The Third Reich in Power

The History of the Third Reich #2

by Richard J. Evans, Sean Pratt (Narrator)

The second work in a planned three-volume series (after 2004's Coming of the Third Reich) this book starts with the Nazis' complete assumption of power and creation of a one-party state in 1933, and goes to September 1939 and the beginning of World War II. In sharp detail, Evans shows how Hitler seized upon his political victory and immediately began his plan for the Nazi infiltration of every aspect of German society. The Nazi propaganda blitz covered everything from local councils to social clubs to all voluntary associations. And when propaganda didn't work, coercion and fear did. At the behest of Hitler, the brownshirts and SS (secret police) ruthlessly harassed, beat, and murdered the Jews and Communists first, but later targeted anyone who showed even the slightest criticism of Nazi activities. Those Germans who disapproved of the Nazis were mainly confined to acts of passive resistance to Hitler's totalitarian rule. Nationalism proved to be the one issue capable of galvanizing the nation, as the Nazis' growing power helped to erase the shame and humiliation of the Treaty of Versailles that closed World War I.

Over the course of the book, Evans shows how everything Hitler did in this period was designed to prepare the nation for a war--"a life and death struggle"--whose aim was less geographical conquest than racial purity. Hitler's main objective was "to remould the minds, spirits and bodies of the German people to make them capable and worthy of the role of the new master-race that awaited them." Though Hitler did not work alone, Evans makes it clear that he was the overwhelming driving force behind it all, including policies regarding education, eugenics, and foreign affairs. Well written and logically organized, The Third Reich in Power is an impressive work of meticulous, readable history. --Shawn Carkonen

Genres: History, Nonfiction, World War II, Germany, Politics, War, European History

Audible Audio

First published October 20, 2005

About the author

Richard J. Evans is one of the world's leading historians of modern Germany. He was born in London in 1947. From 2008 to 2014 he was Regius Professor of History at Cambridge University, and from 2020 to 2017 President of Wolfson College, Cambridge. He served as Provost of Gresham College in the City of London from 2014 to 2020. In 1994 he was awarded the Hamburg Medal for Art and Science for cultural services to the city, and in 2015 received the British Academy Leverhulme Medal, awarded every three years for a significant contribution to the Humanities or Social Sciences. In 2000 he was the principal expert witness in the David Irving Holocaust Denial libel trial at the High Court in London, subsequently the subject of the film Denial. His books include Death in Hamburg (winner of the Wolfson History Prize), In Defence of History, The Coming of the Third Reich, The Third Reich in Power, and The Third Reich at War. His book The Pursuit of Power: Europe 1815-1914, volume 7 of the Penguin History of Europe, was published in 2016. His most recent books are Eric Hobsbawm: A Life in History (2019) and The Hitler Conspiracies: The Third Reich and the Paranoid Imagination (2020). In 2012 he was knighted for services to scholarship.

Reviews

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

“War had been the objective of the Third Reich and its leaders from the moment they came to power in 1933. From that point up to the actual outbreak of hostilities in September 1939, they had focused relentlessly on preparing the nation for a conflict that would bring European, and eventually world, domination for Germany. The megalomania of these ambitions had been apparent in the gigantism of the plans developed by [Adolf] Hitler and [Albert] Speer for Berlin, which was to become Germania, the new world capital. And the limitless scale of the Nazi drive for conquest and dominion over the rest of the world entailed a correspondingly thoroughgoing attempt to remold the minds, spirits and bodies of the German people to make them capable and worthy of the role of the new master-race that awaited them. The ruthlessly thorough coordination of German social institutions that gave the Nazi Party a near-monopoly over the organization of daily life from 1933 onwards was only a beginning…”
- Richard J. Evans, The Third Reich in Power

The Third Reich in Power is the middle volume of Richard J. Evans’s massive, impressive trilogy on the birth, life, and death of the Third Reich. The first entry, The Coming of the Third Reich, traces the Nazi’s rise from obscurity during the anarchic years following the First World War. The third book, The Third Reich at War, covers the familiar tale of Nazi Germany’s attempt to export its lethal, faux-Darwinian worldview. Both are very estimable works, and well worth reading.

It is The Third Reich in Power, however, that is the most essential, the most important of the titles. It contains lessons that are not available from the incredibly unique circumstances detailed in the book-end volumes. Specifically, it is a thorough deconstruction of the necessary steps to dismantling a democracy in an abbreviated period of time.

***

Evans is not a narrative historian. He does not follow the typical, chronological style in which events are discussed one after another, in the order in which they occurred. Rather, all three of his books in the Third Reich trilogy are organized by theme. The Third Reich in Power is probably the most extreme example of this approach. Indeed, it is not till the final section, encompassing the remilitarization of the Rhineland, the annexation of Austria, and the occupation of Czechoslovakia, that Evans really focuses on the landmark incidents at all.

Rather, Evans is interested in discussing all the various aspects of what the Nazis did once its Leader – Adolf Hitler – ascended to the Chancellorship of the Weimar Republic. Spoiler alert: it involved replacing the Weimar Republic with a cult of personality based on racial purity, unthinking obedience, and the notion that German destiny lay in appropriating eastern lands for Aryan smallholders.

***

I have acknowledged before my preference for histories that place an emphasis on storytelling. I like descriptions of important moments, which give a feel for what it might have been like to live in such days. I also want something centered on humans. Frankly, Evans does not really deliver on these fronts. To be sure, he makes an effort to highlight some individual experiences. Additionally, there is a decent set-piece or two, such as a solid account of the infamous 1934 Nuremberg Rally. For the most part, though, this is about topical analysis. Despite this not usually being my thing, it really worked well for me. In The Third Reich in Power, Evans plays to his strengths.

***

The Third Reich in Power is divided into seven big sections, and further subdivided into smaller chapters. While there is no overarching chronology, Evans does attempt to maintain something of a timeline within each section, so we are not bouncing all over the place.

In over 700 pages of text, Evans touches upon far too many matters to provide a comprehensive list. Suffice to say, almost everything discussed holds some level of dread or fascination. For example, the opening section on the police state talks about the abolishment of the presidency upon the death of Paul von Hindenburg; the formation of the People’s Court to try treason; and the actions of the Gestapo, which managed to spread the threat of violence to everyone, even as minorities experienced the brunt of actual violence. A second section illustrates how the Nazis brought religion to heel, replacing it with National Socialism, while a third dissects the economy, laying bare the falsity of the alleged Nazi economic miracle.

Not every segment is equally enthralling, though all are of high quality. For my money, I was horrifically captivated by Nazi attempts to standardize artistic culture to meet the ideals of Hitler himself, whose lofty credentials included failed landscape artist and failed architect. Before picking this up, I’d never before thought about Nazi music. But Evans has, and he is happy to explain. His conclusion is that we must add to the long list of Nazi crimes, so that it includes an assault on good taste.

***

Covering the years from 1933 to 1939, The Third Reich in Power does not get into the Final Solution. However, Evans methodically lays out the Nazi groundwork that made possible the eventual murder of millions of Jewish men, women, and children. The Nazis paid close attention to public opinion as they gradually turned German citizens into non-humans lacking any protection under the law. Every once in a while, they pulled back, sensing they’d gone too far, too fast.

Mostly, though, non-Jewish Germans were incredibly accepting of measures that encouraged Jews to emigrate; kept them from working in an ever-growing list of occupations; and took over their businesses. Eventually, as we all know, the majority of “ordinary” Germans acquiesced in their wholesale slaughter.

***

Conventional wisdom is that you cannot make present-day comparisons to the Nazis, and that doing so is a logical fallacy. To a certain extent, this is fair. The destruction of Europe’s Jewish population is unparalleled. There have been other genocides, but nothing like the industrialized mass-murder executed by Nazi Germany.

With that said, the Nazis provide an object lesson in achieving totalitarian rule, one that is well worth remembering. In point of fact, they wrote a handbook on how to utterly destroy democratic institutions. The steps they laid out are eminently repeatable: manufacture crises; rule by decree; gut the civil service; make it hard – or impossible – to vote; and provide bread, circuses, and distractions. Finally, it is important to lie. Lie about big things. Lie about small things. Lie and lie and lie until the lie becomes the truth. The Nazis were so good at lying that they deceived themselves. Years after coming to power – around the time that Hitler scurried into his bunker, the great cities of Germany burned, and the Thousand-Year Reich expired before its teens – countless deluded Nazis bit down on cyanide pills, believing in their last moments that the Jews – chief among the victims – had started the whole thing.

