Hitler's People: The Faces of the Third Reich Hardcover – August 13, 2024

Richard J. Evans is recognized as one of the finest historians on the planet, and perhaps the very best authority on Nazi Germany. His books have garnered rave reviews. With this volume, because it covers many of the top-line Nazi leaders who have been well covered by others, I expected mostly a rehash of known material. I was mistaken.For each of his subjects, Evans provides some biographical information on how they started life and finished it, on what they did to become what we know them for, and on their personal understandings of the philosophy of National Socialism, if it can be called that. Anti-Semitism defined that philosophy for most, but not all, of Evans' subjects. What I found astonishing is the causal attributions many of the major Nazi leaders associated with their anti-Semitism. Robert Ley, for example, said of World War I that he "became convinced that the Jews were the ones who had encircled and attacked Germany." Encircled and attacked? As a group? Apparently he meant that. And Julius Streicher, not the brightest star in the Nazi firmament, believed in the literal truth of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a Russian concoction of fantastical anti-Semitic tropes (which, incredibly, continue to influence people still).Almost all the major Nazi leaders, using some rather twisted logic, blamed Germany's defeat in World War I on "the Jews," who were taken to be all-powerful. Never mind that in 1914 Germany did not have, and could not have obtained, the resources sufficient to defeat the French and the British, and later the Americans all together. No, it became "the Jews" who "stabbed Germany in the back," although it was hard to say just how, but that didn't matter. The cause-effect connections that the major Nazi leaders attributed to a collectivity they contemptuously referred to as "the Jew" were simply out of touch with reality. A few of them had to have known that, but many evidently did not. They believed what they wanted to believe. With the perspective afforded by the passage of time, their beliefs look downright stupid, but they served their purpose. They justified, in the true believers' minds, the extermination program, or "final solution," that was implemented. The reactions of Hitler's people to the mass killing of Jews ranged from glee (Adolph Eichmann) through satisfaction (Heinrich Himmler) to feigned ignorance (Albert Speer). This range could be found in the German populace as well.In the portraits provided by Evans there are no monsters among the major Nazi leaders. There is one stone cold killer, Reinhard Heydrich, who died the way he lived; a lap dog, Rudoph Hess, who may have lost his mind; a World War hero, Herman Goring, an influencer, once a powerhouse, who became degenerate; a cynical image manipulator, Joseph Goebbels, whose devotion to Hitler was so complete he chose to die with him; a vainglorious mass murderer, Hans Frank, cultured but corrupt Hitler supplicant; a legendary artist and film maker, Leni Riefenstahl, who gushed over Hitler, then spent the rest of her life denying she had courted his favors; and Albert Speer, who epitomized a principal trait common to them all, namely, a studied opportunism they all paid dearly for in the end. And there are others, well known, who round out Evans' list.The studies Evans has provided give new meaning to Hannah Arendt's classic phrase "banality of evil." Evans discusses this in connection with Adolph Eichmann, who was Arendt's focus, but the concept has wider application here. Evans seems to think that all of his subjects had some redeeming virtue. Most were ordinary people who did extraordinary things when they actively sought and fully realized the nefarious identities they are known for. Evans' analysis is more sophisticated than I am letting on, but it seems that most of his subjects were middle class or higher and rather ordinary people who, because of how they became extraordinary, lost their moral compass. It didn't matter whether they began life with social advantages or not.To make some of these points, and to round out the volume, Evans provides a sampling from different spheres of German activity, beginning with Dr. Karl Brandt. He was in charge of the euthanasia program -- the killing of what Hitler called "life unworthy of life" (the mentally ill, the infirm, children with Downs' Syndrome, and others). Brandt thus became one of the more notorious of the Nazi mass murderers, a status he would not repent but continued to justify up to the very last minute of his life on the gallows. Evans also considers the cases of two obscure soldiers and two concentration camp sadists, plus one woman who made the strange claim that she was in charge of the women in Germany, but she had considerable status to back up her claim. Especially interesting is Evan's consideration of a German woman not connected to the Nazi regime who left to posterity a mountainous diary of fascinating observations, some of which show how, with the advent of Allied civilian bombing and German food rationing, her initial admiration for Hitler eventually became total contempt. These various fellow travelers, a somewhat odd collection of characters, the gathering together of whom is not well explained, close out the book.Evans works to correct mistakes that have plagued past histories, and he tries to be fair, in the interest of accurate history, to people who don't really deserve it. For some of Evans' subjects this book will provide the finishing touches on their biographies; there will be no more for them. One hopes Evans would consider another book, on Nazi Germany's military leaders (just one is analyzed here). That might be tricky, since not all German miliary leaders were Nazis and they were nominally expected to be apolitical. But there is a wide range of opinion on what the generals could have done, should have done, did do, and didn't, and the consequences of their actions and inaction. Evans -- or some other scholar -- needs to write that book.

The people and events described are fascinating. I think the book would have benefited from better editing. Much of the sentence structure was overlong and overly complex. I had to read some sentences several times to comprehend. Still would recommend this book to anyone such as myself, who puzzles how an ostensibly Christian country could commit such atrocities.

I very much enjoyed Evans’ book. Much of my knowledge of Nazism was before these new findings about the leaders, and the people of the Third Reich were public. Each person was thoroughly researched and added new insights into the motivation that brought each person to the Party. It’s a fascinating sociological and psychological study of human motivation and how it resulted in these people becoming monsters. No stretch making comparisons to today’s state of affairs.

pristine condition and delivery excellent

A well researched book. It offers the reader a real insight into who the top henchmen that served Hitler and the Nazi party. Yes, they were evil in every sense of the word -evil. They all were all monsters in the rabid evil demonic ways, but the scary part is that they looked and acted like Normal people, walking amongst us as normal people of society, but unrecognizable to us was the true persona of being the monsters of evil that they truly were!

It is OK given Richard Evans' abilities. But, it did not add much to his Three-volume History of the Third Reich (I would recommend volume One: The Coming of the Third Reich instead)

Interesting book. Easy to read, fascinating to learn a bit more of what went on behind the curtain. Essay style writing. Easy to read.

Great reading