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4.29 AVERAGE
4.29 AVERAGE
I read this book over the course of a month or so this winter. It is one of those books I always wanted to read in my lifetime and I'm very glad I followed through with it. Despite being several decades old, this book remains incredibly relevant and only minimally outdated. After the section detailing the rise of the Nazis to power, the book focused primarily on Germany's military history. I think several hundred more pages could have been dedicated to Nazi Germany's internal affairs and its treatment of the Jewish people but know that all of that information was probably not available at the time of publishing.
“Perhaps it will help … if the erring governments and the wondering people of this world will remember the dark night of Nazi terror and genocide that almost engulfed our world and that is the subject of this book. Remembrance of the past helps us to understand the present.”
William L. Shirer
May 1990
“[The Nazi party] lasted twelve years and four months, but in that flicker of time, as history goes, it caused an eruption on this earth more violent and shattering than any previously experienced, raising the German people to heights of power they had not known in more than a millennium, making them at one time the masters of Europe from the Atlantic to the Volga, from the North Cape to the Mediterranean, and then plunging them to the depths of destruction and desolation at the end of a world war which their nation had cold-bloodedly provoked and during which it instituted a reign of terror over the conquered peoples which, in its calculated butchery of human life and the human spirit, outdid all the savage oppressions of the previous ages.”
William L. Shirer
May 1990
“[The Nazi party] lasted twelve years and four months, but in that flicker of time, as history goes, it caused an eruption on this earth more violent and shattering than any previously experienced, raising the German people to heights of power they had not known in more than a millennium, making them at one time the masters of Europe from the Atlantic to the Volga, from the North Cape to the Mediterranean, and then plunging them to the depths of destruction and desolation at the end of a world war which their nation had cold-bloodedly provoked and during which it instituted a reign of terror over the conquered peoples which, in its calculated butchery of human life and the human spirit, outdid all the savage oppressions of the previous ages.”
dark
informative
slow-paced
History you pray we are not doomed to repeat.
A thorough catalogue of the ascendency of the greatest villains on 20th century Europe and the horrors of their leadership.
A thorough catalogue of the ascendency of the greatest villains on 20th century Europe and the horrors of their leadership.
So comprehensive, so well researched. Dark time in our world’s history shows the dangers of falling into the spell of spineless despots.
This is a fascinating and valuable book. The book starts with the early life of Adolf Hitler, and follows him has he leads the Nazi party and takes over Germany through his eventual downfall. It had a lot of information about WWII, but doesn't venture too deeply into the military side of it.
In times such as these, where rights that we have taken for granted are being suspended all across the country, it is useful to study this period of history. It should be a great warning to us to see how tactics that we have seen used in recently weeks were used by the Nazis to implement totalitarianism. Particularly I'm thinking of suspending the laws and elections in the name of defending the public, increasing executive power at the expense of the legislature, and fear mongering to create or exaggerate dangers to give the opportunity for tyrants to increase their power.
It is worrysome to see how few people stood up to Hitler. Many say that the Christians supported Hitler. However, very soon after he came to power, he began persecuting Christians who did not go along with his program. I don't know the details of their theology, but I suspect that those who were persecuting were a true remnant of a dead church. When the history books are written you get no credit for going along with evil unhappily, or talking about how something should be done. Only those who stand up boldly for the right are judged to have acted properly.
It is helpful to have this book written by a journalist who was present for a lot of the events he describes. He can give a feel of the people that is difficult for future generations to discern.
One thing that I found surprising was how part of the Nazi method was using false flag operations. Today anyone who suggests such as thing is regarded as a conspiracy theorist, and they probably are. But it is important to know history and understand that regimes lacking morality are willing to do it, and if they have enough control over the press and the people, they can get away with it to some extent.
In my reading about the later half of World War II Hitler had come across as very pompous and foolishly self assured in the way that he completely ignored the advice of his generals. While that was undoubtedly true, this book helped me understand why he was like that. Time and time again in his path to the zenith of his power the generals had told him what he wanted to do was impossible and dangerous, and by ignoring them he had achieved the impossible. Little wonder that he stuck to his methods even when it led him into foolishness.
