Rating: 
Summary: Why write a book if it contains nothing NEW?
Review: The author seems to have an unusual reason for writing this, the first part of an ambitious trilogy: to retrospectively prove that he IS the authority on the Third Reich that he claimed to be (but was not then) when he testified against historian David Irving in 2000.This book does indeed reveal a very good grasp of the basics, and a clear and reasonable exposition in narrative form. It will thus join the whole library of solid overviews of the Third Reich. But it doesn't contain anything new. One would think that a scholar of Evans's stature would have some new insights or advance new interpretation of this or that. Strangely the book contains few valuable insights and no new interpretations. In other words it is basically a synthesis of other scholars' works. It contributes nothing new to knowledge. A subtle but discernable show-off attitude also seems to run through the book. The author keeps his well-known arrogant and irascible personality under check, which is good, but doesn't always hold his desire to pontificate and moralize in check. Several sections seem to have been included less to add to readers' enrichment than to demonstrate what a reputable, highly-situated scholar the author is. On balance the book is far from worthless. It is as good as a dozen other books that cover the same ground. But that is a cause of frustration. It could and should have said something --anything -- original. It does not.
Rating: 
Summary: Focuses on the Weimar Republic
Review: The first installment in a promising new series on the Third Reich by Richard Evans. In this book, Evans examines the Weimar Republic and the many factors that led to the rise of Hitler and his populist National Socialist Party. Far from being a foregone conclusion, Evans shows the many vacillations in German politics during this time and how for a brief while, the Weimar Republic appeared to be on the road to recovery. However, by constantly overriding the parliament by using the Enabling Act, chancellors set the stage for eventual dictatorial rule, as Germany went through violent economic upheavals. Evans does a great job of outlining the various political parties and the antagonisms that developed after WWI. He notes the ideological origins of the Nazis in the German Nationalist Party, which refused to let go of its venerated image of Bismarck. Evans strips the veneer off this image, to show how badly the Nationalists, and later Hiter, interpreted Bismarck. He gives a lot of attention to the Center and Social Democratic Parties which formed the consensus in the Reichstag, and illustrates the rise of the Communist Party, which became the whipping post of Nationalists and Nazis as the threat of Soviet expansion grew. Evans gives special attention to the plight of the Jews, but notes that Germany would have been the last place one would expected such a virulent form of anti-Semitism to emerge. Jews were for the most part integrated in German life prior to WWI, and continued to enjoy a relatively unfettered life through most of the Weimar period. But, the rise of the Nazi party in the rural regions would cast the Jew in an increasingly unfavorable light. One can't but hold out hope throughout Evans' engaging narrative, as he shows how Germany struggled to hold onto representative government during the Weimar Republic, but as Hitler changed his tactics, and drew on an increasingly Populist base, he appealed to the German longing for Bismarck, especially in the wake of the Depression of 1929, when the Nazis saw their biggest gains in Parliament. But, even till the end the Nazis failed to gain a majority, but used the Enabling Act to establish dictatorial control.
Rating:
Summary: Both readable and good
Review: There have been a lot of books written about the rise of Hitler and the reality is that unlike Russia most of the relevant source material has been available since the end of the war. This book thus does not contain anything that is new in the sense of some new fact or memoir. Despite that it does say things which are new.
The reason for that is that any history is written through a prism of belief. Histories of the rise of Hitler have reflected the concerns of the time in which they are written. This book is good because it has been written now at such the distance from the events that its approach is to understand the events rather to blame shift or win ideological points.
The book suggests that the key to understanding of the rise of Hitler is the general rejection of democracy by the vast majority of the German people. Democracy arose out of the collapse of the Germany monarchy in 1918. It was not something which was accepted by all segments of society and was closely associated with the Social Democrats. The economic problems faced by Germany, first the inflation of the 20's and the depression saw an increasing rejection of the very notion of democracy. The communists longed for the imposition of a autocratic communist dictatorship as in the Soviet Union. The Nationalists longed for a return to the monarchy and the newly developed Nazi party wished to create an authoritarian state on racial principles. Other parties such as the Catholic Centre party were initially supportive of democracy but by the 30's were opposed to it. This left the Social Democrats with about 15% of the vote as the only supporters of the system that they created.
The reality is that prior to Hitler democracy in Germany was dead with conservative Chancellors in the early thirties ruling by emergency decrees. A majority of the German Parliament was controlled by parties which despised the system. If Hitler had not risen to power then it is likely that Germany would have been ruled by a conservative militaristic group who would have had aims of re-militarisation and territorial aggrandisement. However the barbarism of the Nazis may well have been avoided.
What actually happened was that the German right hoped to use Hitler because against the left but found that on him being granted some power he was able to use violence and his para-military forces to seize absolute power and to remove the rest of the right from any control over the instruments of government.
