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Into the Darkness: An Uncensored Report from inside the Third Reich at War
Stoddard was sent on assignment by the North American Newspaper Alliance to report on wartime conditions in Nazi Germany in October 1939.
This book, titled to describe the aerial blackout conditions Stoddard experienced in Germany, is an astonishingly objective and dispassionate account of the home front of Nazi Germany over the winter of 1939 and 1940.
Stoddard gained access to Adolf Hitler, Joseph Goebbels, Heinrich Himmler, Robert Ley, Wilhelm Frick, Walter Darré, Eugen Fischer, Fritz Lenz, and Hans F. K. Günther, and many other Nazi leaders.
Among the unique insights in this book:
- The only English-language firsthand physical description of Hitler;
- The workings of a German eugenics court;
- The trials and tribulations of civilian Germans at war;
- The real attitude of Germans to the war;
- The German Labor Front, the Winter Help, the Hitler Youth and women in the Third Reich;
- The economic policies of the Third Reich;
- The treatment of Jews inside Nazi Germany; and much more besides.
Contents
Chapter 1: The Shadow
Chapter 2: Berlin Blackout
Chapter 3: Getting on with the Job
Chapter 4: Junketing Through Germany
Chapter 5: This Detested War
Chapter 6: Vienna and Bratislava
Chapter 7: Iron Rations
Chapter 8: A Berlin Lady Goes to Market
Chapter 9: The Battle of the Land
Chapter 10: The Labor Front
Chapter 11: The Army of the Spade
Chapter 12: Hitler Youth
Chapter 13: Women of the Third Reich
Chapter 14: Behind the Winter-Help
Chapter 15: Socialized Health
Chapter 16: In a Eugenics Court
Chapter 17: I See Hitler
Chapter 18: Mid-Winter Berlin
Chapter 19: Berlin to Budapest
Chapter 20: The Party
Chapter 21: The Totalitarian State
Chapter 22: Closed Doors
Chapter 23: Out of the Shadow
This book, titled to describe the aerial blackout conditions Stoddard experienced in Germany, is an astonishingly objective and dispassionate account of the home front of Nazi Germany over the winter of 1939 and 1940.
Stoddard gained access to Adolf Hitler, Joseph Goebbels, Heinrich Himmler, Robert Ley, Wilhelm Frick, Walter Darré, Eugen Fischer, Fritz Lenz, and Hans F. K. Günther, and many other Nazi leaders.
Among the unique insights in this book:
- The only English-language firsthand physical description of Hitler;
- The workings of a German eugenics court;
- The trials and tribulations of civilian Germans at war;
- The real attitude of Germans to the war;
- The German Labor Front, the Winter Help, the Hitler Youth and women in the Third Reich;
- The economic policies of the Third Reich;
- The treatment of Jews inside Nazi Germany; and much more besides.
Contents
Chapter 1: The Shadow
Chapter 2: Berlin Blackout
Chapter 3: Getting on with the Job
Chapter 4: Junketing Through Germany
Chapter 5: This Detested War
Chapter 6: Vienna and Bratislava
Chapter 7: Iron Rations
Chapter 8: A Berlin Lady Goes to Market
Chapter 9: The Battle of the Land
Chapter 10: The Labor Front
Chapter 11: The Army of the Spade
Chapter 12: Hitler Youth
Chapter 13: Women of the Third Reich
Chapter 14: Behind the Winter-Help
Chapter 15: Socialized Health
Chapter 16: In a Eugenics Court
Chapter 17: I See Hitler
Chapter 18: Mid-Winter Berlin
Chapter 19: Berlin to Budapest
Chapter 20: The Party
Chapter 21: The Totalitarian State
Chapter 22: Closed Doors
Chapter 23: Out of the Shadow
205 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 2000
7 people are currently reading
447 people want to read
About the author
T. Lothrop Stoddard
31 books85 followersTheodore Lothrop Stoddard (June 29, 1883 – May 1, 1950) was an American political scientist, historian, journalist, anthropologist, eugenicist, pacifist, and anti-immigration advocate.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
April 21, 2023
Such an interesting book.
Thousands, tens of thousands of books have been written about this period of history. However, this is a bizarrely real account from the ground, free of any sensationalism. The author travels throughout Germany -and part of Central Europe- during the earlier stages of the war. We takes trains and taxi, sometimes an adventure in itself, experiences food rationing and blackouts, examines every aspect of social life with the eye of the reporter and the sociologist. He faces real, daily-life issues as he interviews real people, from the humblest dairy farmer to Adolf Hitler himself. A very detailed picture, with curiosity and truth-seeking as the only lense, far from any cartoonish representation. Interesting how the book gets darker as the weight of war grows more overwhelming.
