New Books Network Interview with Jochen Hellbeck

Book Discussed:
World Enemy No. 1: Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, and the Fate of the Jews (Penguin Group, 2025)
Host: Joe Taska
Guest: Jochen Hellbeck, Distinguished Professor of History, Rutgers University
Release Date: November 25, 2025

Episode Overview

This episode features Joe Taska’s conversation with historian Jochen Hellbeck about his new book, World Enemy No. 1. The book offers a groundbreaking analysis of the German-Soviet War (1941–1945), emphasizing the entanglement of Nazi racial and political ideologies and their consequences for Jews in Eastern Europe, while also challenging prevailing narratives about Soviet contributions and identities in World War II. Hellbeck draws from an extensive body of personal accounts and interviews to present a nuanced depiction of both Nazi motivations and Soviet experiences.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Origins and Purpose of the Book

• Long-term Project: Hellbeck began this research over 20 years ago, with early work on Soviet personal diaries from the 1930s. He sought to understand “Soviet subjectivity”—how Soviet citizens saw themselves under the regime (03:12).
• Evolution of Theme: Initially conceived as a comparative study of the "new man" in both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.
• Research Challenges: Difficulty finding equal numbers of diaries from both German and Soviet sides led to innovative research, including hundreds of interviews with veterans and survivors (06:00).

Quote:
"I had worked on this project for a long time as a Soviet historian establishing, you know, the contours of what we can call a Soviet subjectivity." — Jochen Hellbeck (04:48)

2. Personal Connections and Motivation

• Family Stories: Hellbeck’s father fought on the Eastern Front and survived a serious injury in 1945, fostering a family interest in the Soviet Union. His maternal grandfather narrowly escaped retribution from Soviet forced laborers at war’s end (09:46).
• Emotional Weight: The mixed feelings in his family toward Russia/Soviet Union shaped Hellbeck's perspective and approach.

Quote:
"My mom would regularly have or tell me that she had nightmares whenever I went to Russia to work in the archives." — Jochen Hellbeck (14:36)

3. Western Narratives and Soviet Contributions

• Undervalued Soviet Role: The book highlights the persistent under-recognition of the Soviet Union’s critical sacrifices and victories in WWII, both during and after the war (15:40).
• Historical Blind Spots: While some Western historians now emphasize Soviet contributions, Hellbeck argues these are still minority views.
• Importance of Solidarity: He notes a fleeting solidarity in the Nuremberg Trials recognizing Soviet suffering—later lost in public memory.

Quote:
"There is a striking disregard throughout history toward... the monumental Soviet contribution to this war. And this starts in the war." — Jochen Hellbeck (15:51)

4. The Role of Ilya Ehrenberg

• Central Soviet Voice: Hellbeck places special emphasis on the writer and journalist Ilya Ehrenberg, who documented German atrocities and shaped Soviet perceptions during the war.
• Propagandist and Documentarist: Ehrenberg's reporting drew from authentic documents and reflected, as Hellbeck maintains, broader Soviet experience and identification with the war effort (24:36).

Quote:
"Ilya Ehrenberg in my reading is the essential central person on the Soviet side. He's perhaps even more essential than Joseph Stalin. He is the voice of Russia's war." — Jochen Hellbeck (22:31)

5. Nazi Ideology: The Fusion of Racial and Political Hatred

• Complex Anti-Semitism: Hellbeck distinguishes between Nazi anti-Semitism focused on Jews as a “racial alien” and anti-Communism, arguing the truly lethal combination—targeting Soviet Jews—arose from their supposed dual identity as both Jews and Communists (“Judeo-Bolsheviks”) (30:18).
• Political Catalyst for Extermination: The fusion of anti-Semitism and anti-Bolshevism provided the catalyst for the scale and nature of the Holocaust.

Quote:
"It’s the fusion of the racial and the political that is the dynamite or that essentially is the catalyst toward the mass killings." — Jochen Hellbeck (30:38)

6. Transformation of Nazi Jewish Policy

• From Expulsion to Extermination: The identification of all Soviet Jews as political enemies marked a crucial shift, leading to mass murder as part of Hitler’s vision after the invasion of the Soviet Union (39:14).
• Spillover Effect: This “Bolshevization” concept—where Jews across occupied Europe are seen as agents of Stalin—drove the logic of the Holocaust.

Quote:
"In that moment, I see... a Bolshevization of Germany’s and Europe’s Jews... They were the Nazis, began to see them in a new light as no longer just racial aliens, but actually as political allies of Stalin. And that necessitated their killing." — Jochen Hellbeck (46:10)

7. Holocaust’s Genesis: Eastern Front as the Crucible

• Rejecting Incrementalism: Hellbeck disputes arguments that the Holocaust was a gradual evolution, showing that mass extermination began with the invasion of the Soviet Union—not merely as an outcome of military setbacks (47:52).
• Policy Distinction with Poland: Initial violence in Poland was aimed at expulsion; only with the Soviet campaign did murder become systematic and total.

