The Third Reich in Power

Richard J. Evans examines how it was possible for a group of ideological obsessives to remould a society famous for its sophistication and complexity into a one-party state directed purely at war and race hate. He shows how the Nazis won over the hearts and minds of German citizens, twisted science, religion and culture, and transformed the economy, education, law and order to achieve total dominance in German politics and society. The major events of the dictatorship including the Night of the Long Knives, the anti-Jewish Nuremberg Laws, the Olympic Games, the pogroms, the headlong rush to war are re-created with skill and understanding, but just as important is the author's engagement with the myriad, smaller ways in which a whole population became enmeshed in a horrific experiment in human engineering at the very heart of Europe. The picture created is of a dictatorship consumed by visceral hatreds and ambitions and driven by war.