The plunder and persecution of minorities, the violation of international treaties, the massive rearmament campaign, the annexation and occupation of neighboring countries, the launching of outright invasions, and the systematic gassing and shooting of millions of noncombatants, all took place over the course of years, with many warning signs and blinking red lights. There were plenty of opportunities for intervention.

The end of democracy, on the other hand, took less than two months.

[Christopher Saunders · Rating 5 out of 5]

Richard J. Evans’ The Third Reich in Power brilliantly recounts the National Socialist reconstruction of Germany from 1933 to 1939. The book begins with a graphic account of the Night of the Long Knives, Hitler’s power play in June 1934 to purge his political enemies: not just Ernst Rohm and the unruly SA, as Evans makes clear, but a variety of socialists, anti-Nazi conservatives (including former Chancellor Kurt von Schleicher) and prominent Jews were targeted as well. Although the purge (which claimed up to 1,000 lives) ended Nazi Germany’s early period of political violence, its shadow hung over the regime like a cloud: a reminder that even slight dissent would be punished with imprisonment or summary execution. Thus began a dictatorship rivaled in its time only by Stalin’s Soviet Union in brutality and oppression. For bloodshed was necessary to set the stage, Evans asserts, for “a cultural revolution, in which alien influences…were eliminated and the German spirit reborn.”

The Nazi government thus embarked upon a massive social engineering campaign. Education was reformed to stress nationalism and the centrality of military conflict; traditional youth organizations were obliterated by the Hitler Youth. The Nazis alternately courted and crushed established religion; one of the book’s more illuminating passages discusses Joseph Goebbels’ efforts to promote an obscure Protestant sect, the German Evangelical Church, as a state-sponsored religion akin to the Church of England only to abandon the scheme due to lack of enthusiasm. The press fell under state control, the arts crushed into conformity (sending many artists, actors, authors and musicians into exile), labor unions dismantled and the military forced into obedience (General Werner von Fritsch, who opposed Hitler’s expansionist policies, was blackmailed into resigning with spurious charges of homosexuality). The existing power structures quickly accommodated themselves to the regime, while its opponents fled abroad or enacted brave but largely feeble acts of resistance. The Nazis sought to dominate all aspects of Germans’ waking lives, and sometimes even their unconscious ones; one author collected a bizarre volume showing that even in their dreams, Germans couldn’t escape the Fuhrer.

Evans makes clear that despite Hitler’s total authority, the regime was remarkably sensitive to popular pressures and sought to win over the German people, especially the Mittelstand (roughly, middle class and small business owners) which they viewed as their core constituents. While overt propaganda films and books achieved limited success, the government offered a variety of outlets that appeased the public while serving Nazi purposes: a feeling of patriotism (for “Aryans” at least) fostered by volunteer groups and increased conscription, the Strength Through Joy program which offered workers vacations and benefits in lieu of unions, an Autobahn that benefited civilian drivers while enabling fast military deployments, low cost transistor radios that could only receive government-approved stations. It’s difficult to extrapolate from Evans’ account that ordinary Germans were enthusiastic Nazis, as writers from William Shirer to Daniel Jonah Goldhagen have argued, but neither did they resist in any meaningful way. Instead, there was sullen acquiescence to totalitarian rule, with resistance limited to private grumbling, sardonic jokes and individual acts of defiance.

Meanwhile, economic and agricultural policies under Hitler were borderline incoherent. Paying lip service to “socialist” collectivism, the Nazis in fact enriched capitalists like Krupp and I.G. Farben with lucrative contracts and slave convict labor. Party leaders like Hermann Goering heinously gorged off the profits, making a joke of their earlier leveling rhetoric. Indeed the German “economic miracle” of the 1930s, often touted even by nonfascist writers, was built on sand. Admittedly unemployment decreased but wages remained steady, the standard of living only marginally improved and autarkic trade policies led to shortages in supplies and foodstuffs even before war began. Farmers infuriated by the bizarre schemes of Agriculture Minister Walther Darre to create hereditary small farms were driven to borderline revolt; Economics Minister Hjalmar Schacht, dismayed that Hitler and Goering largely ignored his advice, complained that he could only “howl with the wolves.” Nonetheless, as Evans comments, the Mittelstand generally didn’t mind: “what really mattered to them was that they were making a decent living, better than they had done in the Depression years, and they could live with that.”

Ultimately, all of these projects served two purposes: war and genocide. Whatever economic gains Hitler managed led inexorably to mobilization, rebuilding the German military for wars of conquest against France, Britain and especially the Soviet Union. And whatever benefits Germany’s population received from Nazi employment and welfare programs (the latter an extension of extant Weimar policies), the underclasses were punished. Women were pushed out of the work force and encouraged to become homemakers; abortion was outlawed as German women were encouraged to have large families (they refused, however, to acquiesce in attempted bans on cosmetics and modern fashion). Homeless and unemployed citizens were branded “work-shy” and deposited in concentration camps; gay and lesbian Germans, along with Jehovah’s Witnesses, Romani and other religious minorities, were heavily persecuted. And a widespread campaign against the mentally ill and physically handicapped, resulting in segregation and forced sterilization, put the era’s most odious eugenics concepts into effect.

But the primary targets, of course, were the Jews, the subject of Hitler’s obsessive hatred. An escalating series of laws dispossessed German Jews of businesses, property and legal rights: marriages with non-Jews were banned, Jewish children were eventually excluded from public education and adults fired from jobs. Jewish businesses and property were “Aryanized” and given over to Party leaders and Gentile businessmen. The government pressured Jews into emigration (which, shamefully, foreign countries decided to restrict) and isolation, making it easier to paint them as an Other. And the German state, from SA ruffians to Julius Streicher’s insane propaganda sheets, subjected them to constant terror and humiliation. There was no explicit, tactical road map for the Holocaust at this point, but Hitler’s intent was always clear. And once the Night of the Broken Glass triggered a national pogrom in November 1938, the Final Solution had effectively begun.

The final chapters tackle familiar events: Hitler’s alliances with Italy and Japan, intervention in the Spanish Civil War, the Anschluss with Austria and “Rape” of Czechoslovakia, Anglo-French appeasement and the nonaggression pact with Stalin, leading to World War II. Evans offers less fresh material here, though his narrative emphasizes how war wasn’t merely the result but the essence of Nazi ideology. He also rebuffs recent attempts to rehabilitate Neville Chamberlain and friends by showing them at best naïve, at worst perfectly fine with signing over much of Europe to fascism. Power ends with the Wehrmacht poised to invade Poland, with Hitler’s Thousand Year Reich achieving its apotheosis - and its Gotterdammerung. Many books have covered this ground, but few have covered the road leading to it - the wholesale attempts by Hitler and the Nazis to remake Germany in their image - as thoroughly, compellingly or as well as Evans. Possibly the best English-language book about National Socialism and the Third Reich, and certainly the most illuminating.

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Third Reich in Power, by Richard J. Evans, is the second book in Evans Third Reich trilogy on the rise and fall of the Nazi's in Germany. The book takes place after the events of his last book, titled The Coming of the Third Reich, which focuses primarily on the ideological background and rising nationalism and fascism in Germany in the 1920's and early 1930's.

His second book focuses primarily on the Third Reich in power in Germany (as the title may suggest...) from 1933, until the outbreak of WWII in late 1939, which is the subject of the next book. Hitler used his 6 years in power to purge Germany of those deemed dangerous to the German political sphere and to German racial hegemony. Political dissidents, opposing factions, Jews, other minorities and those with disabilities, as well as homosexuals, were terrorized, robbed and ultimately placed into camps which alluded to the horrifying plans the Nazi's had during the War.