Quote:
"The intention to essentially physically annihilate Bolshevism was laid out very clearly even before the war, even before 1939, even before the first truck was fired in Poland." — Jochen Hellbeck (48:24)

8. German Atrocities, Soviet Identity, and Resistance

• Catalyst for Soviet Unity: German crimes on Soviet soil forged a “true Soviet people’s war,” energizing Soviet society to repel the invaders and producing a renewed Soviet identity, documented both by Ehrenberg and through rituals such as “meetings of vengeance” (54:44).
• Inclusivity of Soviet Identity: Hellbeck stresses the complex, multinational character of wartime Soviet identity, forged in opposition to Nazi racism.

Quote:
"It is the crimes of the Germans, these unspeakable crimes that they commit on Soviet ground, that actually then become the catalyst of a true Soviet people's war." — Jochen Hellbeck (54:50)

9. Rethinking National Frames in the Eastern Front

• Faulty “National” Lenses: Hellbeck criticizes using strictly national categories (Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian) when describing Soviet forces, arguing that the war effort and identity were fundamentally “Soviet” and intentionally mixed (62:20).
• Experience of “Sovietness”: Nazi occupation paradoxically led Soviet citizens to embrace the Soviet project, despite prior ambivalence or resistance to Stalinist rule.

Quote:
"What is it that Hitler has done in one year that Stalin couldn't do in 24? And the answer is: that we learned to love Soviet power." — Jochen Hellbeck, quoting a 1942 Ukrainian joke (68:32)

10. Holocaust Memory, Communism, and Western Perspectives

• Selective Remembrance: Hellbeck examines how Western memory connects the Holocaust to liberal democratic values, often erasing or misunderstanding the role of Bolshevism and the Soviet experience (72:06).
• Integral Role of Soviet POWs: He contends that Soviet POWs and the wider anti-Bolshevik crusade must be central to Holocaust history.

Quote:
"I think it leads to a quite truncated understanding of the dynamic of destruction in the Second World War and specifically the horrors on the Eastern Front." — Jochen Hellbeck (72:06)

11. Risks of Ignoring the Soviet/Bolshevik Dimension

• Complex Identities: Hellbeck warns that ignoring Soviet or “Bolshevik” motivations and experiences erases the voices and agency of millions, and skews the record away from what truly motivated the Nazis (77:55).

12. Interpretation & Historical Revisionism

• Reading the Sources Closely: Rather than relying on psychological speculation about Hitler’s motivation, Hellbeck urges historians to read primary documents carefully and wrestle faithfully with the actual language and worldviews of historical actors (82:17).
• Against Shortcuts: He critiques the tendency to substitute euphemisms too quickly (e.g., equating every mention of “Bolshevism” in SS reports with “Jews”), advocating for more rigorous source analysis.

Quote:
"I don't make any claim to get into anyone's mind. I don't think that is possible. But what you can do is you can read the evidence and you can read more evidence, and there is just so much evidence." — Jochen Hellbeck (82:17)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “I take very seriously what Ilya Ehrenberg writes.... Ehrenberg is a propagandist, but he is also a documentarist of the first order.” (22:31)
• “For me it's the fusion of the racial and the political that is the dynamite or that essentially is the catalyst toward the mass killings." (30:38)
• “...there was a very strong emotional rage at work, so much so that many of those who were reconquered or liberated by the Soviet Red army, especially Jews who had been tormented by the Nazis, streamed into the Red army to offer their services." (58:42)
• “We have a poorer understanding of what happened at the Eastern front and how important Communism was a force that fought back, that taught many Soviet citizens that the only adequate response to the Nazi invasion was not passivity, not surviving, but actually fighting back." (74:36)
• “It is really about engaging with the sources in good faith." (86:51)

Timestamps for Key Segments

| Timestamp | Segment | |------------|----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 03:12 | Origins and conception of the book; research methods and difficulties | | 09:46 | Personal family stories and their influence on Hellbeck’s scholarly trajectory | | 15:40 | Discussion of the West’s downplaying of the Soviet contribution | | 22:31 | Central role and method of Ilya Ehrenberg | | 30:18 | Nazis’ perception of Soviet Jews: fusion of racial and political hatred | | 39:14 | Spread of exterminatory logic from Soviet to all European Jews | | 47:52 | Holocaust origins: Immediate onset in Soviet Union post-Barbarossa | | 54:44 | German atrocities as catalyst for Soviet war effort | | 62:20 | The Soviet, not national, character of the war effort | | 72:06 | Western memory, the Holocaust, and anti-communism | | 77:55 | Importance of recognizing the Soviet aspect in history and memory | | 82:17 | Challenges of historical interpretation and methodology |

Conclusion

Hellbeck’s World Enemy No. 1 urges a reexamination of foundational historical categories and invites readers to engage deeply with primary sources to grasp the lethal synergy of Nazi anti-Semitism and anti-Bolshevism. By foregrounding Soviet voices—both Jewish and non-Jewish—and the complex process of identity formation amid atrocity, Hellbeck offers a more holistic rendering of the Eastern Front’s violence, the Holocaust’s origins, and the persistence of Soviet memory in understanding WWII.