One thing that stood out was he called the Nazi homosexuals perverts. This term causes me no qualms, but it is amazing how a few decades later I couldn't imagine a book containing that term achieving mainstream printing. He does have a short section where he paints Luther as the forerunner to Hitler. While I don't agree with everything Luther did and said, I found that section to be a distortion of Luther's movement. Luther would have been appalled by Hitler.
In times such as these, where rights that we have taken for granted are being suspended all across the country, it is useful to study this period of history. It should be a great warning to us to see how tactics that we have seen used in recently weeks were used by the Nazis to implement totalitarianism. Particularly I'm thinking of suspending the laws and elections in the name of defending the public, increasing executive power at the expense of the legislature, and fear mongering to create or exaggerate dangers to give the opportunity for tyrants to increase their power.
It is worrysome to see how few people stood up to Hitler. Many say that the Christians supported Hitler. However, very soon after he came to power, he began persecuting Christians who did not go along with his program. I don't know the details of their theology, but I suspect that those who were persecuting were a true remnant of a dead church. When the history books are written you get no credit for going along with evil unhappily, or talking about how something should be done. Only those who stand up boldly for the right are judged to have acted properly.
It is helpful to have this book written by a journalist who was present for a lot of the events he describes. He can give a feel of the people that is difficult for future generations to discern.
One thing that I found surprising was how part of the Nazi method was using false flag operations. Today anyone who suggests such as thing is regarded as a conspiracy theorist, and they probably are. But it is important to know history and understand that regimes lacking morality are willing to do it, and if they have enough control over the press and the people, they can get away with it to some extent.
In my reading about the later half of World War II Hitler had come across as very pompous and foolishly self assured in the way that he completely ignored the advice of his generals. While that was undoubtedly true, this book helped me understand why he was like that. Time and time again in his path to the zenith of his power the generals had told him what he wanted to do was impossible and dangerous, and by ignoring them he had achieved the impossible. Little wonder that he stuck to his methods even when it led him into foolishness.
One thing that stood out was he called the Nazi homosexuals perverts. This term causes me no qualms, but it is amazing how a few decades later I couldn't imagine a book containing that term achieving mainstream printing. He does have a short section where he paints Luther as the forerunner to Hitler. While I don't agree with everything Luther did and said, I found that section to be a distortion of Luther's movement. Luther would have been appalled by Hitler.
The longest book I've likely ever read, but there is never a dull moment. E
Took me 7 months, but I finally finished this beast of a book. A great read on Nazi Germany. Extremely detailed, but it sometimes can be tedious. Some parts (the politics involved in overtaking Czechoslovakia, Poland, Austria, the commencement of WW2) were a lot more interesting than the tedious detail of some of the battles or the history of Germany pre-1933. Definitely recommend to anyone who would love to know more about how Nazi Germany came and went. While the author's bias towards homosexuals and his constant mentioning of "the secret documents" annoyed me more times than I can count, it's a good read. Spoiler alert: Hitler is the worst.
Exceptional coverage
By far, the most thorough overall view of the entirety of the Third Reich. It does not go into details about specific battles or war plans, but it does give the view from a regular person’s perspective of the war. The German people were completely lied to, and by the time they figured out something was wrong, there was no way out. This does not excuse them of their responsibility, but it does help in understanding their ‘misguidedness’. May God never let there be another Third Reich again.
By far, the most thorough overall view of the entirety of the Third Reich. It does not go into details about specific battles or war plans, but it does give the view from a regular person’s perspective of the war. The German people were completely lied to, and by the time they figured out something was wrong, there was no way out. This does not excuse them of their responsibility, but it does help in understanding their ‘misguidedness’. May God never let there be another Third Reich again.
Stunning work of history
It seems impossible to describe a book of this length as "gripping" but it held me in its grasp for the better part of two months.
