Richard J. Evans, The Third Reich at War. How The Nazis Led Germany From Conquest To Disaster

See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.
net/publication/338435736
Richard J. Evans, The Third Reich at War. How the Nazis led Germany from
conquest to disaster
Article · January 2010
CITATIONS READS
0 540
1 author:
Silviu Marian Miloiu

Valahia University of Târgoviste
72 PUBLICATIONS 27 CITATIONS
SEE PROFILE
Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:
Utopia versus realism in Romania's foreign policy. From World War I to 1975 View project
History of Nordic and Baltic States View project
All content following this page was uploaded by Silviu Marian Miloiu on 07 January 2020.
The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

Valahian Journal of Historical Studies
Vol. 14, Winter 2010
Richard J. Evans, The Third Reich at War. How the Nazis

led Germany from conquest to disaster (London: Penguin
Books, 2009), 926 pp., ISBN: 978-0-141-01548-4
Silviu MILOIU*
T he last page of Richard J. Evans’s masterpiece entitled The Third Reich at

War. How the Nazis led Germany from conquest to disaster summarizes the
dilemmas most of us face today in Europe and not only:
“The Third Reich raises in the most acute form the possibilities and
consequences of the human hatred and destructiveness that exists (...)
within all of us. It demonstrates with terrible clarity the ultimate potential
consequences of racism, militarism and authoritarism. (...) It poses in the
most extreme form the moral dilemmas we all face at one time or
another in our lives, of conformity or resistance, action or inaction (...)”
In fact, the entire volume of almost a thousand pages is a testimony of such

dilemmas and of the innumerable instances of wrong choices. Shall we not forget that
the phantoms of the past are still hunting us and that populism, authoritarianism,
racism and xenophobia are on the rise in most part of Europe, and that even highly
developed EU countries such as the Netherlands, France and Italy not to speak about
Russia or Belorussia are not being immune to them.
The volume is in fact the last part of a trilogy that Evans has dedicated to Nazi
Germany. As it approaches the most dramatic period in the history of Germany, the
Second World War, it is also the most dramatic of them bearing witness of a time
when the regime has shown the cloven hoof. In fact, many Germans have pretended
after the downfall of the regime to have been unaware of Nazi crimes. That in case of
many of them this was an empty pretence is amply demonstrated in the volume. The
volume is structured in seven parts dealing with the period of amazing military
victories by the Wehrmacht and the imposition of a new racial order in the conquered
territories, the start of the Barbarossa Campaign, the infamous Wannsee Conference
and the “Final Solution”, the new German order forced upon Europe, the changes in
the fortunes of German war, the German moralities and the downfall of the empire.
A large number of authors have approached Nazi’s understanding of their
superiority over “the others”, some of them being relegated to the statute of
subhumans. Nevertheless, few authors had the understanding of the scale of these
superiority complexes. Let’s not take the case of Jews of whom a vast literature exists.
Let’s refer to the Polish who were subjected to a very discriminatory racist regime and
had their universities, schools, libraries, archives, museums, publishing houses closed
* Senior Lecturer, Valahia University of Targoviste, e-mail: silviumiloiu@valahia.ro.

The Third Reich at War
down. The cultured satrap of Poland, Hans Frank, openly admitted that he wanted to
transform this country into an intellectual desert. Murder, looting, theft, bribery,
deportation and x-raying by the SS Race and Settlement Head Office was offered
them instead. Nevertheless, the regime allowed the functioning of a black market in
which childless German couple adopted Polish children who in most cases were never
returned to their families. In fact, Hitler compared himself to Genghis Khan at the
start of the military campaign and appreciated that the Poles were “more animals than
men, totally dull and formless”. Goebbels’ propaganda will induce to many to share in
this view. Obviously, the fate of Jews and Gypsies was incomparable worse. In fact,
the extermination program put into practice during Nazi Germany finds in this book
one of the most complete and biting investigations. The main perpetrators of these
crimes, the Herrenvolk, will be however among the main victims of the regime, and
not only at its downfall but throughout its existence. The euthanasia program is a case
in point which proves the corruption induced by the regime to ample sections of the
public opinion and the professionals. Initially implemented by a few committed
physicians, eventually many of their colleagues, psychiatrists were convinced to join in
support of the program. In his evocation of the euthanasia program, of the cowardice
and indifference of many a witness – to some extent even of highly positioned clergy
of the Catholic Church not to say about the Protestant Church – Evans’ writing
makes the reader to get his hair stand: how could it be possible in one of the best
organized medical system care in the world? The mixture of regime’s insistence that it
represented a secular ideology founded on modern science and the attempts to
inculcate irrational beliefs could not be more illustrative.
Goebbels’ propaganda was part of the answer, but not the whole answer. The
author pays a subtle approach to the propaganda and of the cultural life in Nazi
Germany which serves also as a model of analyzing the use of culture and propaganda
in other totalitarian regimes, Communist Romania included. Science was being
gradually knelt down by the regime, the number of publications on humanities greatly
decreased and the universities, regardless of their long tradition of academic freedom,
were carefully controlled by the party. The symbol of the new science has remained
Josef Mengele, but as the author states, “(…) his experiments were only a few among
a much greater number carried out by a variety of doctors on the inmates of the
camps”.
The turning fortunes of the war are being assessed with regard not only to the
military and international politics developments, but also to the home front’s growing
resistance. However, the attempts at Hitler’s life have all failed and a real Twilight of
Gods ensued. An interesting part of the story is also concerned with the aftermath of
the war when the victors’ search for the guilty ones alienated many a German. The
author argues that in front of the task of reconstructing the country from the mud of
disaster, “(…) the professions closed ranks and deflected criticism of their behavior in
the Third Reich, and a veil of silence descended over their complicity (…)”
The least that can be said about this volume is that it is thoroughly documented
and comprehensive. In fact, in my opinion, this is the most valuable and time
enduring synthesis of WWII German history and an outstanding literary achievement
recalling in many of its pages the biting prose of Curzio Malaparte.
294
View publication stats

Richard J. Evans, The Third Reich at War. How The Nazis Led Germany From Conquest To Disaster

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Richard J. Evans, The Third Reich at War. How The Nazis Led Germany From Conquest To Disaster

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Richard J. Evans, The Third Reich at War. How The Nazis Led Germany From Conquest To Disaster

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

Article · January 2010

Silviu Marian Miloiu

History of Nordic and Baltic States View project

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

Richard J. Evans, The Third Reich at War. How the Nazis

T he last page of Richard J. Evans’s masterpiece entitled The Third Reich at

In fact, the entire volume of almost a thousand pages is a testimony of such

* Senior Lecturer, Valahia University of Targoviste, e-mail: silviumiloiu@valahia.ro.

View publication stats

You might also like