Hitler’s People: The Faces of the Third Reich

Author: Richard Evans

Working in concentric circles out from Hitler and his closest allies, Evans forms a typological framework of German society under Nazi rule from the top down. Evans explains the Third Reich through the personal failings and professional ambitions of its members, from its most notorious deputies—such as Goebbels, the regime’s propagandist, and Himmler, the Holocaust’s chief architect—to the crucial enforcers and instruments of the Nazi agenda whom history has largely forgotten—such as the schoolteacher Julius Streicher and the actress Leni Riefenstahl. Drawing on a wealth of recently unearthed historical sources, Hitler’s People lays bare the inner and outer lives of the characters whose choices led to the deaths of millions.

Nearly a century after Hitler’s rise, the leading nations of the West are once again being torn apart by a will to power. By telling the stories of these infamous lives as human lives, Evans asks us to grapple with the complicated nature of complicity, showing us that the distinctions between individual and collective responsibility—and even between pathological evil and rational choice—are never easily drawn.

Hardback

624 pages