Royals and the Reich: The Princes von Hessen in Nazi Germany First Edition

"A devastating portrait of how the highest social stratum in Germany enthusiastically embraced a movement that might truly be said to have come out of the gutter.... Although this book is full of facts and statistics...it is no mere dry historical text. Mr. Petropoulos knows just how to find telling
pieces of evidence and to frame them with excellent commentard."--Washington Times

"The very interesting and quite readable book sheds a great deal of light on what members of European royalty may or may not have know about Nazi criminality during World War Two, and what they certainly may not have shared with members of Western governments." --The Jewish Press

"An enthralling book, well researched in archives and through interviews, including one with the Duke of Edinburgh himself.... Royals and the Reich gets the big picture right--and a disturbing, even sickening, one it is."--Martin Rubin, Los Angeles Times

"This lucid and thoroughly researched book throws much light on the fateful--and sometimes fatal--relationship between the highest reaches of Germany's aristocracy and the basest quarters of that nation's politics during the first half of the 20th century. Along the way, Jonathan Petropoulos
illuminates the familial bonds among many European dynasties and their impact on a tumultuous era. All in all, a revealing, penetrating, fair-minded, and sometimes touching work."--Peter Hayes, Theodore Z. Weiss Professor of Holocaust Studies, Northwestern University, and author of From Cooperation
to Complicity: Degussa in the Third Reich and Industry and Ideology: IG Farben in the Nazi Era

"In spite of a silken curtain obscuring the roles of royal supporters of the Third Reich, there is here a first truly balanced, thoughtful, and engagingly written account of royal princes and others of noble rank based on unprecedented access to some of the hitherto secreted records. A major and
most welcome achievement in opening to readers a world too often closed except for pictures and gossip."--Gerhard L. Weinberg, Professor of History Emeritus, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and author of A World At Arms: A Global History of World War II and Visions of Victory: The Hopes
of Eight World War II Leaders

"There is a cornucopia of literature analyzing the relationship between German social strata and the Nazis. What has been missing is an examination of the aristocracy. Using the example of the princely Hessen family, Jonathan Petropoulos now has begun to fill that void. The Hessens--and many of
their relatives from other royal houses--sought accommodation with a movement which, from the outset, opposed monarchy. Petropoulos resolves this seeming contradiction with the help of interviews and rare private sources. His book is a pioneering contribution to the social history of the Third
Reich." --Michael H. Kater, Distinguished Research Professor Emeritus of History at the Canadian Centre for German and European Studies, and author of Hitler Youth and Different Drummers: Jazz in the Culture of Nazi Germany

Jonathan Petropoulos is the John V. Croul Professor of European History at Claremont McKenna College. He is the author of The Faustian Bargain (OUP), which was named one of the 25 Books to Remember in 2000 by the New York Public Library. He was a Research Director on the Presidential Commission on
Holocaust Assets and has served as an expert witness in cases involving Holocaust victims' assets. He lives in Claremont, California.