Customer Reviews

The 12-year Reich: A Social History Of Nazi Germany 1933-1945

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I first read this book in 1975 as a 15 year old and have re read it again recently. It is an absolutley superb piece of work. It covers this period of German history in a detached and methodical manner. Grunberger explores all facets of the regime, giving the reader a unique insight into how the Nazi machine permeated all levels of German society. I may be slightly biased in my review, as Richard Grunberger taught me history at school in the 70's. He was as good a teacher as he is a historian and cultivated in me a life long interest in politics and history. I also suggest you read one of his other books, Red Rising in Bavaria

Note: This is the same book as "A Social History of the Third Reich" just a different title.

The inner workings of the Third Reich's Machine, unbiased and to the point. It covers all areas of humanities inside the NS Nation-State.

This and "The Rise And Fall Of The Third Reich" by William L. Shirer are the two books to have on understanding National Socialist Germany.

An excellent analysis of the Nazi era, that uses real-life people and such off-beat topics as Humor. It also explains very well and succinctly about the way people lived under the Nazis. The section on Business was appreciated as well since not many in-print books explain about the effect of the 1933 seizure of power on the Business. However it would be better if there was more in relation to the Jews.

I picked up a copy of this book in a used bookstore some years ago, and it's not too bad. The best part of the book is the chapter on humor in the Third Reich, sometimes the other thousands of books on this topic seem to forget that real people lived their lives during this time, and those lives included the occasional joke about the government. Of course, joking about the Nazi government was not advisable, and the chapter discusses that aspect as well.

The book is filled with information about what it was like to live as an ordinary citizen of the Third Reich. There is a small collection of photographs as well. Curiously, it leaves any discussion of the Jews until the last chapter.

Because my father was a Holocaust survivor, most of what I have read about Nazi Germany relates to the Holocaust. This book, by contrast, focuses on the experiences of ordinary, non-Jewish Germans. A few points:

*The Nazis' popularity arose in part from their economic success: they reduced the number of unemployed from 6 million in 1933 to 1 million in 1938.

*One reason for the Wehrmacht's high morale was the regime's cosseting not just of the brass hats, but of the enlisted men: for example, the government sought to lavishly entertain them, and gave them 50% more calories than the ordinary German.

*The Nazis' social policies were "conservative" (by modern standards) in some ways and "liberal" in others: on the one hand, they oppressed homosexuals, sought to encourage a baby boom through propaganda and subsidies to childbirth, generally prohibited abortions (imprisoning abortionists for about six to fifteen years) in order to encourage childbirth, and attacked feminism both through propaganda and by excluding women from high-level professional, Party and academic positions (and by using quotas to limit their admissions to universities). On the other hand, the Nazis were so desirous of creating more little Nazis that they were not particularly hostile to out-of-wedlock liasons as long as they produced children.

*On a more trivial note, this book answers Jerry Seinfeld's question about when one could use the full "stiff-arm" Hitler salute, as opposed to the more casual "palm-up" salute: the formal salute is given to social inferiors, the latter to people on your own level.

The only thing I didn't like was that this book sometimes assumed a little too much knowledge: for example, referring to the Nazis' "autarchy" policy without explaining it.

I live overseas and this shipment arrived quickly and the book was in excelent condotion.

The nazis, at the moment of imposing a ferrous submission to the citizens created a systems without backgrounds in the history. The women were simply a vehicle to bring babies to the world, four at least to obtain the Cross of Iron in the anniversary of Hitler's mother. If you wish to establish racial love affair that meant for the eyes of the Regime against the law.
In this society you could denounce your parents, sisters, brothers, daughter or son if they constituted a serious obstacle to the Regime's health.
But you will find treasured photographs and hard to get documents of this opprobrious age. Grunberger made a careful incision with the scalpel of his talent and passionate documentation work, to reveal us inedited aspects about the social insights through those years.
This text is a must for all those who want to know the details about one of the most terrible periods of the German history and a clear warning for the new generations who still are thinking in elusive dreams about possible answers to a world in crisis.
Jorge Santayana wrote once: "Those who do not know the history are condemned to repeat it"