It seems impossible to describe a book of this length as "gripping" but it held me in its grasp for the better part of two months.
"The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" should be required reading for every adult in the western world.
I grew up in the US education system, and attended high school in the first years of the 2000's. I loved Social Studies - American history is incredibly interesting to me. Part of American history is obviously an overview of WWII. While I loved my teachers, specifically the one who taught WWII, the overview we received was fairly simple. We learned dates of events (all of which were promptly forgotten), names of the biggest actors on both sides of the conflict, explanation of the atrocities (at least generally), and just got a basic idea of what happened. We knew that Hitler was a monster. We knew he massacred millions of Jews, and other people groups. All our history was told with an American "victor's" point of view. We focused on the human interest stories (Anne Frank and the like). WWII was brought home to be that greatest challenge ever faced; that our grandparents were the greatest warriors of the last few centuries; the greatest people of a lifetime.
"Rise and Fall", I assumed, was going to be a history of the War - a rehash of what I'd already been taught in High School. Pleasantly, this was not at all the case. This book touched on human interest stories, but didn't focus on them; it told the story of the winners and losers, but did so by recounting facts instead of spinning the story unnecessarily. It humanized the Nazis and their leaders (I'll come back to this point). It brutally recounted the atrocities, and did so in grizzly detail. Very simply, though, this book was exactly what it described itself as - it told the story of the Rise and the Fall of Hitler's Germany.
Unlike my education, which focused on the start of the War, the continuance of the conflict, the conclusion and the aftermath, this book shifted the focus. It started with a brief personal history of Adolf's childhood, his youth, the events that shaped him, his political ambition, his ascension to power, his rise to ultimate power, and his eventual and psychotic downfall, concluding in his death. The "aftermath" period discussed in this book barely covered the week following Hitler's death (by which point the Reich had completely dissolved and all in power had either been killed or captured). Nuremberg and the events of the trial are mentioned throughout the book, but there is no comprehensive section at the conclusion of the book - events are discussed when it makes narrative sense to discuss them.
I mentioned that "Rise and Fall" humanized Nazis. In recent parlance, "humanize" has a more endearing quality. I don't mean to say this book makes you feel sympathy for the Nazis, their leadership or their adherents - quite the opposite. This book has more graphically recounted the crimes and actions of these people than any other medium I've encountered. (After a failed assassination attempt is uncovered, the conspirators are largely captured, stripped naked and sentenced to death by hanging. As there were no gallows in Germany - because the Axe was the common execution method - the Nazis hanged these men by nooses of piano wire suspended from the ceiling by meat hooks. My God, I'd neither heard of these methods, nor could I stomach the thought of such a brutal death.)
What I mean by "humanize" is that this book truly showed that these were human beings that carried out these actions. High School taught me "Hitler was a monster". This book described just how much of a man he was - how illness and psychosis slowly, but steadily, took their hold on this body and his actions; how he had serious doubts in his own military abilities, and how these doubts lead to some absolutely disastrous decisions which helped self-sabotage his goals; how his arrogance and ignorance and ambition all worked together to delude himself, his followers, and the people of Germany for years, and how his sheer personality was enough to command others, both with weak wills and those with strength, ambition and drive themselves, to carry out abhorrent actions against humanity.
It also showed that it was their humanity that destroyed the Nazi party in the end. Feeling betrayed by Rommel, Goring, and others; paranoid that so many others were against him; took to lying to everyone, assuming they were all lying to him. Monsters don't feel such emotions. Neither Hitler, nor anyone in the Nazi party, were monsters. That is giving them far too much credit - giving them the legendary status they so craved in life. They were simple, stupid, failures of humanity. They commanded and demanded respect, did so with the threat of imprisonment, torture and death (and so, never truly had respect but from those most deluded and brainwashed), and ultimately carried out the most horrific actions of the last many hundred years. But they were simple humans.
