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Third Reich in Power 1933-1939

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Perhaps the most brilliant aspect of this series is how the 3 volumes (one still coming) are divided up. Volume 1 is a highly readable and thorough account of how the Nazis came to control Germany. It can be read completely standalone as either a pure history of the times or as a cautionary tale of how a democracy can fail. Volume 3 is to cover the war, and I suspect again it will largely stand on its own given how many other books have already been written about that period of German history.

The period covered by this book, Volume 2, is also self-contained: defined by the period after the Nazis seized power but before the arrival of war swept away most other considerations. Of the three, I think this is the period that is the least well-covered...perhaps in many ways it is the least dramatic. Most histories tend to be divided up more into "before the war" and "the war" with the bulk of the first part covering the rise of the Nazis and treating their time in power as merely prelude to the war itself.

Evans covers the usual topics from this period with suitable detail and emphasis: the persecution of the Jews, the night of long knives and destruction of the SA, the union with Austria and the final stages of the pre-war period in the confrontations with and over Czechoslovakia and Poland. But these topics have been covered elsewhere. For example Donald Cameron Watt's "How War Came" covers the Czech and Polish situations in a more traditional way, as diplomatic history from the points of views of all the players (and arguably in a more readable fashion). Evans in contrast writes from a very German-centric view, which is a nice departure from the norm (at least of books available in English) but can occasionally leave one with a lack of perspective.

What sets "The Third Reich in Power" apart from previous works is the detailed attention to the social and economic consequences of Nazi policies on German life: from religion (the Nazis tried to establish their own form of Christianity, even proposing dropping the Old Testament from the canon), to education (at all levels, Evans goes into depth on the Nazi Youth, the University system, the various education initiatives), to population policy, to women's rights, to industry and the relationship between business and the Nazi party. The word that comes to mind over and over is "detail". This book is enormously detailed.

If there is controversy about this work, it will center around the author's stance toward whether the German people supported the actions of the Nazis or not, in particular as regards to anti-semitism. Evans clearly does not subscribe to the "German people as first victims of Hitler" theory, but I think he has drawn back from the "German people fully cooperated with the Nazis" thesis that has received so much attention the past decade or so. He never comes down strongly on one side or the other, and at times even seems to contradict himself. This is probably inevitable in a work of this depth, as these situations are complex and he presents much contradictory evidence: people who supported the Nazis in some areas or at some times and fought them or ignored them at others. But it does not make for as exciting writing as some of the more opinionated works.

In the end, it is the amount of detail that will make this book indispensible, but may be a barrier to its readability. I'm not qualified to rate the book on its historiography, but I would certainly give it 5 stars on the amount of data and research presented. However, for the non-professional it may become overwhelming. Your own tolerance for dry detail (I would classify the book as "engaging academic" or "dry popular") should determine if you want to read this book.

Evan's "Third Reich in Power" falls just short of being a great book. I would rate it a "9" if Amazon had a ten-point rating system. Evans concentrates on the period between the elevation of Hitler to the chancellorship and the German invasion of Poland in 1939. Evans uses what might be called the "mosiac" method. He examines most of the essential features in which Nazism attempted to regulate and direct the lives of the German people, and does so in succcessive chapters. This is an interesting approach -- rather unusual for contemporary history --, and is reminiscent of that taken in, say, Cambridge's Ancient History and Medieval History series. No "grant theses" emerge, but several themes suggest themselves.

First, Evans demonstrates that the German people were extremely ambivalent about the Nazi regime. On the one hand, most Germans genuinely idolized Hitler. On the other hand, they were deeply distrustful of his underlings, and of many things the government was doing to the economy and to national welfare. The picture that emerges is of a people disturbed by the quotidien aspects of Nazi rule -- censorship, police surveillance, low wage rates, labor restrictions, etc. -- but sufficiently sympathetic with the broader aims of the regime to make tolerance for the disagreeable aspects possible. The picture of the German people which emerges is rather unflattering: it was distrustful of the disorder occasioned by the regime's extreme anti-semitism, but disliked Jews and was more than happy to profit from their suppression. It was suspicious of militarism and the march toward war, but happy about the economic recovery rearmament enabled (as long was the eventual war was fought by somebody else). It was unhappy about the restrictions on art, culture and education, but shared the prejudices against modernist tendencies and agaisnt the educated elite which caused most people to shed few tears when the Nazis systematically dismantled Germany's high culture. Above all, Evans paints a picture of a people very queasy about what was happening, but unwilling to do much to save anybody else from the clutches of the Nazis. The Germans were not so much Hitler's willing executioners as Htiler's self-absorbed bystanders.

