הרייך השלישי: היסטוריה חדשה by Michael Burleigh

הרייך השלישי: היסטוריה חדשה Reviews

• 
  Lewis Weinstein

  I have read the first 130+ pages, until 1930. This is an excellent history, written after most of the other standards. The author is not reluctant to express his opinion. Here are a few quotes ...
  
  ... German elites and masses of ordinary people chose to abdicate their individual critical faculties in favor of a politics based on faith, hope, hatred and sentimental collective self-regard for their own race and nation … leading to an almost total moral collapse of an advanced industrial civilization ... many citizens abandoned the burden of thinking for themselves.
  
  ... National Socialism went beyond brawling, despair and hatred … to a heroic quasi-religious dimension … with sacrificial victims, martyrs … took the emotions of religion and synthesized them into a political religion … the German state religion … with a messinic Hitler central to it all
  
  ... a Hamburg schoolteacher (female) wrote after a 1932 meeting … How many look up to him with touching faith … as their helper, their saviour, their deliverer from unbearable stress … he rescues (us all)
  
  ... Nazis differed from other political parties by keeping their election machinery permanently mobilized … they held meetings before, during and after elections … their printers were ready to rebut opponents instantly … they were always ready to file writs of libel ... pamphlets were issued in braille
  
  MORE TO FOLLOW
• 
  Juan-Pablo

  This is not a book of detailed accounts of events, characters, and military success and failure of the Third Reich. It is neither a Hitler-centered overview of his dictatorship. This is a book of insightful interpretation on how the carefully crafted Nazi propaganda replaced religion in Germany to become the one-party regime of those convoluted 1920-30.
  
  Michael Burleigh's main thesis is that the upcoming of Nazisms can be understood as a spurious religious movement. Nazism carefully design Hitler's image through propaganda, with a whole mythology surrounding him in his messianic role. How this mythology redirected religious fervor is an astonishing account but Burleigh bring it to life with his great insights.
  
  The book is not an easy read, so is not for people that want a fast introduction to Nazi Germany. It is, however, a very well documented and written analysis. The main facts are only mentioned and the reader is expected to know them, this is not why this book is called a "New History". His interpretation is what makes the book a worthy (New History) read for anyone that wants more in-depth analysis of those year.
  
  I gave the book 4 stars only because Burleigh abuses the negative adjectives (evil, insane, atrocious, etc...) which I think is totally unnecessary giving the context and expecting smart and informed readers (what's the point of ending a sentence or a paragraph of massive murder in the Eastern Front with those words, isn't it obvious enough?).
• 
  Michael

  To begin with: this book is not what expected or hoped for. In my life as a reviewer and student of the Third Reich, I am often asked for a book that will serve as an introduction for interested individuals with no training in history, who want something better than the History Channel or William Shirer. This book is not that. Burleigh is not a popular history writer, and this book is no introduction. At several points, he says “much has already been written about” an aspect or that “there is no point in going over the basic details of so well-worn a topic.” In other words, you need to have some background before you approach this text. Sorry, everyone, I guess you have to stick with Shirer for now.
  
  That said, the book is definitely worthwhile for those who have that background. This is not least because he does engage with academic historical debates, and does so from a unique and often fascinating perspective. I don’t necessarily agree with a lot of it, but that’s precisely what makes it challenging and useful for me. Burleigh is sometimes described as a “right wing” historian, a term that has been tarnished by the likes of Niall Ferguson and Glenn Beck, but he is a genuinely responsible academic, and he makes his arguments for the most part without resorting to rancor or misinformation. These two paragraphs represent the bulk of my review for those who interested in assessing whether or not to read the book. What follows is a detailed analysis of his arguments, based on the notes I made while reading.
  