Bringing current politics into this review, there was lots of talk around the US election of 2016 that either Hillary or Trump were "Hitler". Both sides of the aisle so detested the other's candidate that they claimed them to be similar to this evil, sick man. When Trump won (and, in large part due to the actual political similarities of nationalism, supremism, and the emboldening of modern neo-nazis, white supremacists, racists, etc. that lauded his victory), there were many more people saying that Trump would bring about a new Nazi, or pseudo-Nazi, regime. This book, if nothing else for the modern reader, seems to put that theory to rest.
Hitler himself is portrayed, based on historical documents and personal eye-witness accounts, to have been politically a supremely motivated, driven, visionary. He knew precisely what personal goals for power he had, knew precisely what was required to achieve these goals, and had the drive, vision, and ability to act on all this. Politically, strategically, and intellectually - no matter how awful the results - he was incredibly strong, and in a league of his own. If anyone in this current time period has concerns about actions the Trump administration is taking, understand that he may be doing horrible things, but thus-far nothing has come close to the level of barbarism that the Nazi regime showed, and the man himself does not show any of the same characteristics that Hitler did. Trump stumbled into office, without any real desire for the office, vision for what he would do, or charisma to command the respect and admiration of the population. It seems clear that Trump got into the race specifically to boost ratings for himself and his TV show, that he expected it to be a short-lived campaign, but a profitable one. Now that he's won, politically he is drowning and is just trying to make as much money as possible, and to prop up his companies as much as he can while he has this added political power at the negotiating table.
I began reading "Rise and Fall" for two reasons. 1) I was interested in learning more about WWII, and 2) I was very concerned about current events, and this seemed to be an appropriate book to read given the current political climate. I'm so glad I did, because it confirmed to me that I was being hyperbolic and was overly-worried about something I didn't need (yet) to be. Understanding the inner workings of a person like Hitler is so comforting when you understand that, angry and disillusioned as Trump or politicians may be, none of these people are on the same level of calculated evil that Hitler was. Comforting is a very odd descriptor for this book, but in this odd context, that's exactly the word to describe it.
Current politics aside, this book was simply amazing. I chose to read this by audio book form. The file was 57 hours and 13 minutes long, broken up into about 7 different, smaller downloads. I chose the audio book because the book was long, and it would have taken me far longer than 60 hours to manually read it (with all the German names, places, etc., certain paragraphs would have been so dense as to make it difficult to work through). The book, for it's length and content, was surprisingly riveting! I've not yet read a history book that was as interesting as this one - and I use that word specifically. This was interesting - the writing was so well done that it kept me glued to my device, and on the edge of my seat. I learned more about WWII from this audio book simply because it made me invested in the content. They say fact is stranger than fiction - truly, this is the case in "Rise and Fall". The descriptions of certain events are of better quality than some fictional stories I've read.
This is by far the longest review I've ever written for a book, and with good reason. "Rise and Fall" is an epic work, which recounts one of the darkest periods of modern humanity. Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it - I would echo that those who think they know how events happened, but don't have the full story from both sides, are likely to repeat it as well (and have a greater probability of repeating history from the other side). American students are taught that the US is the greatest nation on earth, and we often are shown WWII as an example of this. If we don't understand the motivations, actions, and consequences that the Nazis undertook; if we only tell history from the American perspective, instead of a simply factual, what actually happened, on-both-sides perspective, I fear that we will be the villains next time. The education I received by reading this book was not better, necessarily, than that which I received in school, but this helps to fill out my education. While learning about the terror Anne Frank experienced is important, and while understanding how the Allied forces overcame the Axis is critical, understanding ALL the aspects that brought the war to fruition, and those aspects and actions that brought humanity to this ultimate, terrible conclusion are even more important.
"The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" should be required reading for every adult. The lessons it teaches, the history it recounts, and the clarification that this was carried out, not by mythical beasts and monsters, but by evil human beings, are critical to our survival as a species. May we never have a dark time like this ever again. May we rise above petty politics, ambition without restraint, and hatred without reason. May we live like that Greatest Generation - fighting for a better future at any cost; a better future for all humanity, not just "our side". There is no master race, there is no greatest nation. We are all human beings, we all live on the Earth, we are all family.
