Alexander Peterhans’s Reviews > Hitler's People: The Faces of the Third Reich > Status Update

‘Mothers and wives . . . made a vital contribution to Nazi power by preserving the illusion of love in an environment of hatred.’

"..Hitler dismissed senior officers and replaced them with more pliant subordinates . When one officer dared to present him with the realities of the situation , giving facts and figures on Soviet war production, which was far outpacing its German counterpart, Hitler, according to Halder, ‘with foam in the corner of his mouth’, screamed that this was ‘idiotic rubbish’."

"At every stage, Hitler went to great lengths to assure Britain, France and the rest of the world that his aim was peace, he had no intention of aggressive actions against other countries, and he was only claiming what was rightfully Germany’s."

Scary stuff, in light of our current Putin situation.

"When members of his regiment took part in the spontaneous, football-playing ‘Christmas truce ’ of December 1914, Hitler refused to join in."

"...people did not, in other words, make decisions as morally autonomous individuals, acting in a vacuum unconstrained by their historical context, but neither were they automata deprived of the power of judgement and just doing what they were told."