Life and Death in the Third Reich

Since its publication, I have assigned this book every time I taught my course on Nazi Germany at Williams College.

Through his use of diaries, letters, and anecdotes, in combination with his profound knowledge of the history of the Third Reich, Fritzsche shows how, after January 1933, when Hitler became Reich Chancellor, the German people came rapidly to support and even to create National Socialism in Germany. The German people here were not simply duped or terrorized by the Nazis. Fritzsche shows how, in various different ways and to various different degrees, Germans became Nazis.

And, through empathy with those… show more.

A book that discusses perpetrators, bystanders, and victims while covering both Germany and the countries it invaded, and all in just over 300 pages? This could have been a dense, dry affair—but it emphatically isn’t. Peter Fritzsche, a leading historian of the Weimar and Nazi periods, skillfully weaves letters, diaries, and novels into a compelling account from which you come away with an understanding of what the Third Reich really meant for a variety of different people. Some enjoyed a feeling of mission and power; some muddled through and hoped to survive the war; some came to realize that they… show more.