What do you think?
Rate this book
Nazi Terror: The Gestapo, Jews, and Ordinary Germans
Nazi Terror tackles the central aspect of the Nazi dictatorship head on by focusing on the roles of the individual and of society in making terror work. Based on years of research in Gestapo archives, on more than 1,100 Gestapo and "special court" case files, and on surveys and interviews with German perpetrators, Jewish victims and ordinary Germans who experienced the Third Reich firsthand, Johnson's book settles many nagging questions about who, exactly, was responsible for what, who knew what, and when they knew it. Nazi Terror is the most fine-grained portrait we may ever have of the mechanism of terror in a dictatorship.
664 pages, Paperback
First published January 6, 2000
12 people are currently reading
337 people want to read
About the author
Eric A. Johnson
16 books12 followersEric Johnson joined the CMU faculty in 1976 after studying at Brown and Stockholm Universities and receiving his Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania. Over the years he has taught a wide array of courses, primarily focused on modern Europe, Germany, the Holocaust, and social science methods and approaches to historical study. He has held several visiting professorships of various lengths. As part of the CMU exchange with Strathclyde University he spent the 1988-1989 academic year teaching in Glasgow, Scotland. Between 1989 and 1995 he was a visiting professor at the Center for Historical Social Research at the University of Cologne, mostly leading a small research team working on terror in Nazi Germany. From 1995-1996 he was in residence writing and researching primarily at Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study, and he held a similar appointment at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in 1998-1999.
Professor Johnson's research interests dovetail considerably with his teaching. In the first years of his career he concentrated primarily on the history of crime and urbanization and justice. In the last couple of decades he has written primarily on Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. Presently he is working on American and Allied prisoners, especially pilots, in WWII and completing a personal account of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the re-unification of Germany.
Professor Johnson's research interests dovetail considerably with his teaching. In the first years of his career he concentrated primarily on the history of crime and urbanization and justice. In the last couple of decades he has written primarily on Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. Presently he is working on American and Allied prisoners, especially pilots, in WWII and completing a personal account of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the re-unification of Germany.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
May 28, 2016
Confused research, poorly organized, poorly written.
December 31, 2024
When I read this book I wasn't surprised about its main thesis. It is a well-known fact that even the most dictatorial of governments manage to hang on to power only by judiciously dosing out the terror they choose to inflict. A regime that descends into an orgy of blood-letting against its own citizens, such as Pol Pot's Cambodia, or Idi Amin's Uganda or Macias Nguema's Equatorial Guinea can only become undone. It is also a well-known fact that most people have no strong views about events that don't affect them personally, and are willing to give significant leeway to the authorities provided they feel that they feel they are improving their own lot even if it comes at the price of persecutions against widely disliked miscreants such as Communist agitators, turbulent priests, religious sectarians (such as Jehova's Witnesses), homosexuals and Jews.
In this book, Johnson analyses the Gestapo's modus operandi throughout the Third Reich. He uses a medium-sized city and the surrounding small towns and countryside to paint a picture of the whole country. He reviews the files for several typical crimes, such as listening to foreign radio broadcasts or criticising government policies or Nazi bigwigs. He also follows the career of the Gestapo officials in the region from the beginning to the end of the Third Reich. He concludes that most Gestapo officials were typical policemen, and many in fact had careers that dated to Weimar Republic and even Imperial times, that there weren't too many of them (contrary to popular belief, the Gestapo was not omnipresent and rarely acted unless called in by interested parties) and that, up to the end of the war, most people were left alone even when they violated the laws. Only targeted groups, such as those mentioned above, were persecuted mercilessly. In his interviews he concludes that most Germans did not fear the police, and in fact rarely came in contact with them at all. The ubiquitous informants that most of us associate with Nazi Germany never existed (they would become very real in the post-war German Democratic Republic), and such accusations, when they came up, were frequently disregarded by the Gestapo, who were aware that the denouncers were often disgruntled relatives or former friends of the accused, out for revenge. In short, the Gestapo were not a band of sadists and thugs, but a very professional tool in the hands of a ruthless government. Something that comes across very clear is that the type of person who went into the Gestapo was not politically motivated, but merely a more or less efficient follower of orders. Which is not to say that persecuted minorities had no reason to fear for their life and property. It is just to mean that an unusually orderly, law-abiding populace had usually no reasons to worry about this risk. The persecutorial madness actually came to happen in the last winter of the War, when the Gestapo seems to have gone berserk and dedicated itself to random imprisonment and torture, often of a vile nature. In Johnson's story there was even the obligatory B-movie sadistical female guard who organised orgies with unwilling prisoners, whom she killed by the score. The real nature of the regime, and its deep nihilism were exposed in its final throes. In the small corner of Germany covered by Johnson we see some of the horrible dispair and collapse of everything human that comes across so vividly in Beevor's "The Fall of Berlin 1945" and Trevor-Roper's "The Last Days of Hitler" (Joachim Fest has recently written a book on the subject "Der Untergang", but it hasn't yet been translated into English). Of great interest is finding out what happened to the Gestapo members after the War. According to Johnson most of them were purged from the police force, and a few were blacklisted from government employment, but most were quickly cleared of any wrongdoing, and a few went back to their old jobs (one hopes, having learned a few lessons-but maybe not). Most of them had no trouble producing character witnesses, including many from persecuted groups themselves. This is not surprising, given that authorities often spared some while persecuting others of the same group, and it would be hard to find someone who never helped anyone.
