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The final volume in Richard J. Evans?s masterly trilogy on the history of Nazi Germany traces the rise and fall of German military might, the mobilization of a ?people?s community? to serve a war of conquest, and Hitler?s campaign of racial subjugation and genocide
Already hailed as ?a masterpiece? (William Grimes in The New York Times) and ?the most comprehensive history? of the Third Reich? (Ian Kershaw), this epic trilogy reaches its terrifying climax in this volume.
Evans interweaves a broad narrative of the war?s progress with viscerally affecting personal testimony from a wide range of people?from generals to front-line soldiers, from Hitler Youth activists to middle-class housewives. The Third Reich at War lays bare the dynamics of a nation more deeply immersed in war than any society before or since. Fresh insights into the conflict?s great events are here, from the invasion of Poland to the Battle of Stalingrad to Hitler?s suicide in the bunker. But just as important is the re-creation of the daily experience of ordinary Germans in wartime, staggering under pressure from Allied bombing and their own government?s mounting demands upon them. At the center of the book is the Nazi extermination of Europe?s Jews, set in the context of Hitler?s genocidal plans for the racial restructuring of Europe.
Blending narrative, description and analysis, The Third Reich at War creates an engrossing picture?at once sweeping and precise?of a society rushing headlong to self-destruction and taking much of Europe with it. It is the culmination of a historical masterwork that will remain the most authoritative work on Nazi Germany for years to come.
Review:
"Describing the Third Reich from the height of its power to its collapse, Evans concludes the masterful trilogy that began with The Coming of the Third Reich and The Third Reich in Power. As in those works, Evans demonstrates a fluent style and a sweeping grasp of the Third Reich's history and of the enormous historical literature. The account is peppered with insightful anecdotes drawn from diaries, letters and speeches. What comes across most clearly is the supreme arrogance of the Nazis and the utterly rapacious character of their rule. Evans gives the Holocaust the centrality it deserves, while also depicting effectively the suffering of Poles and many others under Nazi domination. Evans offers a nuanced picture of the lives of Germans, but ultimately, he suggests, the Nazis' racial ideology thoroughly corrupted German society. Evans narrates the Reich's end in gripping fashion as the Allies closed in on Germany. Evans's fellow historians as well as a broader public will read this work, not quite with pleasure, for there is little joy in this story, but with admiration for the author's narrative powers. Illus., maps." Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)
Review:
The Third Reich is the historian's Rorschach test. Everyone agrees that Hitler's Reich was evil almost beyond measure, but when it comes to defining the essence of and reasons for this evil, we tend to see what we bring to the question. Historians have concluded that the crimes of Hitler's Reich were the result of too much democracy, or too little; too much Christianity, or too little; too much sex,... Washington Post Book Review (read the entire Washington Post review) or too little. It all depends on who is doing the telling, and more important, when they are telling it. Now we have the third volume of Richard J. Evans' trilogy on Hitler's Germany, "The Third Reich at War." This is a history of the Third Reich for the early 21st century, a time that has known renewed campaigns of genocide and terror, but not so much "conventional" war. Fittingly, then, Evans' emphasis is on the virtually inconceivable orgy of violence let loose by the Nazis when Hitler launched his war in 1939. Evans makes clear that this is not a history of World War II, and it isn't: A more accurate title might have been "The Third Reich at Occupation." In the first chapter, for instance, Poland has surrendered by page 9, and there follow nearly 100 pages on occupied Poland as a laboratory for the Nazi utopia. Poland's western regions were annexed to the German Reich, and all Poles and Jews in those areas were expelled into the so-called "General Government," while ethnic Germans were brought in from elsewhere to replace them. During the military campaign, special SS killing squads had been turned loose on Jewish as well as non-Jewish civilians. Poland had scarcely surrendered when such infamous Nazi leaders as Reinhard Heydrich began planning to concentrate and imprison all of Poland's Jewish population in "ghettos" in such towns as Lodz, Cracow and Warsaw. As the grim story unfolds and the Nazis expand their empire over most of the European continent, Evans keeps track of the horrifying statistics: 1.7 million Jews killed at the "Reinhard Action" extermination camps of Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka (out of the total of 3 million Jews murdered in camps); about 700,000 more murdered in mobile gas vans; and 1.3 million shot by SS Task Forces. The overall total of Jewish victims likely lies close to the often-cited figure of 6 million. At the same time, Evans is careful to show how much of a pan-European phenomenon the Holocaust was, as for instance when he notes that the 280,000 to 380,000 Jews killed by the Romanians constituted the largest number murdered by an independent European country apart from Germany itself. Evans' other major theme is that Germany's relative economic and industrial weakness meant that it was all but fated to lose the kind of war that Hitler had led it into. In 1944, for instance, despite the efficient Albert Speer's reorganization of the aircraft industry, Germany was producing fewer aircraft than each of its major enemies, and together the United States, the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union outbuilt Germany by more than five to one. The statistics for other modern industrial weapons were similar. When the Germans came up with impressive technological innovations, like the Me 262 jet fighter, the impact tended to be blunted or erased by political infighting and inefficiencies within the Nazi bureaucracy. "The writing was already on the wall in 1942," as Evans writes, and by 1944 "it was clear for all to read." Not that Evans' book is all about numbers. He uses extensive quotes from diaries and memoirs of people who lived through the war — Germans and non-Germans, Jews and non-Jews — to give a visceral sense of what these events meant in people's lives. Evans is clearly up on all the latest research on Nazi Germany, no mean achievement in a field in which tens of thousands of books have been published. But his goal is to appeal to the general reader rather than the professional historian, and he succeeds brilliantly, producing a book that is beautifully written and, despite its length and grim subject matter, easily digestible, even gripping. Most impressive of all are his consistently balanced and nuanced judgments about such emotional and controversial issues as the responsibility of ordinary Germans for mass murder, or the role of resistance to the Third Reich. While his book forms a remorseless record of the Nazi horrors, Evans never forgets that ordinary Germans were human beings, too, facing hardships and challenges that most of us have never known. This is history in the grand style, the kind of large-scale narrative that few historians dare to write these days. It is difficult to imagine how it could be improved upon, let alone surpassed. Benjamin Carter Hett is associate professor of history at Hunter College and the Graduate Center, CUNY, and author most recently of "Crossing Hitler: The Man Who Put the Nazis on the Witness Stand." Reviewed by Benjamin Carter Hett, Washington Post Book World (Copyright 2006 Washington Post Book World Service/Washington Post Writers Group) (hide most of this review)
Synopsis:
The final volume in Evans's masterly trilogy on the history of Nazi Germany traces the rise and fall of German military might, the mobilization of a people's community to serve a war of conquest, and Hitler's campaign of racial subjugation and genocide.
