The Third Reich in power, 1933-1939

by Richard J Evans

Paper Book, 2005

Status

Available

Publication

New York : Penguin Press, 2005

Description

In this book, historian Evans tells of Germany's radical reshaping under Nazi rule. Every area of life, from literature, culture, and the arts to religion, education, and science, was subordinated to the relentless drive to prepare Germany for war. Evans shows how the Nazis attempted to reorder every aspect of German society, encountering many kinds and degrees of resistance along the way but gradually winning the acceptance of the German people. Those who were seen as unfit, including Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, mentally ill, "asocial" and "habitual" criminals, were dealt with in increasingly brutal terms. After six years of foreign policy brinkmanship that took the Nazi regime from success to success, Hitler's drive to prepare Germany for the war he saw as its destiny reached its fateful hour in September 1939.--From publisher description.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member wildbill
This volume in Richard Evans history of Nazi Germany is a detailed step by step description of what the author describes as an experiment in human engineering. With Hitler in power the Nazi party became the controlling force in all aspects of German life. The party leadership referred to their
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assumption of power as a revolution and proceeded to make sure that a real revolution took place in Germany. As in all revolutions all aspects of life became a question of politics and in the Third Reich subject to the ideology of the Nazi Party. Reading this book I witnessed the creation of a totalitarian state and gained a new understanding of what that word means.
With over 120 pages of notes for the 700 pages of text Evans shows an encyclopedic command of all available source material. He makes extensive use of statistics to document the changes in German life.
The party created institutions that controlled all aspects of the day to day life of the German people. Labor unions were replaced by party groups. Leisure activity was controlled by the Strength through Joy programs. All writers, artists, teachers, lawyers, and other professions were required to belong to party groups in order to be certified to work. The Hitler Youth worked to replace the family and schools as the primary influence on young people. The school systems and the universities deteriorated under the pressure of Nazi Party organizations. All personnel in the armed services were required to swear a personal oath to Adolf Hitler. There is a map in the book showing where "Degenerate Art Exhibits" were held all over Germany from 1933 on to publicize what art was acceptable in the New Germany. Hitler took a personal interest in the pictures placed in the exhibits. The Gestapo was the ruthless enforcer of the primacy of the Nazi Party. Of all the peoples in Europe that went into the concentration camps the Germans were the first.
The Nazi rise to power was aided by the actions of Marinus van der Lubbe. On the night of February 27-28, 1933 he set fire to the Reichstag. His actions were blamed on the Communists whose members were arrested and kicked out of the Reichstag. This gave the Nazi Party a majority in the government with the ability to pass into law the Party program. Then on June 30, 1934, in what was called "The Night of the Long Knives", Hitler murdered the leadership of the stormtroopers whose large membership made them a rival for his power. At the same time other assorted enemies of Hitler were murdered. Hitler's actions were a message to anyone who would challenge him that he could be ruthlessly violent.
During this period the antisemitism of the Nazi party became government policy. Step by step the Jews were marginalized in Germany. With a slight let up in 1936 for the Olympics the Jews were made nonpersons deprived of their property and livelihood. Many fled and those who did not ended up in the camps and were murdered in numerous ways. The socially "unfit" joined the Jews in the camps as the eugenic ideas in Nazi ideology were put into practice.
On November 7, 1938 a young Pole shot and seriously wounded a German diplomat in Paris. This was made the excuse for a nationwide pogrom against the Jews referred to by the author as The Night of The Broken Glass and elsewhere as Kristallnacht. All over Germany the property of Jews was destroyed and Jews were beaten and killed at the instigation of the government.
The Nazi goal of rearmament and war became the prime goal of German policy. Since he had learned of the armistice in a hospital at the end of World War I Hitler sought victory in war for Germany. He dreamed of the conquest of Eastern Europe to provide lebensraum for the German people. The economic policy of this era centered on rearmament. The Four Year plan begun in 1936 run by Hermann Goring put the economy on a war footing. Shortly thereafter shortages began affecting the civilian economy as all resources were directed to a war economy. In April of 1938 Austria became part of Germany. Later that year the British and French agreed to the German takeover of part of Czechoslovakia which was completed in early 1939. The book ends as the war with Poland in 1939 is about to begin. The final volume The Third Reich at War finishes the story.
I could add pages of actions taken by the Nazi party that furthered their revolution. While I had some knowledge of many of the events in the book before reading it, the author's account of this period was very thorough and detailed. It is that quality that makes this a prime source for the life and events of this period. The rule of the Third Reich was a revolution of evil. Destruction of the ordinary way of life in the name of hate and war was the constant theme of the book as it was the constant theme of life in the Third Reich. The author does not rant he merely sets out fact after fact. Fear ran rampant through the country as a civilized society was hammered bit by bit into a killing machine. At times the constant details became overwhelming emotionally and I had to take a break in my reading. I gained a new level of understanding that a true revolution in all ways of life took place in the Third Reich. The author emphasized that Adolf Hitler was the leader, he was in charge of all major decisions. While this has been disputed by others the author documents this idea very well. Hitler's power radiated out through the Nazi Party organization to control the life of Germany. What he created was appalling and eventually destructive beyond measure. We must never forget lest it happen again
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LibraryThing member RobertP
Very well written, detailed and objective study of the Nazis build up to the Second World War. The book is understated, but the sheer stupidity, corruption and above all evil of Hitler's empire is made evident. The tragedy of it all is hammered home. How an educated, cultured country could allow a
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buffoon, but a powerful destructive buffoon, come to power and wreak the destruction he did is a lesson to us all. He had, throughout the 1933-39 time period the support of many if not a majority of Germans. This is important. We other westerners are not somehow immune to falling for this kind of sickness. We are not special. We must remain on our guard against blaming our problems on the "other" and must keep an eye on our democracy.
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LibraryThing member Meggo
Make no mistake, this is a substantial book. Literally (at over 700 pages) and figuratively. Exhaustively researched and well written, the book traces the acts and impact of the Nazi party from 1933 to the outbreak of the war in 1939. From the Night of the Long Knives to Peace in Our Time, this
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book was chock full of historic occasions, insightful commentary and fascinating history. This one may cause bruising if you happen to fall asleep with it and drop it, but it's well worth the risk.
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LibraryThing member Narboink
The second book in Richard J. Evans' Third Reich trilogy, "The Third Reich in Power," covers the life of Germany from 1933 through the invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939. Longer than its predecessor, and at times significantly drier, it nonetheless paints an intriguing portrait of daily life
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under the Third Reich. Most interesting are the descriptions of how the Reich was (as was not) able to leverage political and economic support from interests as varied as academia, labor, medicine, agriculture and manufacturing. The speed of the transformation of German society into a colossal war machine becomes comprehensible in large part because of the detail (often tiring in its ordinariness) assembled here.