Having read the book didn't change my views on the matter of the larger German public's responsibility for the Third Reich and the Holocaust. As Johnson shows, most people were remarkably free to gain information and disseminate it, and in several occasions were able to change government policies through organised protests (such as those against deportation or Mischlinge relatives of German citizens or forced euthanasia). The view that Germans were cowed by a totalitarian power that would have destroyed anyone daring to lift his or her voice is a fantasy. One thing I took from the book was new admiration for unlikely figures of sympathy: the Jehova's Witnesses. I formerly saw these sectarians as somewhat comical figures doggedly pursuing the uninterested with their tedious "Watchtower" journal. I now respect them. They had a power of resistance in the face of annihilation that is deeply respectable. In spite of the hopelessness of their task, they never surrendered, and bit the hand that strangled them. When we see misfits such as Muslims or vagrants being mistreated or persecuted, let us never forget Pastor Martin Niemöller's famous lines:
First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out - because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the communists
and I did not speak out - because I was not a communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out - because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me -
and by then there was no one left to speak out for me.
In this book, Johnson analyses the Gestapo's modus operandi throughout the Third Reich. He uses a medium-sized city and the surrounding small towns and countryside to paint a picture of the whole country. He reviews the files for several typical crimes, such as listening to foreign radio broadcasts or criticising government policies or Nazi bigwigs. He also follows the career of the Gestapo officials in the region from the beginning to the end of the Third Reich. He concludes that most Gestapo officials were typical policemen, and many in fact had careers that dated to Weimar Republic and even Imperial times, that there weren't too many of them (contrary to popular belief, the Gestapo was not omnipresent and rarely acted unless called in by interested parties) and that, up to the end of the war, most people were left alone even when they violated the laws. Only targeted groups, such as those mentioned above, were persecuted mercilessly. In his interviews he concludes that most Germans did not fear the police, and in fact rarely came in contact with them at all. The ubiquitous informants that most of us associate with Nazi Germany never existed (they would become very real in the post-war German Democratic Republic), and such accusations, when they came up, were frequently disregarded by the Gestapo, who were aware that the denouncers were often disgruntled relatives or former friends of the accused, out for revenge. In short, the Gestapo were not a band of sadists and thugs, but a very professional tool in the hands of a ruthless government. Something that comes across very clear is that the type of person who went into the Gestapo was not politically motivated, but merely a more or less efficient follower of orders. Which is not to say that persecuted minorities had no reason to fear for their life and property. It is just to mean that an unusually orderly, law-abiding populace had usually no reasons to worry about this risk. The persecutorial madness actually came to happen in the last winter of the War, when the Gestapo seems to have gone berserk and dedicated itself to random imprisonment and torture, often of a vile nature. In Johnson's story there was even the obligatory B-movie sadistical female guard who organised orgies with unwilling prisoners, whom she killed by the score. The real nature of the regime, and its deep nihilism were exposed in its final throes. In the small corner of Germany covered by Johnson we see some of the horrible dispair and collapse of everything human that comes across so vividly in Beevor's "The Fall of Berlin 1945" and Trevor-Roper's "The Last Days of Hitler" (Joachim Fest has recently written a book on the subject "Der Untergang", but it hasn't yet been translated into English). Of great interest is finding out what happened to the Gestapo members after the War. According to Johnson most of them were purged from the police force, and a few were blacklisted from government employment, but most were quickly cleared of any wrongdoing, and a few went back to their old jobs (one hopes, having learned a few lessons-but maybe not). Most of them had no trouble producing character witnesses, including many from persecuted groups themselves. This is not surprising, given that authorities often spared some while persecuting others of the same group, and it would be hard to find someone who never helped anyone.
