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Richard J. Evans, "Hitler's People: The Faces of the Third Reich" (Penguin, 2024)

Dec 8, 2024

Guest

Richard J. Evans

Richard Evans, a distinguished scholar on Nazi Germany and author of The Third Reich Trilogy, delves into the lives of key members of Hitler's regime in his latest book, 'Hitler's People.' He uncovers the personal ambitions and failings of notorious figures like Goebbels and Himmler, revealing the human side of those responsible for immense atrocities. Evans emphasizes the importance of individual narratives within broader historical contexts and warns against the rise of authoritarianism, urging a commitment to historical accuracy in today's climate of misinformation.

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Episode notes

Intro

00:00 • 2min

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Tracing Roots in German History

02:08 • 13min

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The Unifying Influence of Hitler on Nazi Figures

15:22 • 5min

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Unraveling the Nazi Persona

19:56 • 26min

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Guardians of Historical Truth

45:30 • 9min

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The Role of Historians in Understanding the Past

54:01 • 3min

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Revealing Complexities of Nazi Figures

56:57 • 4min

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Hitler's Willing Executioners

Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust

Daniel Jonah Goldhagen

In this book, Goldhagen challenges common myths about the Holocaust, arguing that tens of thousands of ordinary Germans were actively involved in the extermination of European Jewry. He posits that a climate of 'eliminationist anti-Semitism' in German society made Hitler's genocidal goals possible. The book draws on unused archival materials, including the testimony of the killers themselves, to illustrate how ordinary Germans willingly participated in the persecution and murder of Jews during the Holocaust.

Hitler's People

The Faces of the Third Reich

Richard J. Evans

In 'Hitler’s People: The Faces of the Third Reich,' Richard J. Evans presents a detailed and meticulously researched biographical study of the men and women who were instrumental in implementing Hitler’s plans. The book delves into the lives of twenty-four individuals, ranging from top Nazi leaders like Göring, Goebbels, and Himmler to lower-level perpetrators and sympathizers. Evans examines their early years, reasons for joining the Nazi party, their roles during the war, and their postwar fates. He argues that these individuals were not inherently evil but were ordinary people whose moral compasses were distorted by their involvement with the Nazi movement. The book aims to understand how a society can come to carry out such horrific acts and highlights the importance of historical context in explaining the rise and impact of Nazism.

Denying the Holocaust

Deborah Lipstadt

The face of the Third Reich

Ian Kershaw's 'Hitler: A Biography' is an abridged version of his two-volume series, 'Hitler: 1889-1936 Hubris' and 'Hitler: 1936-1945 Nemesis'. The book provides a detailed and nuanced portrait of Adolf Hitler, from his origins as a failed artist in Vienna to his final days in the Berlin bunker. Kershaw draws on a wide range of sources, including previously untapped materials like Goebbels's diaries, to explore Hitler's rise to power and the societal conditions that facilitated it. The biography emphasizes Kershaw's 'Working towards the Führer' theory, which suggests that Hitler's subordinates often took initiative to fulfill his broadly outlined wishes, leading to radicalization and atrocities. The book also critically evaluates the complex character of Hitler and the broader historical context of Nazi Germany.

Richard Evans, author of the acclaimed The Third Reich Trilogy and over two dozen other volumes on modern Europe, is our preeminent scholar of Nazi Germany. Having spent half a century searching for the truths behind one of the most horrifying episodes in human history, in Hitler's People: The Faces of the Third Reich (Penguin Press, 2024), he brings us back to the original site of the Nazi movement: namely, the lives of its most important members.

Working in concentric circles out from Hitler and his closest allies, Evans forms a typological framework of Germany society under Nazi rule from the top down. With a novelist's eye for detail, Evans explains the Third Reich through the personal failings and professional ambitions of its members, from its most notorious deputies--like Goebbels, the regime's propagandist, and Himmler, the Holocaust's chief architect--to the crucial enforcers and instruments of the Nazi agenda that history has largely forgotten--like the schoolteacher Julius Streicher and the actress Leni Riefenstahl. Drawing on a wealth of recently unearthed historical sources, Hitler's People lays bare the inner and outer lives of the characters whose choices led to the deaths of millions.

Nearly a century after Hitler's rise, the leading nations of the West are once again being torn apart by a will to power. By telling the stories of these infamous lives as human lives, Evans asks us to grapple with the complicated nature of complicity, showing us that the distinctions between individual and collective responsibility--and even between pathological evil and rational choice--are never easily drawn.

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