Evans does an excellent job chronicling this period of history. He does not editorialize Nazi motives (nor does he need to, as they are so horrifying to begin with) and focuses on "just the facts."
Evans examines everything. Art and Culture are examined, where leading Nazi officials looked to control the art world in Germany to encourage racial and cultural homogeneity. The integration of Nazi ideology into everyday lives is also explored in great detail, with the inclusion of many cultural institutions, from churches to swimming clubs and libraries, all conforming to Nazi ideals.

Evans also examines Hitler's centralization of power after taking power. Nationalists are quietly retired from the government, and potential naysayers are purged from military and political positions. Jews and dissenters are fired from work, and Jewish companies are closed and divided up by their Germany competitors. The economy is examined in detail, as the economy begins its rapid ascent into militarization. Large German firms begin to divide the spoils of those who are incarcerated under the Nazi regime. Newly annexed territories are also brought into the German economy. Works projects including architectural works and the Autobahn are begun. Germany's balance of trade also begins to suffer in this time, as the price of German goods becomes unattractive on the world market.

Internationally, Germany re-annexes the Saarland, reoccupies the Rhineland, and receives territorial concessions from Czechoslovakia and Lithuania. Austria is annexed directly into the Reich. Germany also ends its political isolation, by formulating political ties with Italy, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania. Trade is secured with Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and much of Eastern Europe. Non-aggression pacts are signed with Poland and the Soviet Union (ironically, in both cases). Japan becomes an attractive ally as well.

Evans book is incredibly detailed. Everything that you need to know about how the Third Reich operated in between 1933-1939 is laid out in detail, with all the monstrous details needed. This is a terrifying time in history, and Evans The Third Reich in Power is the definitive book, and part of the definitive trilogy, on Germany's Nazi years. A must read for those interested in this time period. There is much to learn in this book.

[zed · Rating 5 out of 5]

If there are better books on the subject of the Third Reich being in power pre WW2 I would indeed like to read them. These volumes will be my reference points for many years to come.

[Anthony · Rating 4 out of 5]

Madness in Full Force

The Third Reich in Power is the second volume in Richard J. Evans’s trilogy on the rise and fall of Nazi Germany, showing how a so called modern western country with a democracy could fall so low. This volume sits between The Coming of the Third Reich and The Third Reich at War and focuses on the years between 1933 and 1939, when Hitler and the Nazi Party consolidated their authority, reshaped German society, and laid the groundwork for a war of conquest and genocide.

It has to be said that Evans has put a huge amount of work into this trilogy. Drawing on a vast range of archival materials, personal testimonies, and secondary scholarship, he weaves a detailed account of how the Nazi regime extended its grip over political institutions, culture, education, the economy, and private life. He demonstrates how coercion, propaganda, and mass participation combined to create a regime that was at once repressive and disturbingly popular.

In The Third Reich in Power Evans vividly portrays how citizens navigated a society increasingly dominated by ideology, whether through conformity, quiet resistance, or active complicity. His analysis of propaganda, censorship, and social pressure reveals how deeply the regime penetrated the daily lives of ordinary Germans. I found the chapters on religion and education are particularly effective in showing how the Nazis sought to reshape moral and intellectual life in their image.

Evans is also able to clearly link the ideological ambitions of the regime to its practical policies so that even the most casual of reader can understand them. He shows that the persecution of Jews, suppression of political dissent, and eugenic programs were not peripheral but central to the Nazi project of national renewal. The discussion of the ‘coordination’ (Gleichschaltung) of German institutions is especially compelling, tracing how the Nazis combined bureaucratic efficiency with fanatical racial ideology.

However, there are problems At over 800 pages, The Third Reich in Power is huge and not to be forgotten, the second of three volumes. This is a lot on this most heinous of regimes. Some sections, especially those dealing with administrative details or cultural policy do get repetitive and boring, where I feel other authors might be able to keep the momentum and interest alive. Another limitation lies in Evans’s largely structural and institutional approach. Although he does include voices from below, the perspective is still predominantly top-down, emphasising policies and official actions rather than the diversity of individual experiences. If you are looking for a more social or microhistorical view of daily life under Nazism may find the book somewhat detached or impersonal compared to works like Peter Fritzsche’s Life and Death in the Third Reich.

Finally, I will mention of the most widely criticised parts of the trilogy. Evans’s interpretive framework which is strongly shaped by his opposition to earlier ‘revisionist’ historians such as David Irving or Ernst Nolte, does occasionally leads him to overstate the coherence and effectiveness of the Nazi state. While he convincingly demonstrates the regime’s reach, there is less attention to its internal contradictions, inefficiencies, and competing power centers that other historians, such as Ian Kershaw, have highlighted.

Despite this, The Third Reich in Power is still worth your time. Evans’s narrative is authoritative, lucid, and grounded in meticulous scholarship. He succeeds in showing how the Nazis transformed a democratic society into a totalitarian state in just six years, an achievement of destruction that depended as much on consent as on terror. Although I’ve had to take breaks between volumes one and two, I will still read The Third Reich at War with much gusto.

[Hadrian · Rating 4 out of 5]

The second volume of Sir Richard Evans' trilogy, focusing on the social changes and foreign policy moves of the Third Reich from January 1933- August 1939.

“If ever a state merited being called totalitarian, then it was the Third Reich," concludes Evans. He writes on their attempts to form a 'people's community' based on the barbarity of 1930s race science and its relentless drive to a continental war. He writes, however, that many of the Nazis' beliefs - on an "Aryan" race and the glamorization of military struggle, were not as widely accepted. Many Germans had brown or black hair, and anybody above a certain age remembered the deprivation of the last war.

The Nazis did find support on issues that were already popular - the army as a vessel for economic revival, and repudiating the treaties of Versailles. But while in some cases these interests and beliefs coincided, Evans asserts that Nazis were still a sizable minority only, still unable to enact everything they wanted in German society - facing some pushback from religious organizations.

Who is 'only' German? Who goes Nazi? As this is the Third Reich we're talking about, there are hundreds of books on that topic. There are, no doubt, authors would argue about how there were more Nazis in Germany; that their attempts to deform German society were more successful even in six years of peacetime. I won't wade into that historical debate over how much power they had; but this is still an excellent overview.

[Daniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

A detailed description and in-depth analysis of the evolution of the German society from the initial Nazi takeover of power in 1933 to the beginning of WW2. In the span of only six years this former democracy became a totalitarian regime. How is that even possible? This is what Evans able work amply demonstrates. Where Shirer competently reports events and provides on-the-spot impressions, Evans provides a sociological overview and a review of additional sources made available after the publication of The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany in 1960. Evans criticizes Shirer but also quotes him as his witness accounts are revelatory of the context and the impressions and emotions of the period. I learned a lot by reading both books and view them as complementary, probably indispensable to understanding how a nation could embrace such an extreme vision of the fascist philosophy.

[Sebastien · Rating 4 out of 5]

The 2nd volume in Richard Evans' trilogy on the Third Reich. Comprehensive and meticulously researched. Well-written. Not quite as interesting to me as the first volume which focused on how and why German democracy devolved into a violent terrorist regime.

This volume focuses on how the Nazis consolidated power from 33-39 and the kind of policies they enacted, their coercive methods, and how they ran their police state. I've read some interesting critiques that Evans seems to overemphasize the Nazis coercing of the broader German population while underemphasizing the populations' enthusiasm and support of the regime. This critique seems valid, but there is no doubt as to the coercive nature and intimidatory tactics of the Nazi state and that this played a major role in forcing many to fall into line behind the regime.

One fascinating point that surprised me: Evans claimed there was a generational divide between parents and children. As he argues it children and young adults tended to be more enthusiastic supporters of the Nazis, while the parental/older generation were more leery and less-inclined to buy into the Nazi kool-aid. I don't know how much this makes sense to me as it seemed that many WWI veterans (older generation) had a lot of anger against the Allies and hence were thirsting for revenge... but it was an interesting point that Evans made. Made me think about some of the generational divides in our politics here in the US.

I was a bit surprised as to Evans' reliance upon William Shirer's Rise and Fall of the Third Reich as a source. Evans had some explicit criticisms of Shirer at the beginning of the 1st volume. That said his use of Shirer's work as a primary source works well, since Shirer was on the ground level in Germany throughout the Nazi regime's rise. It made me curious as to how Shirer and his work are viewed (I personally haven't read his work), there is a nice reddit thread in the askhistorians section on this, some of the comments also touch upon Evans' work: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorian...