Having read the book didn't change my views on the matter of the larger German public's responsibility for the Third Reich and the Holocaust. As Johnson shows, most people were remarkably free to gain information and disseminate it, and in several occasions were able to change government policies through organised protests (such as those against deportation or Mischlinge relatives of German citizens or forced euthanasia). The view that Germans were cowed by a totalitarian power that would have destroyed anyone daring to lift his or her voice is a fantasy. One thing I took from the book was new admiration for unlikely figures of sympathy: the Jehova's Witnesses. I formerly saw these sectarians as somewhat comical figures doggedly pursuing the uninterested with their tedious "Watchtower" journal. I now respect them. They had a power of resistance in the face of annihilation that is deeply respectable. In spite of the hopelessness of their task, they never surrendered, and bit the hand that strangled them. When we see misfits such as Muslims or vagrants being mistreated or persecuted, let us never forget Pastor Martin Niemöller's famous lines:
First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out - because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the communists
and I did not speak out - because I was not a communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out - because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me -
and by then there was no one left to speak out for me.
January 14, 2020
An interesting book about the Gestapo and the extent to which the Third Reich was a police state: whether ordinary people going about their daily lives would've felt under threat of Terror or if you had to fall into one of (many) categories deemed Enemies of the State, i.e Jews, Communists, homosexuals. We have the notion, perpetuated in countless films, TV series and books, of an all-seeing, all-powerful secret police, of a people living cowed and afraid of being informed upon for the slightest indiscretion, casual word or incautious deed. Johnson exposes the reality behind that myth and it's fascinating. However the writing is dull, repetitive, and does little favours to the important information he wants to impart. More of a flaw is how much he extrapolates from what is a small sample of records from a particular city, Cologne, and a few individuals. So I'm not sure overall what to think.
June 10, 2008
A case study of the subject title. Rigorous, yet readable, horrible and occasionally comical (believe it or not), an inside story on what the Gestapo really did. Clue: Don't believe the films.
January 15, 2021
A sobering approach to an analysis of everyday Germans under the Third Reach gives a glimpse into an understanding of psychology and the nature of evil itself.
October 18, 2022
A detailed book about life in Nazi germany for many different groups before and after the war started. The author makes a strong contention that the full weight of the nazi terror apparatus was focused on communists and socialists in the earlier years of the reich and once the legitimate opposition to the nazi party was dealt with then more legalistic attacks against Jews were commenced. While the early years saw many attacks by the SA and brown shirts and harsh pogroms against Jews, the nazi party was concerned with their public image and made attempts to hide their overt Anti semitic violence behind legalism and made harsher laws to more easily criminalize Jews. Jews were forced to sell their possessions, wear gold stars, and change their middle names to Israel or Sara to identify themselves. The author also makes a strong contention that the holocaust was well known by many members of German society since they could listen in on the BBC radio broadcasts which aired out the nazi crimes or they could hear it from one of the millions of participants in the holocaust. People who lived in cities near Auschwitz could see the tall smoke that came from burning of human flesh, Nazi SS guards told Jewish citizens that they wouldn’t return from their deportations to the east and would tell family members what they had witnessed, many elderly or retired police officers would join divisions of human hunters on the eastern front and go to Poland or Russia to hunt and kill Jews and communists. It would be impossible to keep this mass killing from the broad German population. This silence was also key to the mass deaths occurring bc there was evidence that the nazi party had to be partly receptive to the population. When a protest in Berlin broke out amongst the non-Jewish wives of Jewish men, goebbels decided to release the Jewish husbands rather than risk a larger protest against the regime since this was a time when many women were entering the workforce and the war was going particularly bad in 1943. The Jews who were married to non Jews were the majority of the Jewish people who were left in Germany after the major deportations
June 23, 2020
A very enlightening study that is particularly interesting in terms of churches response and lack of response against Nazism. Johnson makes a convincing case that the Gestapo was not all powerful, but that they certainly had much power and influence when needed, particularly against the groups the regime viewed as enemies. Furthermore, he also argues that denunciations within families were fairly rare, but that does not make the German people without blame. In some ways, the tendency to lay guilt of the German people is a bit strong at times. As an historian Johnson is rather quick to judge. A further interesting point is how ordinary Germans very rarely were affected by the Gestapo or nazi crimes. Jews and communists on the other hand most likely would have been affected by it. That is not to say that one would not have known about what was going on, only that it was unlikely to affect you if you were an "ordinary German".