  His theoretical approach is discussed in the Introduction. Perhaps most significantly, he identifies as a proponent of the concept of “totalitarianism” as a category more important than divisions like “Fascism” or “Left-Right” divides. . Someday, I’d like to see a use of the concept of “totalitarianism” that explains why Hitler and Stalin are more similar to each other than either one is to Oswald Mosley or Fidel Castro, but generally, what it is used for is to paint all Communists, Fascists, and other ideological authoritarians with a single, broad brush, that simplifies rather than complicates our understanding. On page 21, even Burleigh places Cuba and Stalinism together without a hint of irony. Still, in terms of understanding this category as it is used in scholarship, I have seen no better example than Burleigh, and slips such as the above are relatively rare. The other recurring theme that deserves mention is his argument that National Socialism was a “political religion,” and therefore more hostile towards Christianity than is generally recognized. In the Introduction, he posits Nazism as “a creative synthesis of both…science run riot [and] bastardized Christianity” (p.14). He ties this idea to a number of previous scholars, including Mosse, but does not develop it adequately in the rest of the text to be persuasive to me. Again, however, the presentation is interesting and the idea challenging.
  
  The first chapter discusses the Weimar Republic and its decline and fall. His point is not to examine the complexities of the period but rather to consider the reasons it ended as it did. Burleigh does not give in to single, oversimplified “magic bullet” theories here. He gives a broad overview of political, economic, social and cultural factors that undermined Germany’s experiment in democracy, and is fair about distributing blame among rich and poor, right and left, foreign and domestic sources of tension. His use of anecdotes and examples is actually quite original, and he avoids the clichés most people have seen dozens of times. Even his illustrations from Mein Kampf impressed me as being sections not frequently used, some of which I had forgotten having read years ago.
  
  Chapter Two covers “the demise of the rule of law” and it returns to a large degree to arguments of totalitarianism. Among the issues covered are the Nazification of the judiciary and the police, the extension of secret policing and the power of the SD, and the management of the pre-war system of Concentration Camps. This is decidedly useful material, even though I found myself questioning his interpretations frequently in this section. Although the chapters can be seen as roughly chronological, the approach within chapters is more thematic. The demise of the rule of law generally is necessary to understand what came later (the Holocaust), but he discusses events from 1937 alongside those in 1933 in a manner that would be confusing for newcomers. The Reichstag Fire and Röhm purge are two subjects he discusses in terms of their effects on this process, but he does not provide enough background to be coherent to a neophyte.
  
  Chapter Three is “New Times, New Man,” and discusses several of the more “positive” aspects of the Nazi program in action. This includes charitable work, efforts to create a classless society, educational efforts, the use of pageantry and ritual, and international relations and foreign policy. I began to notice here his dependence on the “Berichte der SOPADE” as a source for many of his anecdotes. These are reports produced for the exiled leaders of the Social Democratic Party by agents within Germany, and represent a curious source for a “right wing” author. In his bibliographic essay at the end of the book, Burleigh discusses his use of these documents: “Despite its obvious biases, which in this context are no demerit, the most detailed contemporary observations on life under the Nazi regime during the 1930s were collected as” the SOPADE. I found that they added much fresh detail to the narrative, although of course they are merely anecdotes.
  
  With Chapter Four, “Living in a Land with No Future,” Burleigh makes it clear that for him the study of the Third Reich is intimately bound in the study of the Holocaust, unlike many earlier writers, who treated the Holocaust as a side-issue or final chapter. This chapter focuses specifically on the rising mis-treatment of Jews as racial outsiders through the pre-War period (1933-1938). He includes quite a bit of information on Austria, which was only added to the Reich at the end of this period, but seems to have made strenuous efforts to “catch up” with and even exceed the rest of Germany in anti-Semitism. A large section discusses Kristallnacht, which Burleigh explicitly classes as a “pogrom,” and which he is at pains to demonstrate was neither “spontaneous” nor “popular,” although here his evidence is somewhat stretched, in my opinion. His discussion of Eichmann is interesting and complicated: he is a man who, yes, acted more from ambition and personal gain than from ideology, but who clearly took to sadism as an outlook and a lifestyle. He does not appear as a truly faceless bureaucrat, although it is possible to believe that there are many like him tucked away within bureaucracies, waiting their chances.
  
