El Tercer Reich

Before the appearance of this work, winner of the prestigious Samuel Johnson Essay Prize 2001, there was no complete history of Nazi Germany, despite the fact that it has been one of the most studied phenomena of the 20th century. This book shows that the abandonment of democracy and tolerance that led to the Third Reich was widespread in Europe at the time. It tells how a pseudo-religious movement, imbued with demagogic sentimentality, seemed to offer salvation to a Germany exhausted by war and rising inflation. It shows the consequences of the disappearance of the rule of law in favor of terror. But, unlike other recent studies of this period, it does not condemn the entire German nation. It explains the complex morality used to "legitimize" the Holocaust by those who carried it out and brilliantly recreates the complexities of life under a totalitarian regime, which ruled nearly all of Europe for four years.