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Hitler's People

The Faces of the Third Reich

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Hitler's People

By: Richard J. Evans
Narrated by: Leighton Pugh
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

Why did so many Germans take part in the crimes of Nazi Germany? How did they come to support Hitler and follow him almost to the very end? For too long, the Nazis have been presented as little more than psychopaths or criminals. In his major new work, renowned historian Richard J. Evans makes use of a mass of recently unearthed new evidence to strip away the veneer of myth and legend from the faces of the Third Reich and present a more realistic view of Nazi perpetrators as human beings who were disturbingly like us.

Evans offers rounded, fresh and often startling new portraits of the men and women who created and served Nazi Germany, beginning with Hitler himself and going on to encompass leading figures like Göring, Goebbels and Himmler, enforcers of Hitler’s orders such as Eichmann and Heydrich, propagandists like Leni Riefenstahl, low-level perpetrators such as the notorious Irma Grese and unknown sympathizers and fellow-travellers who helped the regime in myriad ways.

Hitler’s People is a chilling, brilliantly written work which allows the reader to understand the texture and values of the Third Reich and just how far individuals will go when so many normal moral constraints have disappeared.


©2024 Richard J. Evans (P)2024 Penguin Audio

 Europe Germany Historical Military Politics & Government Crime Thought-Provoking Holocaust Imperialism

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Critic reviews

Hitler’s People: The Faces of the Third Reich shows how valuable a biographical approach to the past can be. The book combines gripping individual portraits, all exhaustively researched and deftly painted (Kristin Semmens)
A meticulously researched, sobering look at the Nazi era and the people who helped bring its evil intents to fruition
An important [and] sobering book that depicts the duplicity of manipulators, opportunists and psychopaths to convince gullible multitudes into becoming mass murderers. Professor Evans has produced an incisive commentary on the continuing fragile nature of the human condition.
[Richard J. Evans] argues persuasively that only by examining individual personalities can we understand ‘the perverted morality that made and sustained the Nazi regime… . His book is enriched by the findings of recent scholarship and his pen portraits have all the excitement of novelty. Even his depiction of Hitler feels fresh (Piers Brendon)
A fascinating exploration of individual agency that never loses sight of the larger context... Evans has provided us with just the kind of probing, nuanced and unsparing study to help us think things through (Jennifer Szalai)
Evans dispenses his judgments about how Nazism happened and developed in bite-sized, almost laconic, pieces attached to the short biographies. This has the effect of inviting the readers to draw some of their own lessons.... if Evans’s purpose is getting the reader to think about what is particular and what is universal about the descent of one of the world’s most “civilised” nations into genocidal barbarism, then I believe it succeeds (David Aaronovitch)
Evans has chronicled Nazi Germany before, but never with such urgency… His previous books, which include a masterful trilogy on the rise, rule, and destruction of the Nazi movement, are models of historical writing, a combination of narrative and exploration, scholarship for the sake of scholarship and yet volumes that are immensely readable, even novelistic in style… Hitler’s People is similar in its polish and power. But the motivation and purpose of this latest work, a sweeping examination of Adolf Hitler and his subalterns and subjects, is more utilitarian
What drove Germany’s citizens and leaders to support a regime committed to war, genocide and dictatorship? Evans, a prominent historian of Nazism, tackles a question that remains even now a conundrum, seeking, through portraits of diverse Third Reich figures — including Hermann Göring, Rudolf Hess and Hitler himself as well as the architect Albert Speer and the filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl — a common human denominator
All stars
Most relevant
well read, well written and a real eye opener take your time to listen and then listen to it again

wow what a listen

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It’s Richard Evans’ last book on German history, so as you’d expect it’s a worthy and insightful work on the Nazi leadership. Performance is excellent. Only gripe is that with a book like this you should be able to listen/read to the biographies in any order depending on your interest. The chapters aren’t clearly labeled in the audiobook version, which necessitates some annoying skimming around.

Superb as always

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You wouldn’t think such a title could be this engaging, but the structure of the book makes the nexus of the nazi hierarchy easier you comprehend. The close look into each individual’s ideologies and motives really drums home how the whole third reich was found on a basis of false conspiracy. Remarkable how so many seemingly intelligent men could believe so strongly a conspiracy based on lies.

Gripping

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This is a fascinating book and like his other books, Evans writes in a very engaging & informative way but is never dry.
Although interesting & an original way to explore the question of why so many people took part so enthusiastically in the Nazi regime - the explanations provided by Evans only really explain why ‘top-level’ & high ranking Nazis behaved as they did. Thus, for me - it is still the case that for a comprehensive exploration & deeper explanation as to why (seemingly) most Germans either engaged with the Nazis or acquiesced in their crimes, Goldhagen’s ‘Hitler’s Willing Executioners’ is still the gold standard book & I’m very much looking forward to listening to Goldhagen’s audiobook when it’s published - via audible - later on this year (May 2025).

Fascinating Book - well narrated

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this was a fabulous insight into the warped minds of the Nazi elite chilling

the brutal regime

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