Second, Evans attempts to paint a picture of the Nazi regime as an attempt to completely mobilize and structure the way society thought and behaved. Evans emphasizes the role of terror and coercion, implicitly disagreeing with other historians who emphasize the small size of the Nazi policing appartus when compared with, e.g., the Soviet Union. He also focuses on something which has received relatively little attention -- the "dumming down" of German society. While Evans notes that the Nazi efforts to change the nature of the German educational system -- particularly its system of higher education -- met with mixed results, his claim that the quallity of the product of that system had dropped considerably by 1939 is compelling. One wonders how the Germans managed to be as successful in World War II as they were; it probably did as well as it did principally to the extent that its efforts to totally transform society were unsuccessful.

Finally, Evans confronts and sheds light on a very important issue. Nazi "philosophy" was, in important way, incoherent. It idealized men who were at once, aggressive, bullying, Darwinian, anti-intellectual, athletic, competitive and warlike, while at the same time obedient, self-sacrificing, other-directed, altruistic, idealistic and dedicated completely to the common "good" (as defined by the Nazis). It is very difficult to create a docile thug. The Nazis were as successful as they were in this endeavor by separating the thugs (who were allowed to do just about anything, as long as they did not threaten the regime) from the sheep (who, if obdient -- and Aryan-- were largley immune from thuggery by a sort of protection racket).

Evans paints a compelling picture of a society whose contradictions were bound to result in fatal instabilities in the absence of an every-victorious state of war. It is also a picture of a regime whose very commitment to physical and intellectual brutality would eventually make it impossible to quit while it was ahead.

It would be difficult to add anything new to the many excellent reviews of "The Third Reich in Power" that are already posted here. But I must briefly echo the praises for this monumental work. It should be required reading for all conscientious citizens, and especially for all politicians, as a cautionary tale of how governments that operate without "checks and balances" can destroy the very societies that put them in power.

The detailed story of how the Nazi leaders of the Third Reich transformed Germany between their assumption of power in 1933 and the outbreak of World War II in 1939 is compelling reading of the highest standard. During that period, the Nazis by decree imposed their political, economic and racial agendas on virtually every aspect of German society--literature, art, music, education, broadcasting, retail sales, land ownership, architecture, banking, recreation, law enforcement, etc. The Nazi's programs affected the everyday lives of EVERY German citizen to a greater or lesser degree.

Mr. Evans' readable, matter-of-fact style, and his reliance on supporting data and statistics from the historical record, make "The Third Reich in Power" perhaps the most valuable work yet written on the subject. While its 700+ pages may at first seem daunting, it is well worth the effort to read. You will definitely come away from the experience with a better understanding of how prejudice, inflexibility, demagoguery and unrestrained nationalism inexorably led to World War II, and of the threat that such attitudes continue to pose to the world today. I give it the highest possible recommendation.

"The Third Reich in Power" is the second part of Richard J. Evans's projected trilogy on the Nazi Dictatorship. The first book, The Coming of the Third Reich, narrated German history since Bismarck, explaining how the various elements of what we know as Nazism grew during the 19th century, intensified as a result of Germany's defeat during the Great War, and then rose to power following the Great Depression and the inept political leadership of both the traditional right and left.

"The Third Reich in Power" picks up where the previous volume has left. Hitler's regime is now in power, but it is not in control. Even at their prime, the Nazis never won a majority of the popular vote. Most Germans had at best a partial allegiance of the regime, undermined (at least in Nazi eyes) by their association with the Churches or the trade unions. Although competing political parties where quickly outlawed, the former Social Democrats and Communists were no fans of the regime, and the Conservative circle around President Hindenburg had allowed Hitler to assume the chancellery of Germany, but had expected full well to remain in control. Pockets of -potential- resistance existed in the Universities and the armed forces, and even inside the Nazi Sturmabteilung (better known as the SA). And of course, there were the Jews, the mythical, eternal enemies.

Most of the volume details how the Nazi state dealt with the challenges of winning over the German population. The means included propaganda, control of the media, Arts and Press, Nazified education system, popular programs of Social redistribution such as Strength Through Joy, a program offering subsidized cultural and social events for the people, an economic recovery and the prestige won through the regime's foreign policy triumphs. But they also included darker means - concentration camps and secret police, military purges, racial laws and even Pogroms.

