"Hitler was Nazi Germany and Nazi Germany was Hitler." Though true to the extent that Hitler's personality, leadership, and ideological convictions played a massive role in shaping the nature of government and life during the Third Reich, this popular view has led many writers since the end of World War II to overlook important aspects of Nazism while centering attention solely on Hitler's contributions to the Nazi Party. This book seeks to fill a significant gap in the literature by concentrating particularly on the Nazi Party and its growth during the years of the Weimar Republic, examining the paramilitary presence in Germany and Bavaria after World War I. Most of the book describes the development of the Nazi Storm Detachment (Sturmabteilung, or SA) before and after the failed Beer Hall Putsch in 1923. By the time Hitler came to power in January 1933, there were perhaps as many as 400,000 of these brown-shirted men, often self-styled revolutionaries, creating violence on a daily basis and destroying the underpinnings of the Weimar Republic. The book features several photographs captured from the Nazi Party's Central Publishing Facility in Munich and passed to the author in the late 1950s.

"Hitler was Nazi Germany and Nazi Germany was Hitler." Though true to the extent that Hitler's personality, leadership, and ideological convictions played a massive role in shaping the nature of government and life during the Third Reich, this popular view has led many writers since the end of World War II to overlook important aspects of Nazism while centering attention solely on Hitler's contributions to the Nazi Party. This book seeks to fill a significant gap in the literature by concentrating particularly on the Nazi Party and its growth during the years of the Weimar Republic, examining the paramilitary presence in Germany and Bavaria after World War I. Most of the book describes the development of the Nazi Storm Detachment (Sturmabteilung, or SA) before and after the failed Beer Hall Putsch in 1923. By the time Hitler came to power in January 1933, there were perhaps as many as 400,000 of these brown-shirted men, often self-styled revolutionaries, creating violence on a daily basis and destroying the underpinnings of the Weimar Republic. The book features several photographs captured from the Nazi Party's Central Publishing Facility in Munich and passed to the author in the late 1950s.

Hitler and Nazi Germany: A History is a brief but comprehensive survey of the Third Reich based on current research findings that provides a balanced approach to the study of Hitler’s role in the history of the Third Reich. The book considers the economic, social, and political forces that made possible the rise and development of Nazism; the institutional, cultural, and social life of the Third Reich; World War II; and the Holocaust. World War II and the Holocaust are presented as logical outcomes of the ideology of Hitler and the Nazi movement. This new edition contains more information on the Kaiserreich (Imperial Germany), as well as Nazi complicity in the Reichstag Fire and increased discussion of consent and dissent during the Nazi attempt to create the ideal Volksgemeinschaft (people’s community). It takes a greater focus on the experiences of ordinary bystanders, perpetrators, and victims throughout the text, includes more discussion of race and space, and the final chapter has been completely revised. Fully updated, the book ensures that students gain a complete and thorough picture of the period and issues. Supported by maps, images, and thoroughly updated bibliographies that offer further reading suggestions for students to take their study further, the book offers the perfect overview of Hitler and the Third Reich.

This book addresses the nature and role of fear in the German world from the early modern period through to the 20th century. Offering the first collection that centres fear in the historical analysis of central Europe since 1600, these essays demonstrate the importance of emotional experience to the study of the past. Fear has been at the centre of many of the most important historical events in this region; witch hunts, religious conflicts, invasions and ultra-nationalism in the form of the Nazi regime. This book explores ways in which fear was understood, developed and negotiated throughout these historical contexts, and how people of the German world coped with it. From the fear of vampires to the loss of national sovereignty, pestilence, gypsies and criminals, Fear in the German Speaking World 1600-2000 draws connections between cases over a period of 400 years and considers fear alongside the history of emotions more generally. In doing so, the chapters reveal a complex, evolving construction of fear that is universally human, but also dependent upon its cultural and historical context.

What was known and understood about the nature of the Nazi dictatorship in Britain prior to war in 1939? How was Nazism viewed by those outside of Germany? The British Press and Nazi Germany considers these questions through the lens of the British press. Until now, studies that centre on British press attitudes to Nazi Germany have concentrated on issues of foreign policy. The focus of this book is quite different. In using material that has largely been neglected, Kylie Galbraith examines what the British press reported about life inside the Nazi dictatorship. In doing so, the book imparts important insights into what was known and understood about the Nazi revolution. And, because the overwhelming proportion of the British public's only means of news was the press, this volume shows what people in Britain could have known about the Nazi dictatorship. It reveals what the British people were being told about the regime, specifically the destruction of Weimar democracy, the ruthless persecution of minorities, the suppression of the churches and the violent factional infighting within Nazism itself. This pathbreaking examination of the British press' coverage of Nazism in the 1930s greatly enhances our knowledge of the fascist regime with which the British Government was attempting to reach agreement at the time.

Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2024 by Foreign Policy “Evans . . . offers these eye-opening portraits of the heart of evil in an effort to understand what kind of people fell under Hitler’s spell. . . . A meticulously researched, sobering look at the Nazi era and the people who helped bring its evil intents to fruition.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred) Through a connected set of biographical portraits of key Nazi figures that follows power as it radiated out from Hitler to the inner and outer circles of the regime’s leadership, one of our greatest historians answers the enduring question, how does a society come to carry out a program of unspeakable evil? Richard Evans, author of the acclaimed The Third Reich Trilogy and over two dozen other volumes on modern Europe, is our preeminent scholar of Nazi Germany. Having spent half a century searching for the truths behind one of the most horrifying episodes in human history, in Hitler’s People, he brings us back to the original site of the Nazi movement: namely, the lives of its most important members. Working in concentric circles out from Hitler and his closest allies, Evans forms a typological framework of Germany society under Nazi rule from the top down. With a novelist’s eye for detail, Evans explains the Third Reich through the personal failings and professional ambitions of its members, from its most notorious deputies—like Goebbels, the regime’s propagandist, and Himmler, the Holocaust’s chief architect—to the crucial enforcers and instruments of the Nazi agenda that history has largely forgotten—like the schoolteacher Julius Streicher and the actress Leni Riefenstahl. Drawing on a wealth of recently unearthed historical sources, Hitler’s People lays bare the inner and outer lives of the characters whose choices led to the deaths of millions. Nearly a century after Hitler’s rise, the leading nations of the West are once again being torn apart by a will to power. By telling the stories of these infamous lives as human lives, Evans asks us to grapple with the complicated nature of complicity, showing us that the distinctions between individual and collective responsibility—and even between pathological evil and rational choice—are never easily drawn.