I grew up in the US education system, and attended high school in the first years of the 2000's. I loved Social Studies - American history is incredibly interesting to me. Part of American history is obviously an overview of WWII. While I loved my teachers, specifically the one who taught WWII, the overview we received was fairly simple. We learned dates of events (all of which were promptly forgotten), names of the biggest actors on both sides of the conflict, explanation of the atrocities (at least generally), and just got a basic idea of what happened. We knew that Hitler was a monster. We knew he massacred millions of Jews, and other people groups. All our history was told with an American "victor's" point of view. We focused on the human interest stories (Anne Frank and the like). WWII was brought home to be that greatest challenge ever faced; that our grandparents were the greatest warriors of the last few centuries; the greatest people of a lifetime.
"Rise and Fall", I assumed, was going to be a history of the War - a rehash of what I'd already been taught in High School. Pleasantly, this was not at all the case. This book touched on human interest stories, but didn't focus on them; it told the story of the winners and losers, but did so by recounting facts instead of spinning the story unnecessarily. It humanized the Nazis and their leaders (I'll come back to this point). It brutally recounted the atrocities, and did so in grizzly detail. Very simply, though, this book was exactly what it described itself as - it told the story of the Rise and the Fall of Hitler's Germany.
Unlike my education, which focused on the start of the War, the continuance of the conflict, the conclusion and the aftermath, this book shifted the focus. It started with a brief personal history of Adolf's childhood, his youth, the events that shaped him, his political ambition, his ascension to power, his rise to ultimate power, and his eventual and psychotic downfall, concluding in his death. The "aftermath" period discussed in this book barely covered the week following Hitler's death (by which point the Reich had completely dissolved and all in power had either been killed or captured). Nuremberg and the events of the trial are mentioned throughout the book, but there is no comprehensive section at the conclusion of the book - events are discussed when it makes narrative sense to discuss them.
I mentioned that "Rise and Fall" humanized Nazis. In recent parlance, "humanize" has a more endearing quality. I don't mean to say this book makes you feel sympathy for the Nazis, their leadership or their adherents - quite the opposite. This book has more graphically recounted the crimes and actions of these people than any other medium I've encountered. (After a failed assassination attempt is uncovered, the conspirators are largely captured, stripped naked and sentenced to death by hanging. As there were no gallows in Germany - because the Axe was the common execution method - the Nazis hanged these men by nooses of piano wire suspended from the ceiling by meat hooks. My God, I'd neither heard of these methods, nor could I stomach the thought of such a brutal death.)
What I mean by "humanize" is that this book truly showed that these were human beings that carried out these actions. High School taught me "Hitler was a monster". This book described just how much of a man he was - how illness and psychosis slowly, but steadily, took their hold on this body and his actions; how he had serious doubts in his own military abilities, and how these doubts lead to some absolutely disastrous decisions which helped self-sabotage his goals; how his arrogance and ignorance and ambition all worked together to delude himself, his followers, and the people of Germany for years, and how his sheer personality was enough to command others, both with weak wills and those with strength, ambition and drive themselves, to carry out abhorrent actions against humanity.
It also showed that it was their humanity that destroyed the Nazi party in the end. Feeling betrayed by Rommel, Goring, and others; paranoid that so many others were against him; took to lying to everyone, assuming they were all lying to him. Monsters don't feel such emotions. Neither Hitler, nor anyone in the Nazi party, were monsters. That is giving them far too much credit - giving them the legendary status they so craved in life. They were simple, stupid, failures of humanity. They commanded and demanded respect, did so with the threat of imprisonment, torture and death (and so, never truly had respect but from those most deluded and brainwashed), and ultimately carried out the most horrific actions of the last many hundred years. But they were simple humans.