Evans divides his book to theme based chapters, one for the Arts and the Press, one for Religion and Education, and one each exploring the Police State, the Economy, the Racial Laws, and Foreign Policy. As in his previous volumes, Evans manages to 'hit' all the best known items in the Third Reich. So we encounter Leni Riefenstahl directing "The Triumph of the Will", Eichmann directing the Aryanization of Jews, The Catholic Anti-Nazi encyclical Mit Brennender Sorge, and Martin Neimuller's poem "First they came..."

Evan's narrative is best when he manages to demonstrate the effects the Nazi regime had over the lives of simple people. The travails of best selling author Rudolf Ditzen, for example, are page turning, and demonstrate the difficulty of living under Germany's dictatorship even if one was neither a political opponent nor a handicapped nor a Jew (pp. 149-152).

As in the previous volume, Evans's thoroughness as a researcher is sometimes at odds with his Powers as story teller, and we are sometimes subjected to fatiguing details of disciplines in Nazi Prisons or Bureaucratic infighting. Furthermore, some of the best parts are narratives from fairly well known German diarists, such as Jewish Literature Professor Victor Klemperer and League of German Girls activist Melita Maschmann.

Unfortunately, in my view, Evans mostly spares the reader the details of scholarship controversy. Only the footnotes contain hints of controversy regarding Nazi influence in Universities, the Fuhrer's involvement in the regime, and the Nazi's status as "Hitler's Willing Executioners". The most interesting question of the Nazi economic recovery, whether or not the Nazis pursued a progressive Keynesian recovery program, is hinted to but not developed enough.

The major insight I gained from "The Third Reich in Power" was the centrality of Hitler's projected eventual European War on the Third Reich. Everything in Nazi Germany was subordinate to the needs of Rearmament, and Hitler risked endangering the economic recovery and the quest for Autarky, and even the pace of the Anti-Jewish persecution, in order to achieve readiness.

And the War Came... the culmination of the Nazi Project, the fight for Lebensraum and eventual world domination, occurred when Britain had finally abandoned its policy of Appeasement and declared War on Germany, following Hitler's invasion of Poland. Although the German people were far from enthusiastic about the War, they had followed their leader, and they had now answered to his call. Everything the Nazi Regime had worked for was set to come during the War: the Solution of the Nation's perceived need for Space and Resources, the regaining of the lost position of Germany as the World Leader, and the solution, as last final, the Jewish Problem. But Evans's account stops now, and we must patiently wait for his last volume, "The Third Reich at War"

Do you like your history light or full-strength with nothing taken out? If you want to skim through yet another book about the Nazis that tells you something you probably already knew but in a different way then don't bother with this book. However, if you want to read first class, detailed historical writing then this is certainly the book for you. Evans makes 1930s Germany come alive. How does he do it? By using historical records and documents to recount incidents involving `ordinary' people. He recalls appalling things that happened to people no different to his readers. He recounts cases of `ordinary' people doing unspeakable things to their fellow Germans. The reader is brought back 70 years and is really made to feel (as much as is possible now) what it must have been like to live in an all-embracing dictatorship. The author forces you to ask yourself the uncomfortable question, "Would I have behaved differently"? You'll have guessed by now that this book does not make for easy reading. This is exactly the way it should be. You probably won't pack this book the next time you're going on a sun holiday. However, if you want to read a book that actually tells you something new then this is the book for you. Evans makes no concessions to readers who don't like too much, `boring' details and who are only interested in the `big picture'. This book describes in detail how the Nazis mercilessly quashed all opposition, controlled every element of German society, remilitarised at breakneck speed and remorsely drove Germany into a second world war. This is full-strength, full-fat, nothing taken out history. Thank God for that!

This is the second volume of a 3 volume history of the Third Reich. As with the first volume, this is a substantial work of synthesis of the enormous literature about the Third Reich. Evans has aimed at producing a work that can be read usefully by scholars and by the general reading public. Evans has largely succeeded by producing a massively documented and very well written book. Evans has also made the book more accessible by avoiding a strictly chronological approach. He covers a series of topics related to the social and economic history of the Reich and concludes with foreign policy and the outbreak of war. Reflecting his prior research interests, the sections on the social history and structure of the Third Reich are excellent. The final section, covering foreign policy and diplomacy, is less thorough, though this is a twice told tale. Several unifying features emerge. One is the Nazi intent to reshape German, indeed European, society along the lines envisioned by their peculiar Social Darwinist ideals. The second is the success of the Nazi state in 'coordinating' almost all the institutions of German life with their ideology. A third is the primacy of Hitler's decisions. A final is the obsessive goal of an aggressive war to conquer Eastern Europe, which often distorted other Nazi social and economic policies. On completion, this trilogy will be a standard reference work for this period.