May 1, 2018
A rather lengthy book which delves into the role of ordinary and the not so ordinary Germans who where present during the days of the Nazi regime. There is a lot to take in here and a lot of qualitative research material has gone into this. There is a particularly good piece on the Cologne Gestapo and the men who ran the Jewish desk who organised the deportations to the East.
I would say this is worth reading but there is a lot of information here and his thesis can be a bit confusing at times but I still learnt a fair amount. The main thing that the author shows is that for a normal German during the Nazi era a fair amount of leeway was allowed when it came to minor crimes i.e. listening to the BBC, telling Hitler jokes etc. while for those who had a criminal record, politically on the wrong side or who were not seen as part of the Volksgemeinschaft there was a great deal to fear.
I would say this is worth reading but there is a lot of information here and his thesis can be a bit confusing at times but I still learnt a fair amount. The main thing that the author shows is that for a normal German during the Nazi era a fair amount of leeway was allowed when it came to minor crimes i.e. listening to the BBC, telling Hitler jokes etc. while for those who had a criminal record, politically on the wrong side or who were not seen as part of the Volksgemeinschaft there was a great deal to fear.
August 6, 2011
Good book. Johnson makes a strong case that while there were many levels of participation and guilt in the execution of the Holocaust, ordinary Germans share a level of guilt in their silence and lack of action to stop the madness. The terror that many associate with the state of Germany during this time period was not really experienced or felt by the majority of ordinary Germans thus not a factor in scaring them into compliance. The terror of the Nazi regime was on the other hand felt in extremes in the early years by Communists, physically disabled, Catholics, Jehovah Witnesses and homosexuals. Of course this terror was shifted almost entirely to the Jewish people prior to WWII and escalated dramatically during the cover of war.
Read
June 5, 2016Nazi Terror tackles the central aspect of the Nazi dictatorship head on by focusing on the roles of the individual and of society in making terror work. Based on years of research in Gestapo archives, on more than 1,100 Gestapo and "special court" case files, and on surveys and interviews with German perpetrators, Jewish victims and ordinary Germans who experienced the Third Reich firsthand, Johnson's book settles many nagging questions about who, exactly, was responsible for what, who knew what, and when they knew it. Nazi Terror is the most fine-grained portrait we may ever have of the mechanism of terror in a dictatorship.
April 29, 2018
Johnson lived in Germany for 5 years, researching Gestapo records in the area around Cologne,
surveying Germans who were from the area at the time, and interviewing some. The book is divided into sections concerning different groups from the 30's and the war period who came into contact with the gestapo, from Communists and labor organizers, through the Church, Jews, and "ordinary" German citizens. He provides much information about figures in the Gestapo police and examines the records of their petitions to be denazified and returned to their jobs after the war. Excellent, informative book that supports its findings with data.
surveying Germans who were from the area at the time, and interviewing some. The book is divided into sections concerning different groups from the 30's and the war period who came into contact with the gestapo, from Communists and labor organizers, through the Church, Jews, and "ordinary" German citizens. He provides much information about figures in the Gestapo police and examines the records of their petitions to be denazified and returned to their jobs after the war. Excellent, informative book that supports its findings with data.
May 22, 2015
The author digs into the history to debunk some mid held beliefs about the Nazi's and the culpability of the average German in the horrors of their reign. The Gestapo was a small controlling group built on top of fellow citizens denouncing of neighbors and family members. I never knew about the Jehovah witnesses being a targeted group.
