and the destruction not only of Ottoman power, but of British imperial power in the Middle East, commented Frederic Krome in the Library Journal. In the end, Krome stated, the Germans' activities shaped the modern boundaries of the Middle East and helped set in motion the political turmoil still felt today.

In Hitler's Shadow War: The Holocaust and World War II, McKale argues that the war in Europe was not Hitler's primary goal, but was instead waged to distract attention from the Nazis' main war: their conflict against the Jews. This "shadow war" fully occupied the Nazis, but waging it diverted enormous amounts of resources from the fight against the Allied powers. McKale recounts the origins and growth of Hitler's hatred for the Jews, and how Germany's persecution of the Jews ultimately led to the Holocaust. He also notes that several assumptions made by the world in the aftermath of World War II were not accurate. For example, it has long been believed that any Germans who refused to cooperate with Jewish slaughter would have been executed themselves, but McKale notes that many units on the Eastern Front refused to participate in the murderous activities. These units were not destroyed, but were instead "quietly reassigned to other posts," noted a Kirkus Reviews contributor. The author covers the treatment of Jews in German-occupied states, and describes why Hitler chose the Jews as the recipient of his lethal hatred. Reviewer Herbert Luft, writing in History: Review of New Books, stated that he believed McKale did not adequately prove his thesis that Germany's war in Europe was a diversion from the extermination of the Jews, noting that the Nazis turned to mass murder only after other methods of ridding Germany of Jews failed. Still, Luft concluded that "the book's main value lies in the comprehensive treatment of all aspects of the Holocaust in one volume." The Kirkus Reviews critic concluded that the book "breaks little ground and enters a crowded field, but nonetheless [is] a useful one-volume survey." Booklist contributor George Cohen observed that the book will be "required reading" for anyone who wishes to "come to terms with the depravity of the Holocaust."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Historical Review, October, 1990, John Heineman, review of Curt Prüfer: German Diplomat from the Kaiser to Hitler, p. 1231.

Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, March, 1975, review of The Nazi Party Courts: Hitler's Management of Conflict in His Movement, 1921–1945, p. 190; September, 1978, review of The Swastika Outside Germany, p. 168.

Booklist, April 15, 1978, review of The Swastika Outside Germany, p. 1306; July, 2002, George Cohen, review of Hitler's Shadow War: The Holocaust in World War II, p. 1819.

Choice, November, 1974, review of The Nazi Party Courts, p. 1370; April, 1978, review of The Swastika Outside Germany, p. 282; June, 1981, review of Hitler: The Survival Myth, p. 1472.

Historian, spring, 2000, Roger Adelson, review of War by Revolution: Germany and Great Britain in the Middle East in the Era of World War I, p. 635.

History: Review of New Books, fall, 2002, Herbert Luft, review of Hitler's Shadow War, p. 25.

Kirkus Reviews, June 1, 2002, review of Hitler's Shadow War, p. 788.

Library Journal, July, 1974, T.E. Willey, review of The Nazi Party Courts, p. 1813; April 15, 1978, D.P. Jensen, review of The Swastika Outside Germany, p. 1306; February 1, 1981, John G. Williamson, review of Hitler, p. 353; September 1, 1998, Frederic Krome, review of War by Revolution, p. 197.

Middle Eastern Studies, July, 2000, M.E. Yapp, review of War by Revolution, p. 257.

New York Times Book Review, February 22, 1981, John Yohalem, review of Hitler, p. 18.