Bringing current politics into this review, there was lots of talk around the US election of 2016 that either Hillary or Trump were "Hitler". Both sides of the aisle so detested the other's candidate that they claimed them to be similar to this evil, sick man. When Trump won (and, in large part due to the actual political similarities of nationalism, supremism, and the emboldening of modern neo-nazis, white supremacists, racists, etc. that lauded his victory), there were many more people saying that Trump would bring about a new Nazi, or pseudo-Nazi, regime. This book, if nothing else for the modern reader, seems to put that theory to rest.
Hitler himself is portrayed, based on historical documents and personal eye-witness accounts, to have been politically a supremely motivated, driven, visionary. He knew precisely what personal goals for power he had, knew precisely what was required to achieve these goals, and had the drive, vision, and ability to act on all this. Politically, strategically, and intellectually - no matter how awful the results - he was incredibly strong, and in a league of his own. If anyone in this current time period has concerns about actions the Trump administration is taking, understand that he may be doing horrible things, but thus-far nothing has come close to the level of barbarism that the Nazi regime showed, and the man himself does not show any of the same characteristics that Hitler did. Trump stumbled into office, without any real desire for the office, vision for what he would do, or charisma to command the respect and admiration of the population. It seems clear that Trump got into the race specifically to boost ratings for himself and his TV show, that he expected it to be a short-lived campaign, but a profitable one. Now that he's won, politically he is drowning and is just trying to make as much money as possible, and to prop up his companies as much as he can while he has this added political power at the negotiating table.
I began reading "Rise and Fall" for two reasons. 1) I was interested in learning more about WWII, and 2) I was very concerned about current events, and this seemed to be an appropriate book to read given the current political climate. I'm so glad I did, because it confirmed to me that I was being hyperbolic and was overly-worried about something I didn't need (yet) to be. Understanding the inner workings of a person like Hitler is so comforting when you understand that, angry and disillusioned as Trump or politicians may be, none of these people are on the same level of calculated evil that Hitler was. Comforting is a very odd descriptor for this book, but in this odd context, that's exactly the word to describe it.
Current politics aside, this book was simply amazing. I chose to read this by audio book form. The file was 57 hours and 13 minutes long, broken up into about 7 different, smaller downloads. I chose the audio book because the book was long, and it would have taken me far longer than 60 hours to manually read it (with all the German names, places, etc., certain paragraphs would have been so dense as to make it difficult to work through). The book, for it's length and content, was surprisingly riveting! I've not yet read a history book that was as interesting as this one - and I use that word specifically. This was interesting - the writing was so well done that it kept me glued to my device, and on the edge of my seat. I learned more about WWII from this audio book simply because it made me invested in the content. They say fact is stranger than fiction - truly, this is the case in "Rise and Fall". The descriptions of certain events are of better quality than some fictional stories I've read.
This is by far the longest review I've ever written for a book, and with good reason. "Rise and Fall" is an epic work, which recounts one of the darkest periods of modern humanity. Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it - I would echo that those who think they know how events happened, but don't have the full story from both sides, are likely to repeat it as well (and have a greater probability of repeating history from the other side). American students are taught that the US is the greatest nation on earth, and we often are shown WWII as an example of this. If we don't understand the motivations, actions, and consequences that the Nazis undertook; if we only tell history from the American perspective, instead of a simply factual, what actually happened, on-both-sides perspective, I fear that we will be the villains next time. The education I received by reading this book was not better, necessarily, than that which I received in school, but this helps to fill out my education. While learning about the terror Anne Frank experienced is important, and while understanding how the Allied forces overcame the Axis is critical, understanding ALL the aspects that brought the war to fruition, and those aspects and actions that brought humanity to this ultimate, terrible conclusion are even more important.
"The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" should be required reading for every adult. The lessons it teaches, the history it recounts, and the clarification that this was carried out, not by mythical beasts and monsters, but by evil human beings, are critical to our survival as a species. May we never have a dark time like this ever again. May we rise above petty politics, ambition without restraint, and hatred without reason. May we live like that Greatest Generation - fighting for a better future at any cost; a better future for all humanity, not just "our side". There is no master race, there is no greatest nation. We are all human beings, we all live on the Earth, we are all family.