The Coming of the Third Reich: How the Nazis Destroyed Democracy and Seized Power in Germany

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If you read only one account of the Nazis, the set of three of which this is the first is what I would recommend. Amongst the vast number of books on Nazism including a huge number of good ones this stands out because of its masterly and balanced distillation from staggering amounts of reading. the unwillingness of the Centre Party (Catholic) and the Social Democrats (socialist) to work together ... NS now (Nov 1932) had less seats (196) than the combined two Marxist parties - Communists (100) + Social Democrats (121) = 221 … Centre Party had 70 seats ... the Nazis were jubilant at the failure of the Social Democrats and trade unions to respond to the Papen coup … Goebbels wrote in his diary … "They have missed their big chance. It's never going to come again." What made this turnaround possible was the fact that parliamentary government no longer functioned in Germany. The country was run by Presidential decree, exercised through an appointed Chancellor. Hindenburg, in his 80s and after 7 years as President, was tired and declining. He never considered democratic alternatives. There was no effective leadership from the more moderate parties. They could not rid themselves of their Marxist ideology without losing a large part of their electoral support in the working class; yet on the other hand a more radical policy, for example of forming a Red Army militia from workers instead of relying on the Free Corps, would surely have made their participation in bourgeois coalition governments impossible and called down upon their heads the wrath of the army.” Among the essential conditions for the `coming of the 3rd Reich', we need to count the hyperinflation of the early 20s, which destroyed the social fabric of the bourgeois society, and then later the great depression. There was nothing that the republic did right. Had it just succeeded, on a normal level, to keep the economy afloat, things might have worked out. The republic had to shoulder huge welfare problems: war orphans, widows, invalids, plus unemployed and rising criminality. It was overwhelmed and unable to cope.

Coming Of The Third Reich, The: How the Nazis Destroyed Coming Of The Third Reich, The: How the Nazis Destroyed

Fundamentally, racial hygiene was born of a new drive for society to be governed by scientific principles irrespective of all other considerations.” the theory that the Peace of Versailles had been unjust had some merit. Equally important, those promoting the idea did so very effectively.

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It has an admirable scope, and because it is a trilogy, with room to breathe, it can discuss a lot of different things in one place. Accordingly, you get healthy discussions on Germany’s various pre-Hitler anti-Weimar political parties, the role of propaganda, the dire economic situation (and its effect on the already-shaky Weimar regime), and the latent anti-Semitism endemic to Germany since time immemorial, which started to mutate after World War I. Richard J. Evans’s The Coming of the Third Reich . . .gives the clearest and most gripping account I’ve read of German life before and during the rise of the Nazis.”— A. S Byatt, Times Literary Supplement The Nazi success opened the door for their eventual seizure of total power. Once they were included in a right-wing coalition government, the Nazis were able to establish a one-party state. Appointments of Nazis as internal ministers allowed them to co-opt police departments, which went along quite willingly with Nazi mandates. As Evans explains, it had been well established by the 1930s that "Communists"="criminals" anyway. The Reichstag fire furthered the assault on Communists through emergency decrees (again, with precedents set before the Nazis came to power). The Communist Reichstag deputies weren't allowed to vote on the Enabling Act by Goering, the chamber's president, a clearly illegal measure. My reading experience might have been salvaged by particularly graceful writing. The best I can say on that topic is that this was easier to read than Michael Burleigh’s The Third Reich: A New History. Okay, that’s not entirely justified. I should say that Evans is a mostly-unobtrusive writer. This is the kind of book that could’ve been written by anyone. Well, almost. I was annoyed with Evans’ tic of interjecting clauses into every other sentence. After his 1,000th use of “indeed” to break up a sentence, I started to wonder if he had some kind of bet going with his publisher.