Would seem that as a historical work Shirer's book is better viewed as a primary source than as a history that showcases deep historical analysis.

I'll def be finishing up this series as I really enjoy Evans writing and his historical analysis of this era. I just found out he has a new massive book that came out on 19th century Europe. Another book I had to add to my endless exponentially growing to read list!

[Dimitri · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jess and ordinary Germans alike must've felt like the frogs in a pan of boiling water, except there was nowhere to jump. The "golden years" of the Nazi regime was all about tightening the screw, curtailing liberties & putting the economy on a war footing while mentally steeling the youth, who eventually became the most eager element, but even those coming of age for military service found the constant group activities of the Hitlerjugend a chore.

The absence of war enthusiasm in 1939 - contrasted with the "jubilant crowds" that fill half a square in 1914 - was foreshadowed by the common reaction to the Rhineland occupation, the Munich conference and the Austria/Sudetenland annexation.

Hitlers popularity soared with such foreign policy successes - ONLY if they did NOT lead to war (or as long as he won quickly)

[Mikey B. · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a detailed and sociological analysis of Hitler and the Nazi regime’s years in power prior to the outbreak of war in 1939.

The author pursues various themes: Germany as a police state, the suppression and take-over of all media, the struggle with the Churches, the appropriation of business and putting it on a war footing, the indoctrination and manipulation of the people (by the Hitler Youth, subsidized vacations…), the war against German Jews for the support of racial purification and finally the foreign achievements (the annexation of the Rhineland, Austria…)

All this is approached from the internal German perspective; little is mentioned of Germany’s traditional enemy France and all the foreign tensions Hitler created during this period. So do not look to this book for a broad European context.

There were times where I felt that the author over-emphasized the coerciveness of the Nazi regime – as if Germans were forced into Nazism. So many photos and films with joyful flag-waving Germans (like on the cover of my paperback edition) illustrate the enthusiasm with which the German people revered their country and leader with little in the way of compulsion. Many followed him to the bitter end.

There was a tendency through-out the book to quote those who dissented with Nazism, rather than those who loved it. The author cites examples coming from Social Democrats and/or Communists who were underground or in exile. Sometimes it is difficult to understand when these opinions were given – those after wars’ end could possibly be discounted. He also excludes working class Germans from the evils of Nazism (on page 216 of my edition): “anti-Semitism had become widespread in German culture… though it never had much purchase in the organized working class”. Was not the bulk of the SA from the working class? Who was the audience of Der Sturmer?

Mr. Evans almost gives the impression at times that Nazi rule was merely tolerated – as if they converted Germans into automatons obeying commands. The enthusiasm with which the German people subjected entire parts of Europe and North Africa does not bear this out.

Nevertheless the author is very thorough and scores points with how Goebbels’ Propaganda Ministry reduced Germany’s newspapers and radio to become mouthpieces of Nazism. There was little room after 1933 for “deviant” thought and expression. He is very correct in pointing out the raison d’etre of the regime was to prepare for war and subjugate Europe. Nazism constantly imbued the German people with their alleged racial superiority over all others. Mr. Evans discusses this racist nationalism towards the end of the book.

He does provide many valuable details of Nazi methodology and how quickly all these came into play after the acquisition of power in 1933. I do not feel he answers all the questions (and perhaps no one can) of how Germany pursued war so vigorously and why they adored a leader who led them on such a disastrous path.

[Charles Haywood · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the second of three volumes in Richard Evans’s massive history of the Third Reich. I noted in my review of the first volume of this trilogy, “The Coming of the Third Reich,” that Evans does not offer revisionist history, and that “the same bad people do the same bad things that anyone who has read about this period already knows about.” That statement is true of this volume as well, but the difference is that this “middle” period is less well-known than the other periods Evans covers, so this volume is particularly valuable, I think, to the general public.

That is, we hear a lot about Germany prior to 1933, and we hear a lot about the war (the subject of the trilogy’s third volume), but we don’t hear that much about 1933–1939. And what we do is very incomplete. As far as what happened inside Germany, most people’s knowledge is limited to the Night of the Long Knives and early Nazi actions against political opponents and Jews. Outside of Germany, or having effect outside Germany, we might note the 1936 Olympics, the Anschluss, and Munich. Evans offers an expansion of knowledge to the reader, with the focus on what happened in this period inside Germany.

Rather than a chronological organization, Evans takes a thematic approach. He talks in turn about the Nazi police state, propaganda, attacks on religious believers and institutions, economics, building social unity, persecutions based on race and “defect,” and the descent to war. Each section is divided into four subsections, and throughout Evans offers not just bare facts but insightful introductory passages and end summaries. This is a very long book, and the volume of material nearly overwhelming, but Evans’s organizational structure, combined with his excellent prose, succeeds in keeping the reader’s interest—you even find yourself thinking during a discussion, “what happened next?,” although, of course, you know what happened next, more or less.

This is not a review of my own earlier review, but I feel obliged to note that my sanguine attitude about political violence in America has been somewhat shaken by events since I wrote that review (last March, so seven months ago). Political violence from the Left has increased exponentially, most dramatically in the attempted assassination of the Republican leadership of Congress by a partisan Democrat whipped up by the left-wing media (stopped only by the chance presence of armed police, since, for no reason I can fathom, Congress refuses to simply erase the gun control laws in the District of Columbia). The so-called antifa has become more violent as well, and just a few days ago a peer-reviewed article expressing a somewhat favorable view of colonialism (the only rational position) was not only withdrawn, but deleted from the journal’s website, explicitly because of “credible threats of personal violence.” Meanwhile, Americans keep buying two million news guns a month. We’re still a long way from Germany in the 1920s, but not as far as I thought, and not as far as we were. True, things in America today are far from being as bad as Evans portrays Germany in his first volume—though “being better than Germany in the 1930s” is hardly a high bar. But at the same time, Nazi Germany is a reminder that things can get that bad, and then worse.

Unsurprisingly, this book’s overriding theme is the well-known process of “co-ordination,” or “Gleichschaltung.” From 1933, the Nazis pursued this process aggressively in every area of society, with the partial exception of the churches, which were directly attacked, and the military forces, which were subject to other forms of control and had a limited ability to resist direct Nazi domination. For co-ordination, the focus was not on political activity as such—any overt political opponents of the Nazis, especially the Social Democrats but also others less directly opposed to them such as the Center Party and the Nationalists, had already been dealt with by direct dissolution. Instead, the focus was on private life, private communications, and especially private associations, which were then extremely important to the lives of nearly all Germans (as they were also in the United States at that time, before their precipitous decline in recent decades). “Co-ordination” also applied to other non-political areas of life, naturally, such as businesses and the media. The goal was to achieve compliance to outward adherence to Nazi ideology, and therefore apparent unity of thought and action.

Evans begins with the hard edge of co-ordination in “The Police State.” This is a good term; unlike under Communist regimes, the Nazis were interested in compliance, not terror, and the goal was to police behavior, not thought. Policing also meant, now that the Nazis were in power, preventing further disorder resulting from freelancing Nazis, whether powerful ones like Ernst Röhm or random brownshirt thugs, except to the extent such disorders were approved by the Nazi hierarchy as useful for some immediate political end. Thus, one of Hitler’s first actions as Chancellor, in July of 1933, was to declare an end to revolution, “for a second revolution can only direct itself against the first one.” This was clever, in that it recognized the inevitable tendencies of revolutions to eat their children, and headed that problem off at the pass.

Order was first imposed by purging the SA in the Night of the Long Knives, along the way killing potentially oppositional conservatives such as Gen. Kurt von Schleicher, who had preceded Hitler as Chancellor (and also killing his wife), as well as prominent lay Catholic leader Erich Klausener. And, as with so much Hitler did in this period, using a combination of adroit propaganda and luck, after the fact he convinced the vast majority of the population to applaud these actions. Such success sustained the ongoing erosion of the rule of law, thus laying the groundwork for future such actions against other enemies of the state. In fact, Nazi constitutional lawyers, such as Ernst Rudolf Huber, developed detailed legal frameworks justifying this erosion, distinguishing between the “authority of the state and the authority of the Leader,” the latter of which “derived [his] legitimation from the united will of the people.” Such erosion of the rule of law through reference to a supposed higher source of legitimacy is a perennial temptation to those wishing to achieve ideological goals, and very difficult to resist when the ends appear appealing to both those in power and to the mass of people.