Previous books have seen the rise of Hitler as the result of his talents and opportunism. The reality is that by the 1930's all except the Social Democrats were eager to dump democracy and that the rise of Hitler was its by product. The book is not about guilt and blame but in reality it is an excellent guide to where that lay and the reason Hitler came to power. It also explains in some detail the degree that lawlessness and violence played not so much in Hitler's rise but in him gaining the actual levers of power. It also shows how Germany's professional classes were complicit not only in the rejection of democracy but its ugly aftermath.
Rating: 
Summary: Nothing New Here
Review: There's really nothing new here to grab the senses. As an historian of the Third Reich I expected alot more of the first of a three volume set. Boring, tedious and certainly nothing new!
And what's with the cover? The book is about the Third Reich but German Communist Party members are featured on the cover!! ????
Rating:
Summary: Extremely detailed history
Review: This book is the first of three which intend to explore in great detail the entire history of the Third Reich. As the first book in the series, this one gives the extensive background which led up to the Nazi rise to power in Germany in 1933. I found the prior history of Germany very interesting, and was rather surprised to see that anti-semitism was not created by the Nazis, but had a long and dishonorable history since the 19th century in Germany. This book is so detailed that it is simple to find the roots of many of the Nazi party's programs in Germany's past. While we should be quite quick to condemn Hitler and his followers for what they did, the Germans as a nation should not escape censure for their past practices, and their watering of the seeds of evil which sprouted so malevolently under the Nazis. There are precise pages of information about exactly how the Nazis purged almost every aspect of German life, with little or no opposition from their countrymen. It's a chilling tale, very well told, and I am sure the remaining two volumes will continue this disgorging of important historical information.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: This book is the first volume of a projected 3 volume history of the Third Reich. This volume traces the roots of the Nazi state in Wilhelmine Germany, the horrendous aftermath of WWI, the tragic and complicated history of the Weimar Republic, and actual accession to and seizure of power by the Nazis in 1933. The next volume will cover the period from 1933 to the outbreak of WWII, and the final volume will cover WWII itself. Evans is attempting to reach a broad audience with a book that provides appropriate narration for the general readers and sufficient analysis to be useful to scholars. He is largely successful. This well written book provides not only the basic narrative but also sufficient detail to be interesting reading and his analysis, while probably not surprising to anyone knowledgeable about this period of history, is excellent.
For Evans, the roots of Nazism lie in the Wilhelimine period. He sees the example of Bismarck as the key element in establishing the later German desire for a single charismatic and aggressive leader that the Nazis would transform into the Fuhrer principle. He shows also the development of the often crude and vicious racist ideologies that captivated Hitler and his followers. A key point is that these ideas were current in Germany for decades before the Nazi success. In their most extreme form, they were the ideas of the fringe, but with the polarization of society that occurred after WWI, many of these ideas acquired legitimacy. These racial ideologies in part stemmed from, benefited from, and complemented more widespread and traditional prejuidices, notably the widely diffused German anti-Semitism. Evans argues with considerable force that the Wilhelmine state was in many respects politically immature, an ungainly combination of demoncracy, aristocracy, and monarchism bound together by a peculiar combination of mass politics and traditional patterns of deference. Evans makes the further excellent point that these weaknesses were transferred en masse to the Weimar state.
Evans provides a really nice narrative and analysis of the Weimar Republic. He shows that its genesis in the failure of WWI deprived it of much needed legitimacy. Few Germans would acknowledge that they actually lost the war and for a majority of Germans, Weimar was established by an act of treason. Many important segments of German society hankered for a return to prewar glory, prosperity, and social structure. These elements included the Army, the Civil Service, most of the Professoriate, large business, and other sectors fearful of the socialist dominated early governments of Weimar. With this unstable foundation, Weimar was then battered by the humiliating Versailles peace accords, the social chaos following the war, the incredible hyperinflation of the 20s, and finally the Great Depression. As the 20s gave way to the 30s, the original supporters of Weimar fell away. The Catholic associated Center party moved steadily rightward, frightened by the increasing strength of the Communists and influenced strongly by the Vatican's willingness to strike unsavory deals with right wing governments. The traditional liberal parties,lukewarm about Weimar to begin with, shrunk, became increasingly rightist, and ultimately failed to hold their voters. The Social Democrats remained the last supporters but they were impeded by stodgy and unimaginative leadership. The mystery is not why Weimar fell but why it lasted as long as it did.
Evans describes the growth of the Nazi party and the central role of Hitler in an excellent series of chapters. He emphasizes the central role of Hitler's charisma and also the competence of several of Hitler's lieutenants, notably Goring, Gregor Strasser, Ernst Rohm, and Goebbels, all of whom played key roles in building an impressive organizational structure.
