Product Description

In 1939 Hitler mobilized Germany into all-out war. Richard Evans’s astonishing, acclaimed history conjures up a whole society plunged into conflict – from generals and front-line soldiers to Hitler Youth activists and middle-class housewives – tracing events from the invasion of Poland and the Battle of Stalingrad to Hitler’s plans for genocide and his eventual suicide. The Third Reich at War is a historical masterpiece, showing how Germany rushed headlong into destroying itself and an entire continent.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #8198 in Books
• Published on: 2009-09-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 960 pages

Review
'With this third volume, Richard Evans has accomplished a masterpiece of historical scholarship ... [he] has produced the best and most up-to-date synthesis of the huge work carried out on the subject over the past decades.' --Anthony Beevor, Times

Review
'The narrative is written with the same masterly historical flair and eye for telling detail that marked the first two volumes. This will surely be the standard history for many years to come.'

Review
'the author displays a masterly understanding of the politics and sociology of the Third Reich ... [and the] book contains much intriguing anecdotage'

Customer Reviews

Brilliant combination of detail and abstraction
With this third volume, Professor Evans brings his rightfully acclaimed "History of the Third Reich" to a very fruitful end indeed. All the major developments from 1939 till 1945 are at least touched upon in a very insightful and balanced manner, blending social history, the biographies of well-known heavyweights of the Nazi regime such as Hitler, Göring, Goebbels, Himmler or Speer and the lesser known experiences of ordinary Germans into one complex but highly readable narrative, exposing a good deal of the inner workings of Hitler's dictatorship rather than taking an overly abstract bird's eye view on this disastrous epoch.

Abstaining from any form of moralising, which is unnecessary anyway in the face of the well-known enormity of the crimes committed, there is, of course, a heavy emphasis on the horrifying genocidal activities of the Nazis and the political arena, yet economic, cultural and military events are also accounted for in a convincing way. Most of the major controversies concerning the historiography of Nazi Germany like Daniel Goldhagen's "Hitler's Willing Executioners" are mentioned, although Evans does not always take up a clear position and understandably refrains from making any new untested hypotheses, for which a book of this scope cannot be intended anyway.

For students of modern history the book offers a remarkably well-crafted starting-point to develop their own research interests, providing also a detailed bibliography of the major works on the Nazi era. The only real downside perhaps, along with a certain tendency towards oversimplifying complex military events, is an apparent lack of explicit theoretical reflection on his own position within the field of historical research on the part of Evans, like his rejection of the Great man theory of history, which is responsible for his concentration on social history. As a consequence, lay readers not familiar with the major currents in historical research may not be able to fully comprehend and appreciate Evans' findings. Reading the preface to the first volume, in which Evans explains his methodology in greater detail, is therefore strongly recommended.

But did German women wear trousers on the shop floor?
So many books have been written about the Third Reich and WWII - do we need another one on the subject? Richard J. EVANS sets himself a challenge: "The central focus of this book is on Germany and the Germans" is the promise in the preface, and he continues: "it is important to reiterate that this book is a history of Nazi Germany in all its aspects." Does the book fulfil the promise? The answer is a qualified yes.

Two out of the first three chapters deal with the gruesome tale of crimes of Nazi Germany against humanity, foremost the Jews. They set the gloomy tone for the whole book. There is no question that this is a central aspect of the war, but this story has been fulsomely told many times over, and one wonders whether gruesome detail - down to the fate of individuals on the basis of diaries and testimonials - adds knowledge. On the other hand the `grand genocidal design' that encompasses Jews as well as Slavs, but also assorted minorities and 'social deviants', might have been fleshed out better to show that if the Jews suffered first and worst, other groups were the target of racist ideology and proportionately suffered just as much or even more. If history writing should be more than just 'one damn battle after another', the history of the Third Reich at War should be more than one murder after another.

We know what the Third Reich did - in the battlefields, in the ghettoes, in the vast regions it conquered. The interesting question is: how was this achieved? What were the material means, how did the country organise itself to make the horror possible? The `audit of war' The Audit of War: The Illusion and Reality of Britain as a Great Nation is missing from this book. We hardly hear about the organisation of German industry, war production, supply of raw materials (often from distant - and neutral lands). 'Germany' is monolithically portrayed as enduring, producing, and having affects about it all. No details given about the inner workings of the German society at war, or the differences in its many regions, townships, and lands. Hence my rhetorical question: "But did German women wear trousers on the shop floor?" American and British women, as they entered the work force, did - a signal of profound changes in social relations. How was war production organised? What social changes did the war bring about in Germany? What made the ensuing reconstruction and Wirtschaftswunder possible?

The chapter on the professions and the universities is poor. Reducing the effort of the German medical establishment during WWII to medical experiments by Mengele is no way to treat the subject. Lawyers, judges, philosophers also get all too short shrift. This chapter appears to be a hurried afterthought.

Contrary to Hitler's wishes Germany as a society somehow survived destruction and occupation. Political figures like Adenauer, Erhard and Brandt, but also Ulbricht and Honnecker emerged, and led the two rump countries out of the pits. Evans never even mentions them. Where were they? How could the political structures that brought them to power emerge after defeat? They must have existed - albeit inchoately. The seeds of resurgence - political, material, social, and artistic - were planted while the Nazi ruled. In the end, this missing link to the aftermath somehow seems to me the worst shortcoming.

magnificent!
I ordered this book because of the fine review in The London Review of Books. And because I have long been puzzled by the success of the Nazi regime in a country which I have visited a number of times and always felt at home. (Despite being a Protestant Scots-Canadian)
It was a long read and mostly heart-breaking as much for the horrors described as for the author's controlled compassion in describing them. To say nothing of his meticulous scholarship!
Enjoyable hardly seems the appropriate word to describe the experience of reading this work but worthy it certainly was! So much so that I have ordered the previous volume of his trilogy and greatly look forward to an almost life-changing pleasure of reading it.