Evans covers, at least briefly, all aspects of the nascent security state—not just the new legal structures, but the perversion of existing ones (for example, ex post facto laws); the growth of concentration camps, holding both political prisoners and common criminals who, if deemed in any way habitual, often became permanently imprisoned for petty crimes; and the administration of the police themselves, especially in the institution of the secret police, the Gestapo. We have a view of the Gestapo as the cartoon villains of a thousand movies, portrayed as lurking in every corner, and even at this time, Evans says, “The Gestapo in particular quickly attained an almost mythical status as an all-seeing, all-knowing arm of state security and law enforcement.” But instead of agents lurking everywhere, in reality “it was a very small organization with a tiny number of paid agents and informers.” By 1939, there were only 20,000 such, mostly office workers, and the vast majority were career policemen from an earlier era, not Nazi fanatics—even though the head of the Gestapo was Heinrich Himmler.

Most of the Gestapo’s activities were therefore reactive to denunciations of others received from the public. Unsurprisingly, many of these came from “offloading personal resentments and gratifying personal desires”; the Gestapo worked hard to sort those out, since they were interested in suppressing political dissent, not creating terror as such. But there were plenty of “legitimate” denouncements—the human impulse to control others through mechanisms of power is strong, as can be seen a few weeks ago by the fat and ugly hobgoblin Lena Dunham, an actress of no discernable talent celebrated mostly for being aggressively fat and ugly, proudly declaiming that she will continue to use her (inexplicable) social media power to expose and punish conservative wrong-think, such as of airline workers she supposedly overheard having a private conversation about the mental illness of so-called transgender people. In Nazi Germany, working class muttering about the regime was strictly punished (probably because the courts suspected workers of being closet Social Democrats), usually with short prison sentences; middle class offenders more often got off with a warning. The result was that the Gestapo did seem everywhere, because analogues to Dunham were everywhere. We also have reached this point in America—not the point of prison sentences (although that would certainly please Dunham), but no social conservative can speak freely in America without fear of damaging his career prospects or losing his job, at least if that job is with a big business, academia, any profession, or the military. As the diarist Victor Klemperer said in 1933, “Nobody dares to say anything anymore, everyone’s afraid.”

Co-ordination was more broadly accomplished through “The Mobilization of the Spirit,” Evans’s next section. Here Joseph Goebbels comes to the fore, with his immensely successful propaganda efforts, both in the media and in re-ordering associational life. Some of this is well known, such as the Nuremberg rallies; other portions are more pedestrian, but just as important, such as control of newspapers and radio. The media were used not to disseminate endless propaganda, which Goebbels denigrated as “boring,” but to ensure ideological purity of communication channels, both in content and in who was employed. Evans also covers all forms of art, from novels to sculpture, which were treated the same way—not with direct persecution of artists, in most cases, but by support for approved artists who were seen as advancing Nazi goals, and criticism that often became equivalent to effective suppression for those who were seen as acting counter to Nazi goals. Here, as in other areas of life, Jewish artists were directly suppressed; many took the hint and left, which as far as the Nazis were concerned, was all to the good. Thus, any tool of opinion formation, including purely artistic ones, was co-ordinated, and as Victor Klemperer noted, language itself was corrupted. He “compiled a dossier of Nazi language—LTI—Lingua Tertii Imperii, the language of the Third Reich.” This is a standard practice of modern ideologues—witness the Associated Press this week requiring that writers refer to people who have undergone “sex change” operations as instead having undergone “gender confirmation” operations.

The section of most interest to me was “Converting the Soul,” which covers the Nazis well-known aversion to Christianity. Most leading Nazis wanted what was in effect a new national religion, retaining some Christian elements and forms, but shorn of Jewishness and weakness, with a fake Nordic Jesus and dropping inconvenient requirements like loving one’s enemies. A few went in for quasi-pagan rituals, as we often see portrayed in movies, but this was not a significant movement outside the SS. Sometimes, though, Hitler and others denied any interest in Nazism as “mysticism” or “cult”—rather, it should be “a cool, reality-based doctrine, based upon the sharpest scientific knowledge and its mental expression,” with no room for any kind of religion. It’s a commonplace that Nazism was itself a political religion, with many of its activities, forms and rituals mapped onto age-old religious forms. As Evans points out, though, Nazism was too incoherent to be a real religion, political or otherwise—unlike Communism, Nazism had neither sacred books or eschatology. “Mein Kampf” was not a text subject to analysis like Marx’s writings, it was “too verbose, too rambling, too autobiographical to lend itself to this kind of use.” The result was a confused mishmash of ideological pseudo-doctrines.

Regardless of what the Nazis themselves believed, as with other co-ordination efforts, the key goal was to eliminate all independent or oppositional power of the established Churches, especially the Catholic Church, such that outward conformity of all individuals was achieved. Evans first focuses on the Evangelical Church, discussing the creation of the “German Christian” Church, led by the ignorant and thuggish “Reich Bishop” Ludwig Müller, and the rise of the competing Confessing Church. But the reality was that most Protestants were happy to be co-ordinated, although the relatively small Confessing Church was persecuted. Nonetheless, the German Christian Church never managed to achieve the Nazi goal of a unified state Church, even though only the Catholics were broadly and consistently opposed to Nazism.

As to Catholics, despite the Concordat with the papacy, the Nazis shut down any political action and closed or co-ordinated private associations, including youth groups and schools. Quite a few Nazis admired the Catholic Church because of its duration and cohesive power, but all were hostile to it as an alternate center of authority with its members having independent expression. Some were fanatically hate-filled, such as Reinhard Heydrich; others more pragmatic. The Church still fought back, both locally, with priests leading laypeople in various forms of protest, such as expelling brownshirts from Church services and “publicly branding the swastika as the ‘Devil’s cross’ ”, and internationally, such as with Pius XI’s condemnation of Nazism in a famous encyclical. Naturally, the Nazis responded to this resistance by intensifying their campaign, using the press to widely circulate lurid stories of priestly sexual immorality combined with attacks on Catholicism as anti-German and Catholics as “corrupters and poisoners of people’s souls.”

Christians opposed to Nazism fought a losing battle; by 1939 anybody too outspoken (such as Martin Niemöller) was in prison, and most clergy were forced to exercise a “cautious restraint.” Splinter groups, especially Jehovah’s Witnesses, were especially viciously persecuted, with about a third of them imprisoned, quite a few being killed (roughly a thousand of the 30,000 in Germany). I found this account inspiring, how the Witnesses were model prisoners in some ways, but “refused to stand to attention, take part in drill parades, remove their caps, or show any respect to the guards, since respect, they said, was due only to Jehovah. Flogging only made them ask for more, as a sign of their devotion. Forced to watch the execution of fellow Witnesses who had refused to carry out military-related work or obey orders conscripting them into the armed forces, they only begged to be allowed to be martyred themselves. [Rudolf] Höss [then commandant of the Sachenhausen camp, later of Auschwitz] reported that Himmler was so impressed by their fanaticism that he frequently held it up to his SS men as an example.” Mainstream German Christians could have used a good dose of the “fanaticism” of the Witnesses, which after all isn’t so much fanaticism as the traditional Christian ideal of response to persecution.

The next section covers “Prosperity and Plunder,” recounting everything from the autobahns to monetary policy to ever-tightening and ever more violent economic confiscations from Jews. As to the autobahns, part of the “public face of Nazi modernism,” here as elsewhere Evans is at pains to point out that the Nazis were always very far from traditionalists—they were radical modernizers, who had no use for either conservatism or tradition, other than as a well from which they could pull up rituals and forms for propaganda use. “Nazism did not try to turn the clock back, for all its talk of reinstating the hierarchies and values of the mythical Germanic past. The groups who hoped for a restoration of old social barriers and hierarchies were as disappointed as were those who looked to the Third Reich to carry out a radical redistribution of land and wealth.”

