COMING OF THE THIRD REICH
The definitive account of Hitler's rise to power and the collapse of civilization in Nazi Germany, from the author of The Third Reich in Power, The Third Reich at War, and Hitler's People "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 "Impressive in its command of an immense literature, perceptive in analysis, fluent in style, and humane in judgment, this work could only have been produced by a master historian." —Sir Ian Kershaw There is no story in twentieth-century history more important to understand than Hitler’s rise to power and the collapse of civilization in Nazi Germany. With The Coming of the Third Reich, Richard J. Evans, one of the world’s most distinguished historians, has written the definitive account for our time. A masterful synthesis of a vast body of scholarly work integrated with important new research and interpretations, Evans’s history restores drama and contingency to the rise to power of Hitler and the Nazis, even as it shows how ready Germany was by the early 1930s for such a takeover to occur. The Coming of the Third Reich is a masterwork of the historian’s art and the book by which all others on the subject will be judged.
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8recommend
18mentions
13people
2013–2023years
61% recommend39% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- I'd agree here and I think there's a big flaw in how this period of history is taught to people in the 'victorious' powers.
Generally a high-school level of history (assuming you're paying the normal level of attention) leaves you with the impression that Germans got sad and mad and poor because of the Treaty of Versailles, hyperinflation and the 'German martial spirit' or something and then Hitler appeared out of nowhere to do bad stuff.
Reading "The Coming of the Third Reich" by Richard J. Evans was eye-opening in this regard. The Nazis did nothing more than tie together several existing culturally accepted themes more successfully than other fringe groups in Weimar politics. The swastika as a far-right symbol wasn't even 'invented' by them.
The Nazis to some extent were incidental, or didn't represent a step-change from the thoughts, politics and speech that were already circulating broadly in pre-Nazi society. This is what free-speech primacists seem to neglect. The Nazi ideology didn't arise from nowhere, death camps weren't the start, they were the end of 30 plus years of increasing acceptability and propagation of far-right ideas (stab in the back myths, casual and scientific anti-Semitism, anti-communist and anti-left propaganda, mainstream scientific eugenics, etc).
- I think this is exactly what they’re talking about. In no way did the grandparent endorse or glorify Wallace; his implication was that Wallace would have been less popular had he and therefore his opponents been heard. But in this environment, merely suggesting a person should be heard is taken as a strident endorsement.
Another more extreme example would be the Nazis. They went through early political suppression and existed in an environment where organized political street violence was already common. Who knows what the counterfactual was, but censoring and punching Nazis did not stop their rise. The Coming of the Third Reich by Richard Evans is a good book on this. It certainly seems that extremism is fostered by such environments.
- I mentioned Evans’ The Coming of the Third Reich because it’s critical for understanding what happened here to know the historical context. Those measures were not targeted at the Nazis specifically, nor were the tactics developed by the Nazis in a vacuum.. Organized political street violence was already normal in Weimar Germany before the Nazis had more than a dozen members. They came into existence at a time when violence was a socially acceptable method to shut people up. They faced political/legal repression, censorship, and arrests before the coup.
I don’t know if it helped them amass the numbers/backing and cement the ideology that led to the attempted coup, but it definitely didn’t stop it. You can definitely see how pre-existing political street gangs made it easier to justify forming their own street gangs.
- > Also, hint: saying that Hitler was voted into power as if it were an average democratic vote deeply misunderstands the situation.
This is correct.
Richard Evans's The Coming of the Third Reich is excellent too.
- Couple of good books to read (or listen to) for context:
“In the Garden of Beasts,” Larsen
“The Coming of the Third Reich,” Evans
- > Richard J Evans - The Coming of the Third Reich
I read it ~2 years ago and wholly recommend it to folks as a more constructive approach than shouting "Godwin's Law". Well written, detailed, and an incredible read.
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