The benefit of hindsight allows for the characters in this story, including the most die hard Nazis, to display an amazing ability to simultaneously defy and conform to stereotypes. It is, in the end, not enough to vilify the top Nazi bureaucrats and summarily indict them for their crimes; the infrastructure of society as a whole - its politics, values, pressures - must be illuminated as well to create a truly meaningful understanding of the catastrophe of Nazism. This Evans accomplishes with great skill. I look forward to the final book in the series, "The Third Reich at War."
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LibraryThing member jorgearanda
An exhaustive, extremely informative account of life under the Third Reich. Evans' book covers the nazi approach to the economy, industry, propaganda efforts, racism, eugenics, political opposition, and foreign policy. At times it is a difficult and rather slow read, swamped by data and figures and
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considerations, but it's well worth the effort.
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LibraryThing member Aflwyddiant
While I've seen this book described as a work of 'popular history', the detail to be found within its pages doesn't correlate with the threadbare, simplified image that the term 'popular history' conjures up for me.

Evans provides innumerable statistics on all facets of German social and cultural
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life to satisfy any scholar, while also managing to provide a readable narrative that never gets too bogged down in the figures.

Unlike some historians, he isn't interesting in taking on the role of moral arbiter; he has enough respect for the reader to let him make his own mind up about the material. Of course, he can't fail to mention the contradictions and irrationalities that defined the Nazi ideology and subsequent actions, but it's very hard not to!

There's a lot more to say about the book, but you'll learn a lot more from reading it than you ever could from a review. The only thing that needs to be said is that the three volumes are an ideal introduction to the complex and ever-changing climate that defined the Weimar Republic and the Third Reich, and should be required reading for any student who is new to this period in Germany's history.
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LibraryThing member Schmerguls
This is the second volume (published in 2005) of Evans' trilogy. I read the first volume, The Coming of the Third Reich, on 9 Oct 2009. This volume extends from tthe summer of 1933 to Sep 3, 1939, and traces how the Nazis took over Germany, body and soul, during that time. It is not pleasant nor
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easy reading, at least until the final chapters when the way Hitler drove to war is set out , which reading while not pleasant expounds the way Hitler sought to have war, even though his brain-washed people still did not want such, in contrast to the giddy German joy in July 1914.
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LibraryThing member HadriantheBlind
Part 2 of the trilogy. Describes the social programs and diplomatic maneuvers that happened once Hitler took power.
LibraryThing member bke
The second of three volumes of what will probably become the definitive history of the Third Reich. This Chronicles Nazi Germany from the Nazi seizure of poser to the invasion of Poland. If you are at all interested in Germany or European history of the 20th century, this is a must-read.
LibraryThing member DinadansFriend
A very carefully researched book, with adequate illustrations, reasonable number of maps and charts, and very copious footnoting.
It claims to be a definitive History of the Germans 1928 - 45. This second volume of a trilogy , covers the domestic scene from 1933 to Sept. 1939. There is not any
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military detail, but his scope is about the actual society that the Nazis tried to create and control. I think the claims of this book are well founded.
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LibraryThing member MarcusBastos
The Totalitarian Experience
In his second book of the trilogy about the Third Reich, Richard Evans describes the german state, its main features and institutions. A police state that implemented terror, murder and despised the law. The arrival of the nazism to power, so argued the author, was
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accompanied with massive propaganda and the abolition of individual rights. There was no valid law against the desire of state agents. The politics enemies (communists and social-democrats) and minorities (homosexuals, non-arians and jews) are purged. Nazi's project is put into practice. The german territorial expansion begins with the invasion of Austria and Czech Republic. All this are covered by the book that ends in the beginning of the second world war (invasion of Poland). A great description of a modern totalitarian experience.
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LibraryThing member ffifield
The second of a three book survey of the Third Reich. This book covers what the Nazi regime's plan legitimate acquisition of power and how they consolidated that power. It's not just the politics that lead to their land grabs but also the buildup of their military, as well as their influence on
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culture, economics, art, music, and social life.
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LibraryThing member TheCrow2
An incredibly detailed and fascinating history of the Nazi empire between 1933 and 1939. A must for everyone interested in the era.

Awards

LA Times Book Prize (Finalist — 2005)

Language

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