The Coming of the Third Reich (2003)

How did the Nazis establish a dictatorship with such little resistance? This is the question Evans answers in the first volume of his highly acclaimed trilogy.

The main point the author makes is Hitler didn't happen in a vacuum. Evans wants the reader to understand the Nazis were a product of the times. Antisemitism, paramilitaries, radical groups, extreme nationalism, and violence were fairly common at the time. Evans presents these ideas well with the exception of one - antisemitism. Evans doesn't really explain why the Germans accepted antisemistim. Granted he gives a few reasons, but he doesn't really analyze the subject. I also thought the details on the German Empire and World War I were thin. The German Empire is the origins of the Third Reich, but Evans doesn’t spend much time on it.

An unusual characteristic of the book is Hitler and the Jews are not at the forefront in the book, instead, the focus is on German history. This is refreshing for those who have read books on the topic, and a bad thing, for those wishing to read an account of Hitler or the Jews.

The basic structure of the book starts with some background on the Bismarckian/German Empire. We then move to the political parties of Germany and the effects of World War I. The book slows down and explains the problems of the Weimar Republic including Germany's hyperinflation and unemployment. When the Great Depression hits, the Republic starts to lose control. Street violence becomes rapid and leaders become concerned. They appoint Hitler Chancellor to solve these problems - ironically. The Nazis escalate the violence and start to crush their enemies and political parties. After all this is complete, the Nazis start terrorizing public and social institutions as they see fit. The book ends roughly at the summer of 1933 before Hitler becomes dictator of Nazi Germany.

I highly enjoyed the book and look forward to reading the rest of the series. The narrative is well researched and meticulously documented. The pacing is excellent and the prose is lively. Evans has a gift of presenting compact details without boring the reader. He accomplishes this by using social commentary and personal documents. As a result, I got a sense what living in Germany during this period felt like.

Excellent book and highly recommended - despite some misgivings!

Part I: The Legacy of the Past

German Peculiarities: Bismarck Empire
Gospels of Hate: Antisemitism and Racism
Spirit of 1914: World War I
Descent into Chaos: After World War I

Part II: Failure of Democracy

Weaknesses of Weimar: Numerous German Political Groups
The Great Inflation: The Hyperinflation of the 20's
Culture Wars: Media, The Arts, Feminisim, Male Supremacist Youth Movements, Schools, Laws
The Fit and the Unfit: Discrimination, Antisemitism, Racism, Scapegoating

Part III: The Rise of Nazism

Bohemian Revolutionaries: Hilter's Personal and Political Background
The Beer-Hall Putsch: Hitler Tries to Seize Power
Rebuilding the Movement: Nazi's Take Over Various Sectors of Society in the Form of Various Organizations
The Roots of Commitment: Why People Joined the Nazi Movement

Part IV: Toward the Seizure of Power

The Great Depression: Increase Support for the Nazis
Crisis of Democracy: Nazis Become a Force to Reckon With
Victory of Violence: Hindenburg, Papen Coup, Republic Decline
Fateful Decisions: On the Edge of Civil War

Part V: Creating the Third Reich

The Terror Begins: Political Violence and Communist
Fire in the Reichstag: Murder Opponents, Concentration Camps
Democracy Destroyed: Paramilitary Groups & Political Parties Crushed; Catholicism
Bringing Germany Into Line: Repression, Sexual Liberation, Eugenics, Terrorizing Public Institutions.

Part 6: Hitler's Culture Revolution

Discordant Notes: Propaganda & Music
Purge of the Arts: Radio, Movies, Literature
Against the Un-German Spirit: Philosophy, Science, Burning Books, Jews
A Revolution of Destruction: Summary



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Important survey of how a society as brilliant yet troubled as Germany could succumb to the threat of Nazism. Evans believes that German militarism and economic catastrophe made an extremist takeover inevitable, with only too disastrous effects for the world. ( )

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This work of history takes on the task, in the author’s words: “to recount the Nazi’s rise to power through a combination of electoral success and massive political violence”. It also sets out to clarify “how the Nazis managed to establish a one-party dictatorship in Germany within a very short space of time, and with seemingly little real resistance from the German people.” In this it does an admirable job.

