SOURCE: "Nazism and Yearning," in The New York Times, May 28, 1984, p. 37.

Lehmann-Haupt is a Scottish-born American critic and novelist whose reviews frequently appear in The New York Times. In the following favorable review of Reflections of Nazism, he briefly summarizes Friedländer's arguments supporting his main contention that Nazism remains a dangerously fascinating phenomenon.

"Gentlemen, in a hundred years still another color film will portray the terrible days we are undergoing now," said Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi Propaganda Minister, apropos of a film he was discussing in 1945. "I can assure you that it will be a tremendous film, exciting and beautiful, and worth holding steady for. Don't give up!"

It is Saul Friedländer's contention in Reflections of Nazism: An Essay on Kitsch and Death that the film Goebbels foresaw is, figuratively speaking, already playing, only four decades after his prediction. It is playing in the form of...