The Third Reich at War is the finale to Richard J. Evans's impressive trilogy on Nazi Germany. It is best read as a continuation of the preceding volume, The Third Reich in Power, showing how the militaristic and brutal trends of the first half of Hitler's regime reached fruition following the invasion of Poland and how the Nazi edifice then collapsed under the hammer blows of war.

The preceding volume focused on the fabric of life under Hitler; in this one, the fabric first unravels, then burns. As before, Professor Evans focuses on the impact of the regime's practices and policies on individuals, quoting frequently from contemporary diaries and letters. He is much less interested in discrete events, statistics and the intricacies of high politics, topics that, it may be noted, have been covered in extenso in many other works.

The central theme here is Nazi barbarism: toward the mentally and physically defective, toward the populace of conquered countries and, of course, toward Hitler's most hated victims, the Jews. Also chronicled is the retaliatory violence of Germany's enemies, particularly the massive Anglo-American bombing raids and the savage Soviet invasion of the eastern half of the country. The course of World War II provides a loose narrative structure on which other topics hang more or less appropriately in generally self-contained units. There is, for instance, a section on the euthanasia of "lives unworthy of life", one on the effect of the war on culture, one of the drive to develop "wonder weapons", and so on. A few matters of special importance, above all the destruction of European Jewry, reappear.

The book has a subtle approach to the multitude of controversies that divide historians of the war. It generally does not call attention to them but does present pertinent facts for the consideration of readers who are aware of the debates. Sometimes the author's own position is firmly set forth. He does not believe, for instance, that Germany's defeat was due to any delay in wartime economic mobilization (as his previous book shows in detail, the economy was on a full war footing by 1938) or to Hitler's disregard of the advice of his generals. Elsewhere, as on the attitude of the Roman Catholic and Protestant churches toward the persecution of the Jews, he lays out the conflicting evidence without trying to shape it.

On one question, The Third Reich at War is absolutely clear: The reassuring idea that the Holocaust was a secret known only to a handful of villains is unsustainable. Professor Evans does not accuse millions of Germans of being "Hitler's willing executioners", but he leaves no doubt that very few were ignorant bystanders. He does not, however, omit to note acts of sympathy, even heroism, by ordinary Germans on behalf of threatened Jews.

In the course of the book, one runs across a few minor, but interesting revisionist points, e. g., that the Waffen-SS was far less elite than its reputation and that the received picture of the Battle of Kursk has large elements of myth: The climactic clash at Prochorovka, supposedly the largest tank battle in history, was invented by the Soviet commander to cover up an embarrassing tactical blunder, and the Germans called off the offensive not because they had been defeated on the ground but in order to send reinforcements to the West. It looks, then, as if the oft-derided invasion of Sicily served the purpose of a Second Front.

I have two regrets about this book: first, that Professor Evans had to squeeze his material into a single volume, thus giving it a sometimes helter-skelter feel, and, second, that the excellently conceived maps were not better reproduced. The shades of gray too often fade into one another, though I suppose that color would be economically unfeasible.

A vast amount has been written about the Third Reich, and much old scholarship has gradually been upended. For those who want a comprehensive, up-to-date portrait, from Hitler's first stirrings to his immolation in the Berlin bunker, and who have the moderate leisure necessary for 2,000-plus pages of reading, The Coming of the Third Reich, The Third Reich in Power and The Third Reich at War are unsurpassed. ( )