For anyone curious about the groceries of a German housewife, to the spirit de corps of the SS; highly recommended.
Thousands, tens of thousands of books have been written about this period of history. However, this is a bizarrely real account from the ground, free of any sensationalism. The author travels throughout Germany -and part of Central Europe- during the earlier stages of the war. We takes trains and taxi, sometimes an adventure in itself, experiences food rationing and blackouts, examines every aspect of social life with the eye of the reporter and the sociologist. He faces real, daily-life issues as he interviews real people, from the humblest dairy farmer to Adolf Hitler himself. A very detailed picture, with curiosity and truth-seeking as the only lense, far from any cartoonish representation. Interesting how the book gets darker as the weight of war grows more overwhelming.
For anyone curious about the groceries of a German housewife, to the spirit de corps of the SS; highly recommended.
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November 17, 2025"The astonishing growth of Jewish power in America...was already quite substantial even four or five decades ago but has now become absolutely overwhelming, whether in foreign policy, finance, or the media, with our 2% minority exercising unprecedented control over most aspects of our society and political system. Only a fraction of American Jews hold traditional religious beliefs, so the twin worship of the State of Israel and the Holocaust has served to fill that void, with the individuals and events of World War II constituting many of the central elements of the mythos that serves to unify the Jewish community. And as an obvious consequence, no historical figure ranks higher in the demonology of this secular religion than the storied Fuhrer and his Nazi regime.
However, beliefs based upon religious dogma often sharply diverge from empirical reality. Pagan Druids may worship a particular sacred oak tree and claim that it contains the soul of their tutelary dryad; but if an arborist taps the tree, its sap may seem like that of any other…
During late 1939, a major American news syndicate had sent Stoddard to spend a few months in wartime Germany and provide his perspective, with his numerous dispatches appearing in The New York Times and other leading newspapers. Upon his return, he published a 1940 book Into the Darkness summarizing all his information, seemingly just as even-handed as his earlier 1917 volume. His coverage probably constitutes one of the most objective and comprehensive American accounts of the mundane domestic nature of National Socialist Germany, and thus may seem rather shocking to modern readers steeped in eighty years of increasingly unrealistic Hollywood propaganda."
-Ron Unz, "A Dozen Unknown Books and the World War II History They Reveal" October 27, 2025
However, beliefs based upon religious dogma often sharply diverge from empirical reality. Pagan Druids may worship a particular sacred oak tree and claim that it contains the soul of their tutelary dryad; but if an arborist taps the tree, its sap may seem like that of any other…
During late 1939, a major American news syndicate had sent Stoddard to spend a few months in wartime Germany and provide his perspective, with his numerous dispatches appearing in The New York Times and other leading newspapers. Upon his return, he published a 1940 book Into the Darkness summarizing all his information, seemingly just as even-handed as his earlier 1917 volume. His coverage probably constitutes one of the most objective and comprehensive American accounts of the mundane domestic nature of National Socialist Germany, and thus may seem rather shocking to modern readers steeped in eighty years of increasingly unrealistic Hollywood propaganda."
-Ron Unz, "A Dozen Unknown Books and the World War II History They Reveal" October 27, 2025
June 25, 2019
Thorough accounting of conditions in Nazi Germany in 1940.
October 29, 2022
Incredible account of Nazi Germany from a slightly sympathetic but ultimately neutral American.
I've spent most of my life consuming media about and researching the third Reich but I've never actually came across much information on many of the subjects in this book, if you're at all interested in the nitty gritty of Nazi domestic policy such as labour laws, countryside culture, rationing and the like then this book is the perfect digest for a proper understanding of how it all worked.
Most importantly though is this book contains interviews and appearances of many Nazi leaders including Hitler, Himmler and Goebbels, although these are all quite quick and indirect in nature.
I would recommend this book to anyone who actually wants to learn about Germany and not get propagandized to.
I've spent most of my life consuming media about and researching the third Reich but I've never actually came across much information on many of the subjects in this book, if you're at all interested in the nitty gritty of Nazi domestic policy such as labour laws, countryside culture, rationing and the like then this book is the perfect digest for a proper understanding of how it all worked.
Most importantly though is this book contains interviews and appearances of many Nazi leaders including Hitler, Himmler and Goebbels, although these are all quite quick and indirect in nature.
I would recommend this book to anyone who actually wants to learn about Germany and not get propagandized to.
December 10, 2020
One of the most interesting reports on the third reich. Highly recommended to those that are interested in reading primary sources of americans in Germany 1940. He personally meets Goebbels, and has a meeting with Adolf, but what is more interesting perhaps is his conversations with the every farmer or worker. He visits a soap factory and gives some insight on the average mindset of the the German population.
August 22, 2020
An essential look into the time and place. Enormously interesting.