“People’s Community” discusses topics from farming to shopkeepers to the lower classes. The Nazis wanted to build community by reducing class distinctions and frictions, while at the same time marking certain groups as apart, not only Jews but also any burdens on the state, such as elderly or disabled welfare recipients. To bring the classes together, the Nazis created the “Strength Through Joy” organization, which offered cheap tourism and other forms of improvement coupled with leisure, ostensibly to all classes on equal terms. In practice, though, its services were used more by the lower classes and often looked down on by the other classes, especially to the extent they had to put up with drunken carousing by the lower classes, which the objects of their scorn repaid by resentment of the bourgeois for their ability to afford extras on the tours and cruises. The programs were used enough, though, “that a popular joke maintained that the people were losing their strength through too much joy.” Evans frequently cites such contemporaneous humor, which is very effective in both providing a bit of comic relief and in conveying a flavor of what ordinary people thought.

Ultimately, the Nazis created much less social change than they desired (and they did not desire all that much leveling, for all their occasional devotion to socialism). “A society cannot be totally transformed in a mere six years without huge, murderous violence of the kind that occurred in Russia. . . . The leadership of the Third Reich did, as we have seen, carry out a limited killing action against dissidents within its own ranks . . . and it also killed some thousands of its own real or supposed opponents within Germany, but its major violence was reserved for people outside the country and was carried out in wartime. There was no parallel to the Soviet regime’s killing of three million of its own citizens, mostly in time of peace, nor to its imprisonment of many more millions in labour camps, not to the violent upheavals that brought about the state’s ownership of industry and the collectivization of agriculture in Stalin’s Russia.” Again, transformation through terror was not the goal of the Nazis; their methods were more targeted, even if just as unpleasant for the targets.

The final two sections cover well-trodden ground. Evans discusses the “racial utopia” sought by the Nazis, discussing among many other things the eugenics program of the Nazis, including widespread sterilizations and encouragement of abortion to prevent “undesirable” births, combined with aggressive attempts to raise the birth rate of the “racially pure.” All of this was done in opposition to traditional German and Christian morals—Evans repeatedly notes that Nazis had a purely instrumental view of such things (just like contemporaneous Progressive eugenicists in America, though Evans doesn’t mention that). This section covers Jewish emigration, Kristallnacht, and other topics in a crescendo of unpleasantness. And the author talks extensively about the pre-war events focused outside Germany, such as the remilitarization of the Rhineland, the Anschluss, and Czechoslovakia. All of these were extremely popular actions among all segments of German society, and would have been, even without co-ordination. Ending the book, Evans discusses the run-up to the invasion of Poland, offering us a cliffhanger where we all know how it ends.

[Last paragraph of review is first comment.]

[Wick Welker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Authoritarian Reconstruction.

Richard J. Evans always achieves an amazing balance of giving the reader a coherent historical narrative with pertinent detail while keeping you completely engaged. The Third Reich in Power is an amazing achievement in overlying the Nazi reconstruction era from 1933 to 1939. This book begins with the Night of Long Knives and ends with Nazi invading Poland and sparking WWII. It’s a perfect bridge between how the Nazis got into power and what they did with that power before going to war. Six years is not a long time but it’s incredible, and disastrous, what the Nazis did with that time. This is a cautionary tale about how much damage single party rule can inflict on a society, and the world, when they have unfettered power with little opposition. But with this book you'll understand that the Nazi party was not a monolith. The Nazis had to shrewdly navigate many obstacles and opposition to get to their goals. And what were Hitler’s goals? Basically three things: German Aryan race purity, destruction of the Jews, and rearmament to possess eastern Europe and hopefully much more. That was the bottom line for Hitler and his stupid cabal.

The Nazis certainly made great legal gains in the parliament which propelled them to power, including electorally and Hitler’s chancellor hood. They were propelled to power but still had internal resistance prompting the murderous political purge of the SA which happened during the Night of Long Knives. After that, true single party rule came into power in which “legal” just meant whatever the party wanted it to mean. There was a dual state set up after this: the existing bureaucracy alongside Hitler absolute authority. The Nazis had to coax, threaten and fund their way into civil and political coercion, and it’s what they did all while gearing the economy up for war. A massive cultural purge happened during this time including the advent of “degenerate art” wherein anything that wasn’t Vogner or classic art was termed cultural bolshevism or overtly Jewish and was openly mocked and ridiculed in art galleries. There was a purging of Jazz music, of course deemed too Jewish. The cultural infiltration of Nazism in Germany aestheticized politics and politicized art. And of course, this was the goal. Art and culture became a massive wing of the propaganda operation of the Nazis.

There was enormous conflict with the Catholic church. The Nazis hated the Catholics deeply, resenting and fearing the power of the Vatican on their sacred soil. The Nazis greatly reduced Catholic influence and churches over the course of five years. While having the support of protestants, the Nazis were surprisingly not very theocratic. According to the author, the authors cared little for religion or spirituality. They only cared about the supremacy of their race—this was always their goal. They found charitable programs and the welfare state reprehensible as well as the degenerate poor. There was no place to provide care to the disabled, the elderly, the infirmed or the poor. Racial eugenics was their main orthodoxy and their goal was either passive or direct purging of the Aryan bloodline to blonde headed Germans. So why would they care about helping “inferior” genetic lines? This was one of the reasons that medicine and physicians surged under the Nazi regime. A bastardization of medicine occurred during this time where health was transmuted to “racial hygiene.” So a huge part of Nazi indoctrination was having everyone believe that health and race were one and the same. This was a core tenet of Nazi ideology. In many ways, racial engineering supplanted medicine and science. This led to mass sterilization of over 300K people including “social deviants”, immigrants, gypsies, the jobless and alcoholics. (Side note: 28 states in the US had sterilization laws at this exact same time where around 15,000 people were sterilized.) Abortions, of course, were banned and homosexuality was a crime punishable by death. While the Nazis were utterly insane, when you understand their goals were racial purity, lots of their policies are logical in that context.

There was overt militarization of the education system. Women were discouraged from education and the workforce and to go back home to use their uteruses to provide the state-approved racial stock. There was a broad attack of intellectualism that started with sending all the Marxists and anyone of a Leftist political persuasion to labor camps or to just be murdered by the SS or Gestapo. And then there was the deliberate underpayment of teachers, silencing academic dissent, purging academia of Jews. There was a nazification of science where Einstein’s spectacular relativity laws were cast to be part of the overall Jewish plot to take over the world or something. None of it makes much sense.

As far as the economy goes, the Nazis used plenty of Keynesian economic policies which helped. And compared to the hyperinflation and disasters of the 1920s, many Germans were happy for any economic policy that didn’t result in the post WWI economy. Many people then and now were confused about what national socialism even was. Was there central economic planning? Sure. Did corporations and businesses have latitude? Sure—as long as the Fuhrer was cool with it. There were also a lot of Hitler strong-arming businesses to do his bidding in preparation for war even when it made no economic sense at all. There were plenty of Nazi social programs and marriage loans designed to help only the Aryan race. The Nazis directly funded jobs, built the military up with credit, nationalized resources, spent with a deficit, and issued treasury bonds. Honestly, the majority of the Nazis economic policy wasn’t all that different from what their contemporaries were doing in other countries and is not even that different today from most modern countries.

If you step back and compare the Nazi’s economic policies and race selective social policies, it’s not all that similar to what the US was doing at the same time, favoring white Americans and perpetuating a de facto racial apartheid against black people. So here’s the thing, lots of people like to say “socialism” always leads to authoritarianism. This literally cannot be true since every single modern society uses some sort of collectivist or social democrat policy. So when thinking about this logically, socialism is neither necessary nor sufficient to cause authoritarianism. Perhaps social policies are simply an exigency of trying to run a large and heterogeneous society. Also, the Nazis murdered all the Marxists and Communists and unions became illegal. When you look at the Nazis or other single party rule regimes, they come into power because of their political rhetoric matching the grievances of the mid to lower class and then exploiting the weaknesses in the existing government structure to gain control. It ain’t giving handouts to the poor or immigrants that leads to totalitarianism. I think I’m correct on this. Fight me.