  The progression toward the Holocaust is made more explicit in Chapter Five, on “Eugenics and Euthanasia.” The sections are broken down into discussions of “breeding” and “murder,” with eugenics coming in for moral as well as scientific re-evaluation. Burleigh points out that enthusiasm for eugenics was not solely a Nazi concern, many countries enacted laws or policies, or at least had doctors advocating them, which attempted to control the genetic future. However, the Nazis did take it to an extreme degree, probably helping to discredit it after the War. Euthanasia continues to be a contentious point in many countries, with “mercy killing” still an open question for many. This may be because the Nazis did not apply “mercy,” but rather made an active effort to sterilize and kill the “less useful” members of their society. Burleigh examines the response of the churches to this situation, especially relevant because of the many ecumenical hospitals involved in the programs. This subject area doesn’t lend itself well to discussion of “totalitarianism,” because what the Nazis did for eugenics, and in their approach to “euthanasia,” were unique, although in theory the discussion of the churches should open an opportunity develop the “political religion” thesis, which he mostly ignores in favor of giving more anecdotes and details.
  
  Chapter Six, “Occupation and Collaboration in Europe,” is actually a bit of a breather after such a grim topic. Not that Burleigh argues that occupation and collaboration were pleasant for the subject countries, but it varied in intensity and generally was better than T-4. Burleigh hops around the map of Europe somewhat madly, demonstrating by contrast the difference in treatment received by east and west, on the basis of the Nazis’ racial hierarchy. The extreme cases are Poland and Denmark. The Poles’ fate was never intended to be much better than the Jews: their “best stock” was claimed for Germany, while intellectuals and leading nationalists were murdered outright and the Polish nation-state was wiped out of existence, politically and geographically. Denmark was permitted to choose its leadership (the local Nazi party achieving 2% of the vote at its height) and largely left to its own devices. In fact, the occupied Channel Islands seem to come off even better, since German soldiers were ordered not to pick flowers on private property, but we don’t get as much about that occupation. Collaboration is treated with refreshing complexity, neither exculpating those who legitimately committed crimes of treason against their own nation, nor expecting saintly heroism from people who were presented with very few choices.
  
  Chapter Seven, on “German Invasion and Occupation of the Soviet Union,” looks at the most particular of these many diverse occupations. This chapter serves as a bridge from the previous consideration of occupation policies/responses to and the later explicit coverage of the Holocaust. Here, we learn of the “Commissar Order” and the capture of vast numbers of prisoners of war that strained the infrastructure of German occupation forces. We also get a clear sense of the pointlessness of the orders for “hardness” and “brutality.” In the end, Germany got little economic benefit from the areas it took from the USSR, and actually had to import supplies to some of them. Burleigh’s emphasis is not a chronological examination of the military maneuvers, but in this chapter we get more discussion of generals and battles than in most others. The siege of Stalingrad and the Battle of Kursk are given especial attention. Of course, much of Burleigh’s point is to compare the two totalitarian powers – to neither’s benefit. Stalin’s sluggish reaction to the invasion, his expectation to be removed from power, and his own brutal and violent orders are all given coverage.
  