Likewise the remarkable series of events leading to Hitler assumption of the Chancellorship is described extremely well. The incredible short-sightedness and arrogance of the conservative politicians who felt they could manipulate Hitler is simply amazing. Similarly, the only force that could have restrained or defeated Nazi violence was the Army and Hitler was able to buy their compliance with promises of rearmarment, repudiation of Versailles and at least implied promises of a war of revenge. Once in power, the Nazis swept all before them.
This book does have some relatively minor defects. Evans has deliberately chosen to keep footnotes to a minimum. There is a good bibliography but it is not annotated. More extensive footnotes and an annotated bibliography would enhance the value of this book. Evans does successfully incorporate considerably analysis into the narrative but he doesn't deal well with some important issues such as why Nazism had the quite extensive popular appeal that it achieved. Probably for space reasons, there is not much comparative analysis. Fascism was a pan-European phenomenon and Evans deals only briefly with the distinctive features of German Fascism. Evans is a good writer but he has chosen to write this book with a relatively dispassionate tone. This doesn't really detract from the book as letting the horrible facts speak for themselves the book considerable power but there are times where stronger language would be useful.
I recommend supplementing this book with Michael Burleigh's recent 1 volume book on the Third Reich. Burleigh's book is not a narrative but rather a series of chronologically arranged essays on different aspects of the Nazi state. He explores in greater depth some of the important issues related to the phenomenon of Nazism such as the fundamental appeal of Nazism (and similar ideologies) and the genesis of the distinctive features of German Fascism. His book is also, as Evans remarks in the Preface to this book, a moral history of Third Reich and Burleigh's often vivid writing offers a perspective complementary to Evans' work.
Rating:
Summary: Not as good as I expected.
Review: This book seems to be polarizing readers, with some seeing it as an excellent overview and others seeing it as merely another safe and conventional narrative. I'm sorry to say that, despite respect for Professor Evans and his abilities, I'm one of the latter. This is not a very good book. It says nothing unique, takes no risks, and seems agenda-driven. It's generally readable, although sometimes clogged by detail and extraneous information, and is probably accurate so far as I can tell. But it is such a conventional and non-original work that I can't see how it can find a niche. Burleigh and others have simply done the job better.
Rating:
Summary: Evans=the laughing stock of historiographical circles
Review: This is polemics dressed up as serious research by Evans, one of the sensationalistic writers on the history of the Reich. With no new insights, little primary researches, silly observations and absurd conclusions, the book is just about the worst of its genre, popular history on the cheap, feeding on the blind and irrational anti German bias prevalent in Anglo-Saxon historiography.
All from a so called expert on German history who can neither read, speak or write German, who does no primary researches, who only shameless mouths the PC line, and who has contributed NOTHING to our historical knowledge.
Rating: 
Summary: Right Turn Proves Dead Wrong for Germany and the World.
Review: This lengthy book explores in a steady and detailed narrative the conditions in Germany that led to the Nazi takeover in 1933. Although others have pointed out the "why write this?" aspect of this book, I think, as a historian, Richard Evans does a good job conveying a lot of information in an effective manner with, I think, an emphasis on letting readers today understand how a culture as advanced, wealthy, and powerful as pre-Nazi Germany could allow fear to drive people into the arms of fascism and toward cultural implosion. The first in a planned trilogy of books, I think Evans dispels many of the myths about the Nazis that get trotted out by people eager to obscure the truth about fascism -- for example that the Nazis were Socialist (they weren't); or that the majority of Germans voted for them (they didn't). The endless hatred and violence of the Nazis, coupled with their dynamism as a right-wing protest movement fairly flies off the page, and Evans takes pains to chart out how the various elements in German society led to the rise of Nazism, and how by the time people realized their peril, it was too late. The astounding 7.5 months in 1933 are laid out in considerable detail, showing how quickly the Nazis took absolute control of German society, meeting almost no resistance from the groups who should have fought the Nazis tooth and nail. Evans includes repeated electoral results shown on maps throughout the book showing the shaky (and by no means certain) strides the Nazis took toward power, and a few photographs that communicate the evil of the fascist ideology. What is most haunting to the contemporary reader is whether the historical lessons of Nazism's war on civilization were, in fact, learned, and what an individual would do, faced with such an evil. What's more, Evans questions whether a democratic society can effectively fight fascism in its midst without destroying the values of democracy itself.
Rating:
Summary: Fine Addition to One's Shelf
Review: With no doubt, one of the finest of many histories of the Third Reich I have read. I shan't parrot what has been said here by other readers, most of them hit the mark. One may, however, discount the single-star rating of "Devil's Advocate 'RSHA'" based on the fact that he had reviewed, within the space of two days, two books by Christopher R. Browning and one by Henry Friedlander using the exact same words in each review, changing merely the title. Those who have actually read Evans's book know its quality and worth.
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