Anyway, Hitler was always insane but then he got more insane starting around 1938. The Night of Broken Glass was when Hitler ordered a pogrom against the Jews. This was when the mass physical threat to the Jews really started to ramp up. Around this time, Hitler started pushing his goals. He militarily occupied the Rhineland which he was not allowed to do under the Treaty of Versailles. Germany after WWI. Did France or England do anything about this? No. He then backed Franco in the Spanish Civil War Leading to his victory. Did France, England or the US do anything about this? No. And then Hitler pressured Austria into being annexed which he successfully did without violence under the propaganda that there were oppressed Germans that needed to be liberated. Did France or England do anything about this? No. And the Hitler wanted the Czech Republic because there were some apparent Germans there also being “prosecuted.” The Czechs weren’t so easy and Hitler had to invade, but he got it. Again, no one did anything. Against all advice from his advisors, Hitler wanted Poland. He invaded and finally forced France and England’s hand, opening up WWII.

Are we seeing how dictators operate? They victimize themselves and the faction (usually ethnic faction) they represent and then push the boundaries and get away with as much as possible until they force the hand of other powers and then war and disaster follow. This is what happened and this book is the story before it all blew up. I’m not going to lead the witness here but this crap is going on right now all over the world. Pretty obvious especially when you read books like this. But are modern day neo fascists Nazis? Unless they specifically call for the superiority of the German Aryan race, then they’re not Nazis because that was the Nazi bottom line. Can someone still be fascist and not a Nazi? Sure. Just read the news and you’ll find them.

[Lewis Weinstein · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am reading parts of this book whenever the history converges with the plot as I write the sequel to my recently published novel A Flood of Evil. It is excellent.

[Marks54 · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the second part of trilogy by Richard Evans - a biography of the Nazi state. This volume covers the seizure and consolidation of power by the Nazis from the beginning of 1933 until the "Night of the Long Knives" when the SA was purged and through the remilitarization of Germany and the beginnings of the anti-Jewish activities, the beginnings of the final solution, and the final diplomacy leading up to the beginning of WW2 in September 1939. The story is well known but Evans brings a wealth of detail and is really good on establishing continuities within the Nazi regime. For example, his discussion of Nazi policies towards education and especially higher education (hint - not very supportive) were new to me. This book is very well written, hard to put down (strange for a 600 page book) and extremely engaging, even though I am well versed in the topic. Highly recommended.

[Ángel Real · Rating 5 out of 5]

Verdadera delicia.
Riguroso, ameno y muy objetivo.
Una joya, y hay tres!

[Mimi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading this book for the last five months gave me this weird feeling like I'd lived through these events before, but I have never even been to Germany, let alone Germany during this specific period in time.

[Bettie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This describes Nazi Germany during the so-called "peacetime" period, picking up where the first volume left off, and going all the way up to the start of World War II in 1939.


BLURB:The second work in a planned three-volume series (after 2004's Coming of the Third Reich) this book starts with the Nazis' complete assumption of power and creation of a one-party state in 1933, and goes to September 1939 and the beginning of World War II. In sharp detail, Evans shows how Hitler seized upon his political victory and immediately began his plan for the Nazi infiltration of every aspect of German society. The Nazi propaganda blitz covered everything from local councils to social clubs to all voluntary associations. And when propaganda didn't work, coercion and fear did. At the behest of Hitler, the brownshirts and SS (secret police) ruthlessly harassed, beat, and murdered the Jews and Communists first, but later targeted anyone who showed even the slightest criticism of Nazi activities. Those Germans who disapproved of the Nazis were mainly confined to acts of passive resistance to Hitler's totalitarian rule. Nationalism proved to be the one issue capable of galvanizing the nation, as the Nazis' growing power helped to erase the shame and humiliation of the Treaty of Versailles that closed World War I.

Over the course of the book, Evans shows how everything Hitler did in this period was designed to prepare the nation for a war--"a life and death struggle"--whose aim was less geographical conquest than racial purity. Hitler's main objective was "to remould the minds, spirits and bodies of the German people to make them capable and worthy of the role of the new master-race that awaited them." Though Hitler did not work alone, Evans makes it clear that he was the overwhelming driving force behind it all, including policies regarding education, eugenics, and foreign affairs. Well written and logically organized, The Third Reich in Power is an impressive work of meticulous, readable history.


4* The Coming of the Third Reich
4* The Third Reich in Power
TR The Third Reich at War

TBE Busting 2013

[AC · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a bit harder to read (though it reads well) than vol. I -- largely because of its subject matter which, until the final chapter, necessarily takes a topical approach -- and because so much of the specifics of fascist and nazi social organization (such as the educational organization, the Italian's dopolavoro and Germany's Kraft durch Freude, social policy, etc. etc.) offers this reader (at least) the picture of a vast and squalid tedium. For all that, there of much of great interest, pertinent and fascinating aperçus and insights scattered throughout; he treatment of the economic material is intelligent and, indeed, quite masterful -- something quite rare in a political historian....;

The final chapter -- on the march to war (Anschluss, Munich, Poland) -- is brief and presupposes some knowledge, but is a superb synthesis.

In general, Evans is so thoroughly steeped in the archival material and in the secondary literature in German, that he is invulnerable to the trivialities that infect so much recent American scholarship on this period. At the same time, he is a liberal (unlike Niall Ferguson) and somehow managed to extricate himself from the smug self-satisfaction and intellectual world-weariness that infects so much of Oxbridge -- esp. in my own field.

If one can skim through the sections that might otherwise bog this or that particular reader down -- the march will be well-rewarded.

[Paula Fialho Silva · Rating 5 out of 5]

A minha opinião: https://youtu.be/ngOlvxwn2QE?si=hs2Ck...

[Kev · Rating 5 out of 5]

As someone who studied this particular period in college (with a special interest not only in the entire region but in the early years and later years of the Third Reich), this was excellent! Will start book 3 soon!

[Julian Douglass · Rating 4 out of 5]

If I could give this book 4.5 stars, I would. The reason for me not giving this wonderful piece of History 5 stars is because I am a huge fan of linear history and not thematic history. To me, thematic history seems like everything is all over the place and important information might be glossed over in one section, but then explained in greater detail in another. While that is fine for some, I tend to look up information as I read along, and then want to find out more of what the author has to say in the book about the subject, which can then take time away from enjoying the book in its entirety. Also, this book doesn't capture the horror that is the Third Reich like it did in the other book. The hair is raised a bit in the last two chapters, but otherwise, it fails to give that shock factor The Coming of the Third Reich did. Despite all of my criticisms, this is a well detailed book that again, gets to dive deeper into the regime than the standard World War II history book. Mr. Evans does his homework well and gives the facts and figures a personal touch, which makes history seem less like an academic exercise and more of a story. Read this, the book doesn't jump around as badly as Fredrick Brown's history of the French Third Republic, but it is still annoying to me.

[Lazarus P Badpenny Esq · Rating 5 out of 5]

"...by 1938 it had become clear that the neglect of intellectual abilities was causing serious problems, since a large proportion of the pupils could not grasp even the fairly basic political ideas that the teachers were trying to transmit to them."

Is anti-intellectualism the designed obsolescence of totalitarianism?

"At the Belgian border crossing, huge numbers of rabbits appear one day and declare that they are political refugees. "The Gestapo wants to arrest all giraffes as enemies of the state." - "But you're not Giraffes!" - "We know that, but try explaining that to the Gestapo!""

Erm, considering the achievement, is it churlish to point out that it could have been better copy-edited?

[James Murphy · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Third Reich in Power is the 2d volume of Richard J. Evans's comprehensive trilogy detailing the history of Nazi Germany. To say that this volume of 826 pages of text and notes covers only 6 years--1933 to 1939--gives you some idea of how thorough this history is. This volume has to concern itself with how the new Nazi government solidified its philosophical dominance over the German people, the many steps taken toward rearmament, and, late in the decade, the political maneuvering which brought about the incorporation of Austria and Czechoslovakia while leaving France and Britain diplomatically helpless. As we know, Hitler's next move, into Poland, precipitated World War II.

