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A review by kyscg
The Third Reich at War by Richard J. Evans
challenging
dark
informative
reflective
slow-paced
4.5
First of all, I am super relieved that this trilogy is done. Reading these books was really hard, and very taxing on my brain. While the third part was, relatively, the easiest to digest, it was still very much academic. However, that is not a criticism of the book, but more an admission of my shortcomings when it comes to reading nonfiction. I already DNF'd The Great Terror last year so I didn't want to make it a habit and I slogged through.
I would say the effort pays off. You learn so much more when you pay attention to how all the different threads in the late third reich stem from and end in Hitler's fanatical obsession with eliminating the Jews of Europe. At times, you wonder why they didn't just shake off this obvious disadvantage they were saddling themselves with (the logistics and energy needed to conduct the Holocaust). But without this fundamental stupidity, Hitler and the Nazis would have been just another bunch of rabble-rousers.
I read William Shirer's famous Rise and Fall of the Third Reich a few years ago and I even have it on my books-that-everyone-must-read list but even that massive tome feels like popular history compared to Evan's work. Richard Evan's does a brilliant job in making it clear, and then underlining, the fact that no German accidentally found themselves in the middle of the Third Reich. Each and every one of them actively contributed to its establishment, continuation, and maintenance.
As far as this book goes, Nazi Germany goes to war, and wipes out entire generations of European men. The tide of the Nazi storm seemed unstoppable until it crashed against the Soviet breakwater at Stalingrad. Rule number one in the art of war is to never march on Moscow. The Soviets were always winning what was now a war of attrition, and the Ostfront becomes horribly bloody and inhuman. The Holocaust is in full swing, and reading those chapters make you sick to your stomach.
There are narrations of Nazi era jokes sprinkled throughout the book and the rest of the contents of the book are so dark that these jokes provide much needed comic relief. So much so that they need not even be particularly funny. One peeve I have with the trilogy is how Evans doesn't use German words for organizations and posts and stuff. This made it annoying for me to search for them while I was reading.
Definitely the best, overtakes Shirer's work in my opinion for factual correctness, sensitivity, and intellectual comprehensiveness.
I would say the effort pays off. You learn so much more when you pay attention to how all the different threads in the late third reich stem from and end in Hitler's fanatical obsession with eliminating the Jews of Europe. At times, you wonder why they didn't just shake off this obvious disadvantage they were saddling themselves with (the logistics and energy needed to conduct the Holocaust). But without this fundamental stupidity, Hitler and the Nazis would have been just another bunch of rabble-rousers.
I read William Shirer's famous Rise and Fall of the Third Reich a few years ago and I even have it on my books-that-everyone-must-read list but even that massive tome feels like popular history compared to Evan's work. Richard Evan's does a brilliant job in making it clear, and then underlining, the fact that no German accidentally found themselves in the middle of the Third Reich. Each and every one of them actively contributed to its establishment, continuation, and maintenance.
As far as this book goes, Nazi Germany goes to war, and wipes out entire generations of European men. The tide of the Nazi storm seemed unstoppable until it crashed against the Soviet breakwater at Stalingrad. Rule number one in the art of war is to never march on Moscow. The Soviets were always winning what was now a war of attrition, and the Ostfront becomes horribly bloody and inhuman. The Holocaust is in full swing, and reading those chapters make you sick to your stomach.
There are narrations of Nazi era jokes sprinkled throughout the book and the rest of the contents of the book are so dark that these jokes provide much needed comic relief. So much so that they need not even be particularly funny. One peeve I have with the trilogy is how Evans doesn't use German words for organizations and posts and stuff. This made it annoying for me to search for them while I was reading.
Definitely the best, overtakes Shirer's work in my opinion for factual correctness, sensitivity, and intellectual comprehensiveness.