Synopsis:
An absorbing, revelatory, and definitive account of one of the greatest tragedies in human history
Adroitly blending narrative, description, and analysis, Richard J. Evans portrays a society rushing headlong to self-destruction and taking much of Europe with it. Interweaving a broad narrative of the war's progress from a wide range of people, Evans reveals the dynamics of a society plunged into war at every level. The great battles and events of the conflict are here, but just as telling is Evans's re- creation of the daily experience of ordinary Germans in wartime. At the center of the book is the Nazi extermi­nation of the Jews. The final book in Richard J. Evan's three-volume history of Hitler's Germany, hailed "a masterpiece" by The New York Times, The Third Reich at War lays bare the most momentous and tragic years of the Nazi regime.
Richard J. Evans is professor of modern history at Cambridge University. His previous books include In Defense of History, Lying About Hitler, and the companions to this title, The Coming of the Third Reich and The Third Reich in Power.
eglazier, August 15, 2009 (view all comments by eglazier)
This is one of those works that attempts to answer, and does, how a lawful,civilized society with generally deep religious faith could have been turned into a natioal killing machine. the work also describes in some detail who did the killing, how much they did, and how they did it.
the lessions are to be well taken, for now, during this political fight over healthcare in the u.s., one can easily see how, by the use of the big lie repeated over and over again, a normally civilized and mostly genteel society can be panicked into doing and saying things that are at best outlandish and working against their own interest and at worst the chance for our society to go down a path from which there would be no return.
though the pundits repeat constantly that it could never happen here, one need only listen to the violent hatred spewed by many; plain citizens, radio and tv talking heads, and some of our elected politicians, to understand that it can.
we have seen this happen before in our history, with a close example during the 1930s when we had father coughlin spewing hatred, the famous like charles lindbergh and joe kenedy praising the rise of the nazis in germany because they were doing something to rid their country of 'undesireables'. mussolini was praiseworthy because he made the trains run on time, all the while he was clamping down on freedom in italy. our country in some ways is easily led to disaster. i do not believe it will happen now, but it is easy to see the beginnings of such a pathway.
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darkinsc, May 18, 2009 (view all comments by darkinsc)
Would it be too much to ask for Powell's to proofread reviews before putting them online? The review of this particular book is riddled with typos! There really is no excuse for not proof reading.
Was this comment helpful? | Yes | No (2 of 4 readers found this comment helpful)
"Publishers Weekly Review"
by Publishers Weekly,
"Describing the Third Reich from the height of its power to its collapse, Evans concludes the masterful trilogy that began with The Coming of the Third Reich and The Third Reich in Power. As in those works, Evans demonstrates a fluent style and a sweeping grasp of the Third Reich's history and of the enormous historical literature. The account is peppered with insightful anecdotes drawn from diaries, letters and speeches. What comes across most clearly is the supreme arrogance of the Nazis and the utterly rapacious character of their rule. Evans gives the Holocaust the centrality it deserves, while also depicting effectively the suffering of Poles and many others under Nazi domination. Evans offers a nuanced picture of the lives of Germans, but ultimately, he suggests, the Nazis' racial ideology thoroughly corrupted German society. Evans narrates the Reich's end in gripping fashion as the Allies closed in on Germany. Evans's fellow historians as well as a broader public will read this work, not quite with pleasure, for there is little joy in this story, but with admiration for the author's narrative powers. Illus., maps." Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)
"Synopsis"
by Ingram,
The final volume in Evans's masterly trilogy on the history of Nazi Germany traces the rise and fall of German military might, the mobilization of a people's community to serve a war of conquest, and Hitler's campaign of racial subjugation and genocide.
"Synopsis"
by Firebrand,
An absorbing, revelatory, and definitive account of one of the greatest tragedies in human history
Adroitly blending narrative, description, and analysis, Richard J. Evans portrays a society rushing headlong to self-destruction and taking much of Europe with it. Interweaving a broad narrative of the war's progress from a wide range of people, Evans reveals the dynamics of a society plunged into war at every level. The great battles and events of the conflict are here, but just as telling is Evans's re- creation of the daily experience of ordinary Germans in wartime. At the center of the book is the Nazi extermi­nation of the Jews. The final book in Richard J. Evan's three-volume history of Hitler's Germany, hailed "a masterpiece" by The New York Times, The Third Reich at War lays bare the most momentous and tragic years of the Nazi regime.
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