The coming of the Third Reich - Open Library The coming of the Third Reich - Open Library

As a long-time WWII buff, Evans's book deepened my understanding about the origins of the Third Reich. I'd recommend it to WWII students and anyone else who wants to learn about the period. This title tells perhaps the single most important story of the 20th century: how a stable and modern country in less than a single lifetime led Europe into moral, physical and cultural ruin and despair. Evans recreates a Germany torn apart by overwhelming economic, political and social blows But I think that the eternal puzzles posed by any essentially metaphysical or moral question always seem to present “answers” that are so enigmatic, contradictory, and frightening that one is frequently left with a feeling of deep dissatisfaction, fear, and confusion. That, unfortunately, is my problem here. Shirer was aware that he was writing his history at a very early point in time. First published in 1960, Shirer started the project less than 15 years after the regime came to an end. His justification was that the Nuremberg Tribunal had thrown open the German archives for its investigation and hence the usually 30 year waiting period for the archival material did not apply. In this regard Shirer was perfectly correct. Traditionally conservative elements of the police force, military and civil service began to actively collude with right wing and Nationalist elements to undermine the Weimar democracy in the late 1920's and early 1930's, as the electoral success of the communist party continued to worry traditionalists who longed for a return to centralized state authority and a strong dictatorial leader. This gave the formerly extremist Nazi's room to maneuver and manipulate their way into power.In one narrow sense, the final book in Professor Evans's magnificent trilogy is an anti-climax. We know who lost the Second World War. We know about Dunkirk, D-Day and Dresden. His first two volumes, on the coming of the Third Reich and its seizure not only of power but of the German psyche, seem more immediately relevant seven decades on than another account of the subsequent battles and bestialities. Yet, in an almost Wagnerian way, you need to see the madness complete; you need to watch Berlin burning, a pyre of malevolent dreams. This is the fire Hitler built. This, crucially, is the history of his Reich set in its own obsessive context. This is the end of the party. Popular support for Hitler was certainly present but not overwhelming. As the leader of the largest party it was not unreasonable to offer him the chancellorship. After the failed Putsch of 1923 Hitler was careful to stay publicly within the letter of the law (roughly), while simultaneously practicing massive illegal violence through the SA. This curious dual approach was characteristic. If the experience of the Third Reich teaches us anything, it is that a love of great music, great art and great literature does not provide people with any kind of moral or political immunization against violence, atrocity, or subservience to dictatorship.”

The Coming of the Third Reich: How the Nazis Destroyed

the anti-semitic parties had introduced a new, rabble-rousing, demagogic style of politcs that had freed itself from the customary restraints of political decorum." Sir Richard J. Evans is Professor of Modern History at Cambridge University. His previous books include In Defence of History, Telling Lies about Hitler and the companions to this title, The Coming of the Third Reich and The Third Reich at War. Read more DetailsFrom now on it is not up to you to decide whether or not something is true, but whether it is in the interests of the National Socialist Revolution.” Berna Günen. "Richard J. Evans, Le Troisième Reich. L'avènement, vol. I et Le Troisième Reich, 1933-1939, vol. II" . Retrieved 2011-10-24. By 1930 at the latest, it had become clear that the Presidential power was in the hands of a man who had no faith in democratic institutions and no intention of defending them from their enemies.”

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urn:lcp:comingofthirdrei0000evan:epub:229d698b-048d-435c-b491-e3e9b1e75a1e Foldoutcount 0 Identifier comingofthirdrei0000evan Identifier-ark ark:/13960/s219q7tt4cv Invoice 1652 Isbn 0141009756 For example, Evans totally buys the story that a Dutch Communist named Lubbe was the sole perpetrator of the Reichstag fire ... Evans: Lubbe confessed to starting the fire ... it was confirmed by subsequent investigation that he had worked alone ... and does not mention a contemporaneous memorandum by Ernst Oberfohren (published a few days before he committed suicide or was murdered) that Joseph Goebbels thought up the idea of burning down the Reichstag and that Hermann Goering supervised the actual burning. Richard Evans does a fantastic job imo. I love the fact that he leaves out moralizing and avoids too much editorializing. It makes for a stronger recounting of the history. And frankly I can judge for myself the terribleness of the actions, I don't need the writer needing to cram their moral outrage down my throat. I'm sufficiently outraged as it is, thank you very much ;)In this story, the Nazis appear as a reluctant choice for many voters. In his telling, a non-Nazi political majority - which is still atrociously anti-Semitic and nationalist but not committed to the bodge of National Socialism - voted for them in winter 1932, and then were forced into conformity or obedience by spring 1933.