World Enemy No. 1 by Jochen Hellbeck Book Review

 

World Enemy No. 1: Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, and the Fate of the Jews

 

A new book moves the center of World War II history eastward

 

World Enemy No. 1: Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, and the Fate of the Jews is a new book that offers a daring interpretation of World War II. Author Jochen Hellbeck is Distinguished Professor of History at Rutgers University. German-born Hellbeck's previous works include Stalingrad: The City that Defeated the Third Reich, and Revolution on My Mind: Writing a Diary Under Stalin. Hellbeck's father, a 17-year-old draftee, fought briefly for Nazi Germany, before being injured on the Eastern Front. His maternal grandfather ran a factory that used Russian forced laborers. Penguin Press will release World Enemy No. 1 in the US on October 21, 2025. It is 560 pages, inclusive of black-and-white illustrations, maps, a bibliography, and an index.

One Battle after Another Movie Review

 

Is it just me? Is everyone else in on the joke? Am I the only one who has no idea what the punch line is and when it's our cue to laugh? Has everyone but me been issued the secret decoder ring that makes sense of all this? Am I too sensitive? Too Catholic? Too old? Too grounded in objective reality? Or is it drugs? Some audience members, in a movie theater, receive 3-D glasses. Do some viewers receive a magic mushroom concoction that renders schlock beatific?

That's what I was thinking as I sat in my local multiplex showing the new film One Battle after Another. Critics tout it as a "masterpiece." Rotten Tomatoes reports that One Battle after Another has a 96% positive score. The National Public Radio program, Pop Culture Happy Hour, called One Battle after Another "awe-inspiring," "eye-poppingly beautiful," "really, really fun," "a masterclass," "firing on all cylinders," full of "painterly compositions." The crew at the Next Best Picture podcast devoted four hours – four hours! – to slathering praise on the film. To these young guys, One Battle after Another is one of the greatest films ever made. In the New York Times, Michelle Goldberg crowns One Battle after Another an "anti-fascist film."

Is it just me?