I, for one, have many times puzzled over the moral and philosophical quandaries presented by the existence and early “success” of the Nazis in 20th century Germany. The Germans that produced Brecht and Kant, Goethe and Hesse, Beethoven and Bach also produced and developed Hitler and the Nazis and Buchenwald and Auschwitz. I’d hoped that a well-written and well-documented history, such as this book, would help me to better understand questions that are, after all, more metaphysical, ontological, and moral--than historical.

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.

Richard Evans has indeed produced a formidable work. It is well presented, well documented, and fills a seriously needed gap in modern historical writing. It is not difficult reading; and it clearly places the Nazi’s rise to power in the context of European and World Historical Events of the early twentieth century. It provides an almost step-by-step recounting of each of the events that not only made the Nazi’s rise to power possible, but almost inevitable. Many of my own questions surrounding the facts of importance, such as the Reichstag Fire, are dissected and displayed for “viewing”. This is a service to the historical record that is difficult to overestimate.

And, perhaps, my hope for answers to those metaphysical questions have been confused in my own mind by my hope to better know the chronology of the events as well as facts as they are able to be known. This is a result of a confusion between the metaphysical and the physical.

But the chronology is not the same as the cause. Ontogeny does not really recapitulate phylogeny as expressed in that now discredited theory. In other words one cannot really understand the “cosmic why” of an event by knowing the when of an event. This is why this work is so dissatisfying to me through no flaw in the considerable talents of Richard Evans.

But if a better understanding of the historical record, and the economic tensions of the times, and the historical background of the German peoples’ predispositions, and the pandemic political climate afflicting post-World War One Germany, etc. is your goal—then you can hardly do better than this very admirable work.

But if you want to understand better why we as humans can behave in an organized, barbaric, racist, and criminally political fashion—then maybe God can tell us. But maybe even He (She) doesn’t know. ( )

On the level of the Rise and Fall of the Third Reich ( )

Beautiful. This book is by far the most interesting and informative general survey of the rise of the Third Reich I've ever encountered. It avoids pedantic moralization and takes Nazi ideas seriously in such a way that the reader is able to judge for themselves the political ethos of Germany at the time.

Also, I would like to add that the prior review by gmicksmith is entirely insane (particularly given that, nearly two years later, nothing like what he's predicting panned out) and is, unfortunately, an example of a very common misuse of history (both on the left and the right). What happens is that people take the old adage "history repeats itself" far too literally and, building upon one or a few similarities, they look for the recurrence of a formally equivalent scenario. We don't usually see that at all. History is only cyclical in the sense that historic potentialities can be retrieved: we can take a second look at democracy after Greece and Rome and "do it again" in a sense, but when we found the American Republic, we should not be on the lookout for Julius Caesar himself nor even from someone, say President Obama, who will perform formally equivalent deeds. History isn't the execution of certain programmatic commands on a platform: we're not running the democracy operating system and Hitler, Bush, or Obama aren't all the same application running again under different names.

To say it again in a more traditional form: The study of history hooks you up with a consciousness of how different possibilities can work out: it is a repository of human possibilities. It is *not* a catalog of human actualities.

Indeed, I think this book has numerous examples of the bad use of history I'm bringing out. The mythologization of Bismarck and then the subsequent search for a strong uncompromising leader to "do what he did" detailed by Evans was problematic not only because it worked with a mythologized history but also because it treated history as a catalog of types or programs which can be found and executed in the present in the very same way they were executed in the past: it sees that A B C D happened in the past and it searches for A again in the certainty that B C and D will follow. That kind of certainty only makes sense if A (the historic individual) is treated as a thing which necessitates the series A B C D: sort of like the strong correlation between 'Water hitting boiling point' and 'water boils' or the necessary correlation between 'All As are Bs' 'All Bs are Cs' and 'All As are Cs', but historic individuals are complexes entirely unlike any of these simple examples. We can reason historically, and use historic example, but we don't get anything like the strong correlation of 'water at boiling point & water boiling' or the necessary deduction of the syllogism. Too much is going on in a thing like Hitler to treat him like 'Water reaching the boiling point' never mind to try and superimpose that logic on top of another complex thing like, say, Obama in order to predict similar results. History *does not* do that, sorry, and if there *are* basic laws of history, they don't look like that. ( )