The Coming of the Third Reich is British historian Richard J.
Evans monumental work on the Nazis seizure of power. In this second book he surveys the governance of Gemany and in his projected volume 3 the tale will be told of their downfall in World War II.
In this book "The Thiird Reich in Power" the focus is on how the Nazis and the evil Adolf Hitler ruled Germany from his takeover in JANUARY 1933 to the outbreak of World War II
launching the horrific war which would claim over 50 million human souls.
Evans portrays what life is like under a cruel dictatorship.
He explores every aspect of German life in the 1930s including
economics; the arts; the horrible racial laws; jurisprudence;military preparation for the planned war; diplomacy;
sports; the regimentation of society beginning in youth and many other topics.
Evans is an academic whose prose is easy to read and comprehend. This book would be well used in a class on Nazi Germany. Along with Ian Kershaws two volumes on HITLER and Shirer's "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich'I consider Evans
contributions to understanding the Third Reich to be essential
reading for this terrible time in human history.
Excellent! I look forward to his third volume with eager
anticipation.

Continuing with the second volume of what is undoubtedly destined to be an epic work for both historians and the general public alike, Richard J. Evans explains how Hitler transformed--or attempted to transform--Germany after seizing control.

This work differs from predecessors because it challenges the idea that the German people were mindlessly accepting of Hitler's policies. He points out that when the Nazi regime began, both the communists and social democrats had received a third of the vote in the national elections of that year. More however, he argues that a majority of the German people themselves were reluctant to enter into another war--correctly believing that it would not end in their favor. Infighting allowed the Nazi's to go ahead with their own plans. Partisan gridlock and the public's weariness of this coupled with a desire for 'anybody' to do 'anything' to end it and promises of economic rejuvenation gave the Nazi's an opening. And they exploited it.

The Nazi's established a police state and warned citizens that their every word was being watched. The Nazi leadership was so determined to control the people that they even tried to dictate personal grooming and consumer products. Yet, Evans provides lots of documented information that this part of the plan was not as successful. People (including those who were members of the Nazi party) were resisting. Constant political proselytizing by the government actually turned many 'every day' Germans off.

He includes several chapters on the Nazi persecution of the Jews and the German people's failure to help resist this persecution. What could have deflated his own thesis works here because Evans uses primary source reports of the people who were there and did nothing. Evans explains how the Gestapo, the Nazi's infamous police, was not composed of party elite. The majority actually were career policeman. They were everyday Germans who were enforcing compliance with a state ideology their neighbors etc...did not particularly care for.

Because this era already had many books previously written about it, I was amazed by the wealth of information and original research contained within this one volume. Evans's research illustrates what happens to public and private life when a fascist government assumes power and promises to make everything better.

The first two voumes of Evan's masterful study of the Third Reich is essential reading for anyone who wants an up-to-date scholarly study of the period. His use of the sources is impressive indeed. Even with the eventual publication of Volume 3, Evan's work, however, still cannot be called "definitive," as ongoing research will continue to unfold the events and circumstances of the Nazi period. (Then again. can there ever be a truly "definitive" work of history?) Still, Evan's study, along with William Shirer's Berlin Diary (for a sense of immediacy) and the classic Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (still not oudated), and Ian Kershaw's epic two-volume biography of Adolf Hitler taken together will bring us as close as we can get for now to a full understanding of Nazi Germany. These are no small accomplishments.

Evans does another masterful job in presenting the history of the Third Reich. This books tracks the ways in which the Nazi's shored up their power domestically and the mobilization towards war. The end of the book does cover some of the foreign policy considerations but as always it is the domestic scene where the research really shines. From looking at the anti-Semitism to the centralization of police there is a voluminous amount of information here. The book is very well written and if there is any fault it is that you get almost too bogged down in the information. If you are just starting to look at the Nazi regime a classical book such as William Shrier's might serve you better but for those who really want to understand how the Nazi's transformed Germany this cannot be beat.