The Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany - Hardcover

"A narrative masterpiece that displays both Childers's profound expertise and genius for story-telling."--Walter A. McDougall, Professor of History and Alloy-Ansin Professor of International Relations, University of Pennsylvania, and Pulitzer Prize-winning historian

"[Childers] is a master of English prose, writing with clarity, elegance, and wit; his account of Nazi Germany is every bit as readable as Shirer's and deserves a wide audience. . . . Offers a series of important correctives to Shirer's narrative, based on a comprehensive knowledge of the research carried out in the half-century and more since The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich was first published."--Richard J. Evans "The Nation "

"An exhaustive but powerful timeline of the rise and fall of the Third Reich. Childers dispels some common misconceptions about early Nazi history, while not sugarcoating their heinous atrocities. This book is a historical reminder of what happens when power goes unchecked."

--Philip Zozzaro "San Francisco Review of Books "

"The new definitive volume on the subject, supplanting William Shirer's gold standard The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. . . . The book's main strength lies in its chapters on the rise and early years of the party. And with newly unearthed documents - many from Germany - that the author had access to."--Bob Ruggiero "Houston Press "

"Riveting. . . . An elegantly composed study, important and even timely, given current trends in American and global politics."--Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"Historian Childers does a magnificent job of balancing many details within an overarching narrative of the Nazis' rise to power. . . . Essential reading for World War II enthusiasts and those interested in the origins of the Nazi Party and the resulting Holocaust."--Library Journal (starred review)

The dramatic story of the Third Reich—how Adolf Hitler and a core group of Nazis rose to power and plunged the world into a horrific war, perpetrating the genocidal Holocaust while sacrificing the lives of millions of ordinary Germans.

In The Third Reich, Thomas Childers shows how the young Hitler became passionately political and anti-Semitic as he lived on the margins of society. Fueled by outrage at the punitive terms of the Versailles Treaty that ended the Great War, he found his voice and drew a following.

As his views developed, Hitler attracted like-minded colleagues who formed the nucleus of the nascent Nazi party. The failed Munich putsch of 1923 and subsequent trial gave Hitler a platform for his views, which he skillfully exploited. Between 1924 and 1929 Hitler and his party languished in obscurity on the radical fringes of German politics, but the onset of the Great Depression provided Hitler the issues he needed to move into the mainstream of German political life. He seized the opportunity to blame Germany’s misery on the victorious allies, the Marxists, the Jews, and big business—and the political parties that represented them. By 1932 the Nazis had become the largest political party in Germany. Although Hitler became chancellor in 1933, his party had never achieved a majority in free elections. Within six months the Nazis transformed a dysfunctional democracy into a totalitarian state and began the inexorable march to World War II and the Holocaust.

It is these fraught times that Childers brings to life: the Nazis’ rise to power and their use and abuse of power once they achieved it. Based in part on German documents seldom used by previous historians, The Third Reich charts the dramatic, improbable rise of the Nazis; the suffering of ordinary Germans under Nazi rule; and the horrors of World War II and the Holocaust. This is the most comprehensive and readable one-volume history of Nazi Germany since the classic Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.