Gold in the Furnace

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Gold in the Furnace is an ardent National Socialist’s vivid and moving account of life in occupied Germany in the aftermath of World War II, based on extensive travels and inter­views conducted in 1948 and 1949.Savitri Devi is scathing in her description of Allied brutality and hypoc­risy: millions of German civilians died in Allied firebombing; millions more perished after the war, driven from their homes by Russians, Czechs, and Poles; more than a million prison­ers of war perished from planned starvation or outright murder in Allied concentration camps; untold thousands more disappeared into slave labor camps from the Congo to Siberia.Savitri Devi describes in vivid detail how individual National Socialists were subjected to “de-Nazification” by Germany’s democ­ratic “liberators”: murder, torture, starvation, show-trials, imprisonment, and execution for the higher echelons; petty indignities and recan­tations extorted under the threat of impris­onment, hunger, and the denial of liveli­hood for ordinary party members. She also chroni­cles the systematic plunder of Germany by the Allies: the clear-cutting of ancient forests, the dismantling of factories, the theft of natu­ral resources.In spite of the disaster, Savitri Devi did not view it as the end of National Socialism, but as a purification—a trial by fire separating the base metal from the gold—a prelude to a new begin­ning. Thus Savitri also devotes chapters to pre­senting the basic philosophy and the constructive political program of National Socialism.Gold in the Furnace is a valuable histori­cal document: of the National Socialists who never lost faith, despite suffering, perse­cution and martyrdom—of the ordinary Germans who revered Hitler even after the war—of the widespread rumors of Hitler’s survival—of the hopes of imminent National Socialist revival, perhaps in the aftermath of a Third World War—of the expectations of Soviet victory in such a war—and of the philosophy, experiences, and unique personality of a remarkable woman.