  Chapter Eight is on “Racial War Against the Jews,” and represents the culmination of his making understanding of the Holocaust intrinsic to the study of the Third Reich. It is here that he most explicitly addresses historical debates, and most clearly places himself within those debates. In previous chapters, there were hints in the form of notes which named Daniel Goldhagen, cited after disparaging comments about “Exterminationist” viewpoints, but in this chapter he explicitly uses the work of Christopher Browning to support a largely “Functionalist” argument. This is not to say that Burleigh (or Browning) attempts to argue that the Nazi leadership, particularly Hitler, did not begin their careers with the conscious intention of murdering as many Jews as possible, but rather that for most of the killers and their immediate superiors this was not inherent or given. For most readers, this will probably seem unimportant or simple bewildering, but for historians engaged in these debates, Burleigh’s use of Browning and other sources will be informative.
  Chapter Nine, on German Resistance to Nazism is telling of Burleigh’s biases, if still worthwhile as a point of departure for future writers. Because Communism is Totalitarianism in his pantheon, Communist resistance to Nazism is disingenuous or ignorable, certainly not worthy of any respect. The Left more broadly is downplayed as well, in spite of a nod to the value of the SOPADE reports. The churches are mostly a disappointment, although he makes special note of the moral consistency of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. The conservatives who ultimately did conspire against Hitler are rehabilitated from modern criticism, however, in an attempt to present a “fairer view” than “criticizing [them] ahistorically in terms of the Basic Law of the Federal Republic” (695-696). His bias is all the more clear when he says, of German aristocrats, “[f]or them, aristocracy entailed obligations, a virtually incomprehensible notion in cultures which only recognize rights” (706). None of this is as problematic as his decision to excise Sophie Scholl and the White Rose entirely from the record. While their resistance may have been ultimately symbolic, they certainly represent a more optimistic antithesis to Hitler than a bunch of anti-democratic, generally anti-Semitic army officers and intellectuals who hesitated to take a direct stance until the war was nearly over.
  
  The final chapter, “War and Peace,” covers the final weeks of the Third Reich, its government and military, and the Allied occupation and reconciliation/retribution arrangements. Here he treats the allied bombing campaign and its ethical questions with sensitivity and consistency. He gives considered attention to the issue without letting it become “equal to” or otherwise excusing the Holocaust. This chapter also gives some information on Soviet policies, particularly the mass deportations of Germans from former-Prussian (now Polish) regions, but is mostly a fairly quick overview of the fall of the regime and the Nuremburg Trials. It wraps up the narrative well, but doesn’t try to add much to the debate.
• 
  Samantha

  Not for the faint of heart, a complex history of the Third Reich with an incredible amount of detail. Not for bed time reading or to just dip into. An incredibly depressing but fascinating account of man’s inhumanity to man and not just from the Nazis themselves many countries inflicted suffering on others for revenge and cultural/racial differences. It wasn’t just a case of a battle of good and evil, there were many factions fighting within countries with their own agenda. This book draws all those elements together laying it all bare for you to see.
  
• 
  Olethros

  -Aproximación social, política y, en cierto sentido, religiosa al asunto.-
  
  Género. Historia.
  
  Lo que nos cuenta. Con el subtítulo “una nueva historia”, acercamiento al Reich de Adolf Hitler, desde su gestación en la República de Weimar hasta el final de la Segunda Guerra Mundial, tratando de exponer cómo una sociedad abraza, en su gran mayoría, una opción totalitaria, agresiva y demagógica.
  
  ¿Quiere saber más de este libro, sin spoilers? Visite:
  
  
  http://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com/...
• 
  Joselito Honestly and Brilliantly

  An extremely dissatisfied people. The economy has tanked and there are grumblings everywhere. The government is perceived to be corrupt and incompetent. Many have lost their jobs and those who have not worked before cannot find any. The country had lost a war, with massive loss of lives and resources. There seems to be no clear path to recovery.
  
  From this morass rose a leader who succeeds in capturing the imagination of the people. His speeches are mesmerising, his eyes sincere and hypnotic, and his personal charisma has an almost universal appeal. People laugh and cry when they see him in person. Young women write to him proposing marriage. He shuns wealth, he says the right things, he promises to end corruption and restore the country to its former glory.
  
  
  He explains the errors of the past. He suggests that the country’s present sad state, and its main problem, is due to a certain class of people. His countrymen agree with this, as it has been widely believed before. He then promises to get rid of this cancer in the society. The people applaud.
  