It's a familiar history. Less familiar but equally fascinating is Evans's social history of Nazism during the 1930s. In the long central section, which is flanked by the propaganda-fueled takeover of national will in the early chapters and the diplomatic maneuvering in the final chapters as Hitler moved toward war, Evans writes at length about the impact of Nazism on the German social structure. The disenfranchisement of the Jews is familiar, as well, and is well told here. But I knew nothing about Nazi policies regarding such areas as education, religion, labor, and the arts, all extensively dealt with.

Because of countless films, newsreels and photographic records, Nazi Germany is visually familiar to us. So is our perceptions of German attitudes toward ethnic groups, their willingness to go to war to right wrongs they felt had been unjustly levied against them by the Treaty of Versailles, their devotion to Hitler, and the penchant for Nazi organizations to resort to violence in pursuit of goals. We've all seen images of adoring crowds lining the streets, everyone waving a swastikaed flag. We're familiar with pictures of formations of uniformed organizations, young and old and of both genders, listening amid a forest of flags to a frantically lecturing Hitler, and we've all seen scenes of masses of people extending the Nazi salute. We've all been horrified at the brutality with which Jews were treated as the Nazis encouraged violence against them, stole their property, and hounded them out of the country. Evans's history makes it clear that the perceptions of Nazism which have come down to us via popular culture and historical accounts depicting Nazi actions and attitudes, in fact the whole Nazi era, are without exaggeration. As Evans convincingly shows, those years in Germany were everything we'd been told. This is a riveting, engaging account. Once you enter these 6 years of German history under the Nazis, you'll be spellbound.

[Sarah Finch · Rating 5 out of 5]

Meticulously researched and lucidly presented, the second installment in Richard J. Evans' Third Reich trilogy (following "The Coming of the Third Reich") is a rigorous tour of life under the Reich up to the end of 1939. This is not for those readers who lack prior knowledge of the Third Reich or the political landscape of Europe following the Treaty of Versailles, and it should optimally be read only after reading "The Coming of the Third Reich." That said, for those readers unintimidated by its dense, dry nature, Evans covers topics both large and small with a judicious but hardly dispassionate hand. One of his most interesting decisions is to reserve the bulk of his scholarship on the treatment of Jews for the last sections of the book when that is arguably the first thing one might think of when considering Hitler's rule of Germany. But, like almost all of his choices in composing this impressive work, it is a decision that ultimately works. Instead of presenting the most famous horrors of pre-WWII Germany up front, Evans instead slowly churns up indignation and disbelief on the part of the reader on other fronts, so that by the time one reaches the chapters on anti-semitism, its context within the greater framework of the nation is clearly delineated.

[Perato · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thematic look into the German Reich in 1933-1939.

This book continues Evan's trilogy and looks more deeper into the German Reich in the Nazi era. 6 years isn't that much of history, but when explaining these years, the pages soon run out and one feels like there wasn't enough pages to cover everything properly. With thematic approach one gets a good look into many aspects of the life in Germany in 1930's but Evan's somewhat fails to paint a picture of flowing time. It would've been more helpful to emphasize even more that some events happened simultaneously, since something that was mentioned maybe 300 pages back, isn't necessarily fresh in memory. Also Evan's likes to have good maps, but seems to avoid any sort of tables that would've in my opinion helped in understanding better than a map with different size pie diagrams.

The book is not necessarily the best book to have on the shelf if you want one book to refer to, but it's a good book nonetheless.

[Bookmarks Magazine]

Fans of William Shirer's classic Rise and Fall of the Third Reich might be disappointed by Cambridge historian Richard J. Evans's ongoing history of Nazi power. This second volume is not a gripping yarn of Hitler's cult of personality but an evenhanded, intensively researched, synthesized history. That said, it's no stuffy academic tome; the New York Times Book Review dubs Evans an "Heir to a British tradition of dons who write engagingly for a broad public." A few reviewers take aesthetic umbrage at the author's use of English words for well-known German terms like F

[Mohamed al-Jamri · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very detailed. Quite interesting in the beginning and end, but the middle part is just boring with the huge amount of detail given to each facet of life during the Third Reich.

[David Veitch · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book which blends analysis and first hand accounts to describe Germany in the 1930s. Chapters relatively self contained and touch on different themes (one about the arts is very interesting). Written in a very accessible style. Highly recommend for anyone interested in WW2 history.

[Fontine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rich in detail to its detriment and its benefit. When discussing The Third Reich's impact on art, he referenced innumerable people, without introduction, as if they were household names. Overall, though, I found this to be the best representation and explanation of how Germany found itself in the clutches of an ideology.

[Maureen · Rating 5 out of 5]

The second book in a trilogy has a hard job to fulfill: it delineates most of the "meat and bones" of its subject matter, without either the newness and excitement of the introductory volume, or the anticipation of a satisfactory conclusion, waiting to be experienced in the third. That being said, this book is indispensable to understanding how in six and a half short years, Hitler and his associates were able to transform Germany from an economically ravaged, morally, emotionally and physically depleted country to a mostly revitalized economy capable of invading Saarland, Malme, Austria and Czechoslovakia before the French and the British took any substantive action.

I found this book to be mind-blowing for a number reasons: first, it lays out in detail that even before the Reichstag fire in 1933, Hitler, along with Goring, Goebbels and a handful of others, had a plan for world domination that was driven by Hitler's absolute certainty that he was invincible. While this certainly was not the case, there was virtually no opposition to his quest for power in the early days. In part, this was because within Germany's borders opposition was met with vicious physical force. Also, while other countries sought to rebuild their economies based upon an assumption of peace, Hitler immediately made Germany's rearmament his number one priority upon gaining the Chancellorship.

Equally disturbing is the lengths the Third Reich went to to insinuate itself into every single facet of German life. Not satisfied with mere politics, it invaded the community clubs and organizations that were central to German society. It also took over not just the newspapers, but all forms of media, including art, music, architecture, film, and probably most important, radio. A great deal of emphasis was attached to the children of the Reich: from the earliest age onward, they were conditioned to be obedient to Hitler. Their and their parents' free time was organized, their teachers had to teach the Nazi curriculum, the textbooks were "Aryanized", and critical thought was punished all the way through university. As Hitler took a tighter and tighter hold over the reins, churches in general and the Catholic Church in particular caved in to Nazi demands. The Catholic Church literally made a deal with the devil.

Evans is particularly good at placing events in context: in 1933 or 1934, for example, the lengths that Hitler was willing to go to to fulfill his so-called destiny would not have been clear. His public statements emphasized peace, while behind the scenes he instructed his subordinates to raise hell. Nowhere is the clearer than in the lead up to the Olympic Games in 1936, where anti-Jewish signs were taken down, and The Stormer, the most extreme Nazi newspaper, suspended publication until the tourists left. As soon the Olympics departed, Hitler unleashed his forces against the Jews, beginning with Kristallnacht, or The Night of Broken Glass, when Jewish homes and storefronts were destroyed, looted, and set on fire by the Brownshirts and their confederates, and thousands of Jews were arrested and many were ultimately sent to concentration camps. Every synagogue in Germany was destroyed. Although there had been many actions against the Jews before this, Kristallnacht was a turning point and marked the moment in time when the Third Reich laid bare its plan for their eradication. Many Jews tried to emigrate to other countries, but due to bureaucratic red tape or insufficient funds, many were unable to leave. Adolph Eichmann began his rise to prominence when he streamlined the emigration procedures in Austria, using the suggestions of a Jewish prisoner who was also an attorney.

Even with all of this, the onset of WWII was not welcomed whole-heartedly by the German people. Hitler had the machinery in place to proceed with his plan for world domination, but he also had massive challenges to overcome. Evans lays out this panoramic history in an accessible way. While never losing sight of the bigger picture, Evans uses everything from diary entries of a German schoolgirl to William Shirer's firsthand reporting within sight of Hitler, and enormous amounts of research and documentation to support the most unbiased and comprehensive history of the Third Reich ever written. It is the only one you ever need to read.

Very highly recommended, indeed.