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Rating: 
Summary: A Good Read (between the lines)
Review: If you can subtract out the venom dripping from nearly every sentence, you'll get an insight into a few of the forces that shaped the Nazi tide. If Stern hadn't been so ridiculously hateful towards these long-dead "proto-Nazis" it would have been an excellent read.But any serious student of the NS time will have to balance this and many other works describing many other lead-up/ins to the '30s. The Nazis and their influences are a study in quantum schizophrenia, with ol' Uncle Adolf (sorta) riding herd. And of course the only thing weirder than the Nazis and all their braided streams of influence is the tangled, overgrown paths back to them through the historical literature.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent book
Review: Stern's book is an excellent study of German anti-semitism and Pan Germanism that ultimately concluded in Hitler and the Nazis. While it's impossible to prove that Hitler read the three authors that Stern studies in this book it's quite likely that Hitler either did read them or someone close to him read them and detailed their contents to him. Many of Hitler's ideas are either directly in the writings of the three men studied in this book or are extensions of their writings. A vastly important book that will lead a reader to the conclusion that Hitler wasn't just an "accident" of German history, he was its ultimate frightening conclusion.
Rating:
Summary: Stern's Insight
Review: Yes I may be a history student, but this book would truly appeal to anyone, especially if you are the least bit bewildered about German history or are seeking to understand it a bit more. Stern does an excellent job examining three 'average' people in Germany spanning 1871-1933 (roughly). 'Cultural despair' is an interesting concept and Stern does an excellent job showing how this was such an issue in modernising Germany and how much it meant to them. In no ways does it fully explain Nazism, but it illustrates how powerful one's 'culture' can be to a person or group of people. Howeverm it isn't just limited to Germans in any sense--it's something we should all understand and Stern's work truly anables the reader to do so.
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