  
  He got an overwhelming mandate during the elections. Seeming validation of the correctness of the people’s will came thereafter with his outstanding accomplishments. He reduced the country’s unemployment to zero. Suddenly, every able-bodied citizen has work and has food on their table. He even managed to stage a world olympics. He indeed put his country on the world map again, respected and feared. He conquered vast territories without firing a shot. Then even more, with minimal casualties, after he had decided to use his fearsome weapons of war.
  
  
  At the height of his power the people’s adoration of him achieved a cult-like status although a few, perceptive ones had always considered him a fool. A fictionalized caricature of him as a religious leader responsible for a reign of terror in the 16th century was written by a diarist entitled “History of a Mass Lunacy.”
  
  
  As regards the “enemy” within his country and among the citizenry his government initially resorted to remove them in more benign ways: voluntary immigration and forced deportations. But there were simply too many of them and there was need to speed things up. So why not just slaughter them. Systematically, using the resources of government, but not openly to avoid international outrage.
  
  
  A holocaust done indiscriminately without any regard to individual guilt or innocence. Years after the fall of his regime, with some remnants of his government apparatus still alive for interviews, they were asked why even women and children were not spared. The explanation: it was their BLOOD which had caused harm, and still threatens, the country. So it was not necessary to know what a person did or did not do. They needed to kill them all.
  
  
  This is perhaps the most comprehensive history of Hitler’s Nazi Germany which I’ve read. It is more than a thousand pages but there was no boring moment in it.
• 
  Michael Pugh

  The claims made on the rear cover of this book, an example being, "However familiar with the story you may think you are, this book will surprise you" were true, I found. This book is one of, if not the best book on history that I have read - its accessibility, its clarity, its interpretation and its deliberate engagement in-text with common and fashionable beliefs surrounding the Nazis make this book a must-read. If you want to better understand the Nazis and if you want to understand the Holocaust of the Jewish people particularly, Michael Burleigh's book helps to fix in your head not only the details of what happened, but how and why it all happened.
• 
  Anne Cupero

  I have read a great deal about the Third Reich and I find that this book should not be your first but it is by far one of the best. Erudite language and very recent research (Fallada for example) makes it a terrific addition to Shirer, Friedlander, et al.
• 
  Derek Osbourne

  "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" my view remains one of the best narratives of the Third Reich but Michael Burleigh's book moves more into the solciology and psychology of the rise of the evil empire, its pathological destructiveness and its inevitable and self indulgent version of Ragnarok. All driven by egotistical, narcissistic and non-empathetic monsters.
  
  And as I read on and on - particularly about how the rise was accomplished by playing on the fears of those who felt left behind, exploiting prejudice and hatred of the "outsider in our midst" and playing on patriotism, male pride and militarism, I felt more and more as though I was reading a commentary on the rise of Trumpism in contemporary America and the undermining of democratic norms and structures in order to bring a narrow, bitter minority to power. For, behind the leaders we all know about, there were regional and local politicians and just plain ordinary folk who jumped on the bandstand of hatred and fear in order to meet their own personal needs.
  
  Reading this book with that in mind makes this not just a history of an evil time but a warning of a dystopian present and future.
  
  The eradication of Nazism, and all it meant, could only be achieved not just by defeat but with a massive policy and ability to re-educate into objective-ish reality. In today's world of social media and Q-Anon the eradication of Trumpism and the causes of Trumpism and the exposure of the self-seeking bigots that benefit from it that ability to re-educate is not so available.
  
  I know that there may well be members of Goodreads who may be Trump supporters who will disagree with my analysis and to them I say - read the book.
• 
  Stewart Cotterill

  I thought that all of the well researched books concerning the Third Reich has been written. How wrong I was.
  
  This book, with its breadth of knowledge of all the various elements that made the Third Reich, even outside of the well documented political and military spheres, delivers a tour de force which leaves the reader stunned at its conclusion.
  