March 6, 2025
Fantastic! Would give more stars if I could. Written by an American newspaper correspondent who spends 4 months in Germany from October 1939 through February 1940. He has an audience with Hitler and interviews very high-ups in the NSDAP party, including Himmler. The most fascinating part is reading it knowing what we know now about what happened to the Third Reich. Very engagingly written. I couldn’t put it down.
January 17, 2026
This book is adapted from a series of newspaper columns that the author wrote concerning his trip to Germany from October 1939 through January 1940. During that trip the author was able to interview Hitler, Goebbels, Himmler, Walter Darre (the Agriculture minister) and other National Socialist figures along with Joseph Tiso, the president of Slovakia. The author goes into detail on the rationing of food and clothing. The government had taken into account the British blockade which had been so effective against Germany in the First World War. There is a good description of the National Socialist agricultural program, and also industrial policies. Stoddard spoke with both factory workers and Robert Ley, the head of the Labor Front.
The book is neutral in tone; it neither condemns nor praises the National Socialist regime. Stoddard was a supporter of eugenics and he does show a great deal of interest in the eugenics policies of the German regime. He visited a eugenics court that was reviewing several cases of proposed sterilization. German policy towards the Jews is only sparingly mentioned. He does record a derogatory remark about Jews made by a letter carrier in a Jewish neighborhood in Berlin. Stoddard writes that most of the German population actually thought little about the Jewish question because they felt that it had already been solved. Regarding morale, the German people were not really in favor of the war but they also felt that they had no choice but to fight: that Britain was trying to prevent Germany from assuming its rightful place as the dominant power in Central Europe. No argument is made that the Nazis intended to conquer Europe, let alone the world, but that they just wished to be the dominant power in Mitteleuropa.
Stoddard’s trip took place before bombing began. The darkness the title refers to is the darkness of the blackout regulations in Germany. Aside from that gloom and the rationing, the book describes a country at peace, a peace that would soon come to an end.
The book is neutral in tone; it neither condemns nor praises the National Socialist regime. Stoddard was a supporter of eugenics and he does show a great deal of interest in the eugenics policies of the German regime. He visited a eugenics court that was reviewing several cases of proposed sterilization. German policy towards the Jews is only sparingly mentioned. He does record a derogatory remark about Jews made by a letter carrier in a Jewish neighborhood in Berlin. Stoddard writes that most of the German population actually thought little about the Jewish question because they felt that it had already been solved. Regarding morale, the German people were not really in favor of the war but they also felt that they had no choice but to fight: that Britain was trying to prevent Germany from assuming its rightful place as the dominant power in Central Europe. No argument is made that the Nazis intended to conquer Europe, let alone the world, but that they just wished to be the dominant power in Mitteleuropa.
Stoddard’s trip took place before bombing began. The darkness the title refers to is the darkness of the blackout regulations in Germany. Aside from that gloom and the rationing, the book describes a country at peace, a peace that would soon come to an end.
November 22, 2025
9/10.
A great, accurate, and sober report that describes the conditions of wartime Germany from late fall 1939 to early winter 1940. Stoddard gets interviews with many of the foremost personalities of the regime and vividly describes the conditions of rationing that the German people had to go through in order to attempt to achieve victory (keep in mind, this was when Germany and Russia were, in all appearances, cordial to one another).
Stoddard does a very good job of describing the place of women in German society, the relation of genetics and eugenics to national policy, the Labor Front, the Hitler Youth, and all other organizations that made up the framework of National Socialist Germany. I truly have not read a better first-hand description of all of these organizations, and Stoddard describes them very impartially, such that one can actually learn about what was going on in Germany at the time, instead of panicking in a hysterical fit.
Highly recommended.
A great, accurate, and sober report that describes the conditions of wartime Germany from late fall 1939 to early winter 1940. Stoddard gets interviews with many of the foremost personalities of the regime and vividly describes the conditions of rationing that the German people had to go through in order to attempt to achieve victory (keep in mind, this was when Germany and Russia were, in all appearances, cordial to one another).
Stoddard does a very good job of describing the place of women in German society, the relation of genetics and eugenics to national policy, the Labor Front, the Hitler Youth, and all other organizations that made up the framework of National Socialist Germany. I truly have not read a better first-hand description of all of these organizations, and Stoddard describes them very impartially, such that one can actually learn about what was going on in Germany at the time, instead of panicking in a hysterical fit.
Highly recommended.
November 15, 2021
Fascinating and in places enlightening!
June 15, 2025
Very good primary source on the wartime Third Reich. Contains interviews with Hitler, Himmler, and intelligent commentary on other observed parts of life. The author is not biased.
September 2, 2025
Fascinating firsthand account of 1939 Germany without the postwar bias
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews