Product Description

Richard Evans' brilliant book unfolds perhaps the single most important story of the 20th century: how a stable and modern country in less than a single lifetime led Europe into moral, physical and cultural ruin and despair. A terrible story not least because there were so many other ways in which Germany's history could have been played out. With authority, skill and compassion, Evans recreates a country torn apart by overwhelming economic, political and social blows: the First World War, Versailles, hyperinflation and the Great Depression. One by one these blows ruined or pushed aside almost everything admirable about Germany, leaving the way clear for a truly horrifying ideology to take command.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4983 in Books
• Published on: 2004-08-05
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 672 pages

About the Author
Richard J Evans is Professor of Modern History at Cambridge University. His previous books include In Defence of History and Telling Lies About Hitler. He lives outside Cambridge.

Customer Reviews

Focuses on the Weimar Republic
This is the first installment in a promising new series on the Third Reich by Richard Evans. In this book, Evans examines the Weimar Republic and the many factors that led to the rise of Hitler and his populist National Socialist Party. Far from being a foregone conclusion, Evans shows the many vacillations in German politics during the interwar years and how for a brief while, the Weimar Republic appeared to be on the road to recovery. However, by constantly overriding the parliament by using the Enabling Act, chancellors set the stage for eventual dictatorial rule, as Germany went through violent economic upheavals.

Evans does a great job of outlining the various political parties and the antagonisms that developed after WWI. He notes the ideological origins of the Nazis in the German Nationalist Party, which refused to let go of its venerated image of Bismarck. Evans strips the veneer off this image to show how badly the Nationalists, and later Hiter, interpreted Bismarck. He gives a lot of attention to the Center and Social Democratic Parties which formed the consensus in the Reichstag, and illustrates the rise of the Communist Party, which became the whipping post of Nationalists and Nazis as the threat of Soviet expansion grew.

Evans gives special attention to the plight of the Jews, but notes that Germany would have been the last place one would have expected such a virulent form of anti-Semitism to emerge. Jews were for the most part integrated in German life prior to WWI, and continued to enjoy a relatively unfettered life through most of the Weimar period. But, the rise of the Nazi party in the rural regions would cast the Jew in an increasingly unfavorable light.

One can't but hold out hope throughout Evans' engaging narrative, as he shows how Germany struggled to hold onto representative government during the Weimar Republic, but as Hitler changed his tactics and drew on an increasingly Populist base, he appealed to the German longing for Bismarck, especially in the wake of the Depression of 1929. It was between 1929 and 1933 that the Nazis saw their biggest gains in Parliament. Even still the Nazis failed to gain a majority, but used the Enabling Act to establish dictatorial control.

The Coming of the Third Reich
As Richard Evans says in his introduction he is trying to bridge the gap between a book like Rise and Fall of the Third Reich which is readable, and The Nazi Dictatorship by Bracher at the academic end of the spectrum. In this, Evans succeeds admirably. His book is eminently readable whilst at the same time having an academic slant to it.

He examines in depth the background and foundations of Nazism and the Third Reich and explains how one of the most forward looking European states became a racist dictatorship.
This volume is the first of three dealing with the vartious periods of the Third Reich and I would recommend this volume to both the informed and lay reader.

Excellent account of the period
This is an incredible read. This has to be the best book I have read on this period in history. I previously had the impression that Adolf Hitler foisted his views on the German populace in his rise to power. However, this book shows that all the ingredients of Nazism (violence, racism, fascism) were in place long before the Nazis came to power. These ingredients were ruthlessly exploited by the Nazis. However, the book goes on to show how the views of the Nazis were not the views of the general population. Historians have long debated how fascist rule by the Nazis could occur in the 1930s, and this book shows how physical violence played a major part in this.

Your view of this period in German history is unlikely to reamin the same after reading this book. Excellent.