  There are things I never knew that I’ve discovered from this book. Not all of them have made me feel comfortable, that is the gift of this remarkable work.
• 
  Alan

  At 17, I walked into the big box bookstore near me and, in an attempt to up my reading game, picked up this book. The clerk remarked "that's pretty dense - are you sure you want to get that?" She did not believe that I would finish the book.
  
  Well, joke's on her. Fifteen years later, stuck at my parents' place in the middle of another wave of a respiratory pandemic, I found this book on my dad's bookshelf and started reading it.
  
  Never give up on your dreams.
  
  
• 
  Petr

  Dočetl jsem to už dávno, ale nechtělo se mi psát ani pseudorecenzi, tak mě ta tlustá kniha zmohla. Ponechávám jeden z prvních dojmů: na autorově přístupu je trochu rozčilující, že to vzal jako kurs pro pokročilé se vším všudy: vynechává hodně hlavních událostí (nebo je připomene jednou větou) a rozebírá detaily. Tak dobrou paměť ani znalosti bohužel nemám, takže to musím číst s Wikipedií a handbuchy kolem sebe.
  Stojí to za tu námahu? Přijde na to. Nic zásadně nového se nedozvíte, ani pokud jde o fakta (to se ani nedá čekat), ani co do originality autorova přístupu (přestože právě tohle v úvodu slibuje). Po roce 1939 se z dějin Říše do značné míry stávají dějiny války, děj se posouvá na frontu a do Německa se vrací až spolu s ní. Právě období 39 - 45 uvnitř Německa by mě zajímalo ze všeho nejvíc - jak se měnila nálada, jak režim utahoval nebo povoloval šrouby...
  Některé postřehy jsou nicméně skvělé. Velice se mi líbil třeba jasný rozbor Hitlerova vztahu ke kolaborujícím představitelům evropských zemí. Přicházeli za ním s vlastními iniciativními návrhy, co by se dalo tuhle a támhle vylepšit a co by si rádi ponechali ve své podřízené pravomoci - Degrelle v Belgii, Quisling v Norsku, vichisté... „Chtěli si ponechat svůj kousek z koláče, který Hitler neměl v plánu krájet.“ (str. 356) Vedli hodně řečí o sjednocené Evropě a kulturním dialogu, mimochodem. (Odbočka: thriller Roberta Harrise Fatherland se odehrává v alternativním světě, kde Německo vyhrálo válku. Nad Reichstagem, samozřejmě přebudovaným dle Speerova návrhu, tam samozřejmě vlaje černorudobílý prapor s hákovým křížem a vedle něj symbol podřízené Evropy: dvanáct zlatých hvězd v modrém poli. Ehm.)
  Z prvních stránek knihy jsem měl pocit nepovedeného překladu a hlavně redigování, ale naštěstí se to dost rychle zlepšilo - nebo otupěla má pozornost.
  Verdikt: rozhodně nikomu neradím jako první obsáhlou knihu o tématu. Je to pro pokročilé a trpělivé.
• 
  Ryan

  As brilliantly successful as it is staggeringly ambitious, Burleigh's "New History" of the Third Reich is rightly regarded as a classic work of history. Not for the faint of heart, both because of the material he covers and the sheer scope and resultant page count. This is no mere survey or work of "popular" history, but a serious scholarly investigation into the phenomenon of Nazism from its birth as a sordid revenge-fantasy in the post-apocalyptic chaos of post-WWI Bavaria to its grisly self-immolation in the bunkers of Berlin. The work is also a great overview of the subject for those who already have some familiarity with WWII-era history. If you are looking for an introduction to the history of the war, a linear recitation of the timeline of events, or a military-focused history full of tactical detail, this is not it. However, if you want to try to understand why and how millions of Germans lined up under the Nazi banner, what drove the party's ideology and politics, and get a fuller appreciation of the consequences for tens of millions of people throughout Europe, including the German people, this book is for you. Now almost fifteen years old, it remains a standard text. and with resurgent rightist parties in both Europe and North America, and the stirrings of political religion once more dominating global headlines, this analysis is more topical than ever.
• 
  Timothy Taylor