June 21, 2018
First published in the year 2000, this book feels a bit dated today, and the author perhaps over-extrapolates certain statistics from the sample of Gestapo records that he has examined. Nevertheless, it's a good overview of the role of "ordinary Germans" -- those citizens who were neither Jewish nor political enemies or other undesirables -- during the Nazi era. In particular, it emphasizes that most Germans a) were not directly involved in the atrocities of the Holocaust, b) were in no real danger of Nazi persecution, even when breaking the law to critique the government or listen to foreign radio broadcasts, and c) were to some degree aware of what was being done to their Jewish compatriots. The narrative could have been tightened up, but in total it's a chilling look at how complacency in a country's majority can empower an abusive minority.
September 13, 2025
Probably more like 3.5 stars for me. Balances historiography quite well and argues the point of German complicity well and in the contexts of Ordinary Men and Willing Executioners. However, it also heavily leans on the micro histories conducted in Krefeld and Cologne. It can zoom in and out of these perspectives without much regard for linear storytelling, making it a harder read.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
5 - Masterpiece: An exceptional work of art, with little to no flaws; a book that stays with you long after you've finished.
4 - Great: A compelling and memorable read, deserving a place on your shelf despite a few minor flaws.
3 - Good: A solid and enjoyable book, but nothing extraordinary; likely to be forgotten over time.
2 - Okay: Readable, but ultimately lacks depth or fails to leave a lasting impression.
1 - Terrible: A frustrating or unenjoyable experience; not worth your time.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
5 - Masterpiece: An exceptional work of art, with little to no flaws; a book that stays with you long after you've finished.
4 - Great: A compelling and memorable read, deserving a place on your shelf despite a few minor flaws.
3 - Good: A solid and enjoyable book, but nothing extraordinary; likely to be forgotten over time.
2 - Okay: Readable, but ultimately lacks depth or fails to leave a lasting impression.
1 - Terrible: A frustrating or unenjoyable experience; not worth your time.
September 11, 2019
Further emphasizes the painful reality that what happened in Germany and Europe then could easily happen here in North America to other groups (or has, really, in the case of indigenous peoples), that the institutions and political and governmental structures people presume will safeguard human rights are not by themselves capable of withstanding a concerted effort to undermine or exclude legally excised groups from them.
July 26, 2022
This book is very detailed. Nevertheless it describes things I had no idea actually took place. Without getting into too much details, the Church all knowing was crazy to me.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Read
December 20, 2022Interesting book for my Nazi Germany Coursework. Hopefully this helps me get A* for A-Level History.
Want to read
March 22, 2024___________________________________
FROM BOOK: La zona d'interesse (Martin Amis)
FROM BOOK: La zona d'interesse (Martin Amis)
April 16, 2025
interessantissimo saggio sul terrore nazista. Come la Gestapo operava prima e durante la seconda guerra mondiale e come tantissimi criminali nazisti sono riusciti a farla franca.
July 26, 2025
Exhaustive study of the relationship between the Gestapo and "ordinary Germans" in two cities: Cologne and Krefeld. Also discusses the role of low level Gestapo personnel in the Holocaust. A complex portrait, and a pretty ugly one, especially with regard to the Gestapo's treatment of the Jews.
June 5, 2009
The crowing claim of the dust jacket's review to have made "a complete hash" of Jonah Goldhagen's thesis is somewhat undermined by the book's messy organization and contradictory accounts. The bulk of 500-odd pages does nothing to convince the reader that ordinary Germans are extraordinarily culpable for the Holocaust; indeed, the most compelling evidence is a few charts provided at the outset. Far too reliant on personal anecdote (some of which seemed to disprove the thesis), this book is valuable mainly as a mere record of events and not a convincing exposition of a stated theory.
May 6, 2015
I actually started this book some time ago, so I didn't really read all 500-ish pages today! It was repetitive and had too many numbers in it (statistics about percentages who aided, didn't aid, were accused by the Nazis, etc.). The basic premise is that most Germans knew about the Holocaust and didn't try to stop it; they had opportunities to do so and chose not to. The book certainly proves that fact.
February 20, 2014
It's always hard to say whether I enjoyed reading a book about Nazi Germany and their treatment of the Jewish people. I can say that I found this book enlightening and educational. At times it reads like a college text book, but I had to look past that and to focus on the main gist of the book. Also, as a CMU Alumni I liked the fact this is written by a CMU History Prof.
October 7, 2011
Incredible research, difficult topic (obvi), well worth reading.
Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews