Hitler's True Believers

In this book, Robert Gellately argues that the Nazi movement was not just a product of Hitler's charisma, but rather it was deeply rooted in preexisting conditions within German society, including rabid nationalism, a right-wing form of socialism, and virulent antisemitism.

Gellately shows how these ideologies, which were commonplace in Germany before the rise of Nazism, were systematically weaponized by Hitler to gain and maintain power.

The book also explores how ordinary Germans, from various backgrounds, were drawn into the Nazi Party and how the regime made its ideology a dominant feature of everyday life in Germany.