  . . . Dangerous admission for an academic prehistorian but this is (genuinely) the first really full length (almost 1000 pages with notes) history book I have ever read cover-to-cover. I have another Burleigh lined up, courtesy of my brother-in-law, so it will not be the last. In terms of sentence structure the man needed a subeditor - there are too many garbled sentences. But that's not what one reads it for, and it is actually pretty literate and expressive on the whole (the mistakes forgivable given the stresses of trying to compress, morally assess, synthesize, and fairly record from all perspectives such a massive body of primary, secondary and tertiary material). Dipping in probably will not do: as with War and Peace, the effect is cumulative, and the surprising thing is that one is left just beginning to feel things coming into proper truthful, this-is-how-it-really-happened focus. I will keep reading Burleigh.
• 
  Nial

  A very in depth read that goes into the details that other books do not.Be warned though, this assumes that the reader has prior knowledge of the main facts and then delves deeper into how things actually worked in the Third Reich.It brings up a load of forgotten heroes that history deserves to remember such as people who spoke out against the Nazis when it was not safe to do so.It shows how barbaric the Nazis were and how they went about killing people and making people go along with it.Some of it can be tough to read such as the wholesale slaughter of people and children, all to go along with their warped ideology.
  
  It is a long book and not a book that you can dip into as there is so much detail that I found myself doing frequent re-reads of passages to take in all the information.
  
  Well worth reading until the very end.
• 
  Chris

  This took more time than anticipated, both because of the enormity of the subject matter and material, and because of Burleigh's challenging, almost literary writing style--which can test readers already exhausted by the emotionally and statistically weighty subject. This is not your average McCullough or Chernow (nor should it be, I think, given the subject), but I couldn't help but make comparisons to Robert Caro's masterfully accessible presentation of incredibly dense material. Nonetheless, this history is an admirable 1-volume history of a era and regime to which whole fields of study are dedicated.
• 
  Frank Peters

  This book continually assumes that the reader already has an excellent knowledge of the history of the 3rd Reich. For those (like me) who were hoping to learn about this history, this book is a very poor choice. After reading 800+ pages, I still do not quite know what happened in the night of a thousand knives. It was continually referred to in the book; with an attached clause that there was no need to remind the reader of what had happened. It is very possible that this book is an outstanding read for those who already know all about this history.
• 
  Brian Kenny

  A very informative account of the entire history of the third Reich from its rise and fall. A book that is popular with academics and students, generally people that have an interest in this dark period. The most detailed book available which is well researched on every single aspect of Nazi Germany.
• 
  David

  Long and dense, but worth it. Compelling argues how Nazism became the equivilent of a state religion.
• 
  Brian

  I need a kiddie version of this book :)
• 
  Simon

  This is one of the best histories of Nazi Germany I have ever read. The chapter on eugenics is excellent.
• 
  Scott

  A worthy companion to Shirer, with additional insight and analysis
• 
  Gonzalo

  From the very beginning, I knew this was going to be a hard book for me to read. Call me cultural relativist, Soviet apologist, whataboutist or anything you want. I think most of the people use the word “totalitarian” as a catchall for governments they do not like. That is not to say I do not find it a useful term, that there are no similarities between the Nazis and the Soviets, or to discredit Michael Burleigh, who at the time was the editor of “Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions.” I just want to stress my own bias, and a problem I have with this book: There is plenty to be said about the Third Reich without getting the Soviet Union thrown into the mix. If I wanted a comparative history of the two, there are other books for that, some of them cited by Burleigh. There are simply too many “and by the way, the Soviets also did…” Some are certainly to the point, and have a reference to back them. Sometimes there are also references related to (antisemitism in) the western allies or other countries. There are nevertheless plenty of cases without a reference, or a reference that most likely has nothing to do with the Soviets (Disclaimer: I did not check them). That is certainly poor editing. I am not in a position to say that the Soviets never did anything like of that sort, because it would probably false. I however, do not see the need to mention them at every other occasion, let alone bring Fidel Castro or the Khmer Rouge to the table.
  I had a rather particular criticism with how languages are used in the book. German and English names of organizations and parties get mixed without any discernible criteria, while acronyms are always kept in German. There is no glossary, list of acronyms of anything of the sort. If for some reason you do not know/or missed the explanation of a given name, you are out of luck. At least in the case of the Abwehr, the English equivalent (military intelligence) does not appear after it has already been used several times. This might not be a problem for many WWII buffs, but newbies, who I think are the target of the book, might be a bit lost. Once again, it seems to me this is poor editing more than anything else.
  A different complain is the small number of pictures, and the poor selection of maps. The first one might be a product of the time the book was published, but I think the second should have been a must even then. I am missing at the very least one with Germany’s division on Gaue, one of Poland, and one with the regions populated by Germans outside of the Reich. Sure, all those things are easily available on the internet this days, but I tend to read while on transit (and I love a history book with lots of maps.)
  In many ways, I hoped this book would be a good way of solidifying the knowledge I had, or I thought I had, about Nazi Germany, so I could later dig into different topics. While the general promise is kept, I miss a more cohesive story. In more way than one, that was very naïve on my part. What was I expecting, that after reading the book I would “get” National Socialism? I do not think that was Burleigh’s intention. If he really was explaining the whys, I missed it.
  Enough criticism. If it would have been that bad, I doubt I could have finished a non-fiction book this size. If nothing else, this is an extremely engaging book. I do not know how he does it, because chapters tend to be long, and there is no section between them. However, I felt I could read for a couple of minutes, finish a paragraph, and continue hours (or days) later. Truly impressive, especially if you take into account this is not a cheerful topic. I do not think Burleigh is melodramatic, or that he looks for the easy shock. However, I must admit the chapters on the invasion of the USSR and the Final Solution are at times very hard to read. They are more than a mere collection of horrors, but there is only so many atrocities one can read before your soul gets completely drained. It does not matter how many books, or movies on the subject you read, it does not matter how many memorials you visit. There is always a “fuuuck” moment that shatters you to pieces. And that is a good thing.
  Since I have not read any similar books, I cannot say I would highly recommend it. In any case, I think if you are looking for an overview on Nazi Germany, I cannot say this is a bad starting point.
• 
  David Latham

  Took some time to read (not the books fault).
  This was a rare read, where i felt the depth of the subject matter, Meaning, that i felt i learned something new and it wasn't the old rehash of the information that's been written about again and again. Of course for a book this big, there were sadly, moments, events that had to be collapsed down- simply to save the trees...
  I really think that Michael Burleigh caught the period really well and made some very smart observations whilst staying relatively neutral -What i really enjoyed was the concentration of the wider picture, for example what was happening in Germany as compared to in Britain or America or the USSR- such as native antisemitism, eugenics, etc. By placing it in it's geopolitical and historical place Burleigh showed the similarities and the differences in a way which is either ignored or deliberately used as a comparison to "win arguments", here it is used to show the greyness of war and regimes but does not forgive or condone. Neither the conservative/ Right or the Socialist/ Communist/ Left are held up as an example or spared from the rightful criticisms which other writers that do lean one way or the other (i feel) do use selective blindness to events and facts to suit their own viewpoint.
  This 30 year period is one with so many mixed feelings, a attraction to historical buffs and amateurs like myself, it's as noted before easy to read the same thing again and again just because the material is so well known, is not separated from us (yet) by a century- this is Grandparents and Great Grandparents childhoods... It's not separated by 9 generations... It's a period that must be remembered and learned from.