The authors here provide a radical examination of the relationship between the Nazi Party and those it sought to seduce and control. There are some historians who argue that the Gestapo regime was a reign of terror that forced German citizens and others to collaborate with the Nazi rulers. Other historians argue that the German people were programmed for genocide by centuries of anti-Semitism. The authors here believe neither view is correct. They argue that to understand how the Holocaust could have happened the reader and historian need to step back into the heart of daily life in the Third Reich. This book draws on contemporary research and declassified documents to show life for the average citizen, and uncovers examples of protest as well as eager complicity. It examines how many really knew about the extermination camps and ask how ideologically driven was the Holocaust? The text illustrates life in Germany and its conquered territories under the Nazi regime, and gives an explanation of how mass murder could be accepted by a supposedly civilized nation.
Adam LeBor is a British author and journalist. He has written seven critically-acclaimed non-fiction works including the best-selling 'Hitler's Secret Bankers', an investigation into Swiss complicity with the Third Reich, which was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize, and 'City of Oranges', the story of six Arab and Jewish families in Jaffa, which was shortlisted for the Jewish Quarterly Wingate Literary Prize.
His most recent non-fiction work, 'The Believers', an investigation into the Madoff fraud, focusing on the psychology and sociology of the $65 billion scam, is published by Weidenfeld and Nicholson. His first novel, 'The Budapest Protocol', a conspiracy thriller inspired by wartime US intelligence documents about the Nazis' secret post-war plans, was published this year to great reviews. Foreign rights to his books have been sold in fourteen countries including America, Japan, France, Spain, Israel, Poland, Hungary and Indonesia.
He writes for The Times of London, the Sunday Times and Monocle magazine and reviews books for The Sunday Times, the Economist, the New York Times and the Jewish Chronicle. He has appeared at the Edinburgh and Bath literary festivals, Jewish Book Week and the Montreal literary festival.
