The Coming of the Third Reich

Contemporary Review, May, 2004

The Coming of the Third Reich. Richard J. Evans. Allen Lane. [pounds sterling]25.00. xxxiv 622 pages. ISBN 0-713-99648-X. This title is the first of a three-volume history of the Third Reich and takes the story up to Hitler's rise to power in 1933. The book is aimed at readers who know 'nothing about the subject, or ...

a little and would like to know more'. Prof. Evans' concern is with the background to the Nazi Reich and with a wider understanding of German life under the Nazis. High politics are not eschewed but neither are literature, the arts or the family in this period. Also Prof. Evans insists we take Nazi propaganda and 'thought' seriously: moral repugnance must not limit our understanding. Our understanding of the Nazis, he writes, is confused because of talk of historical determinism and 'the German character'. The Nazi takeover of Germany was not inevitable nor was there any element of historical determinism at play. The Nazis succeeded, and their opponents failed, due to a wide variety of causes rooted in history. The author therefore begins his history with the creation of the Empire in 1871 and the role of Bismarck. The Nazis' seizure of power in 1933 was not really a political revolution because their real concern was not with the machinery of government but the German race and Germany's place in Europe. This first volume not only gives readers a good historical survey but makes them think about what happened and why. (J.M.)