Hitler's People: The Faces Of The Third Reich, Evans - B+, Inc.

               "This book takes a close look at the people who overthrew the fragile democracy of the Weimar Republic, set up the Third Reich, kept it in power for over a decade, and drove it into war, genocide, and self-destruction." 

                  "Without Hitler, there would have been no Third Reich, no World War II, and no Holocaust..." "For the first thirty years of his life, Adolf Hitler was a nobody." He rejoined the army in 1919, tasked to reeducate soldiers after a brief communist takeover in Munich. It was at this point that he developed a rabid antisemitism, likely because many of the leftists were Jewish. He joined the German Workers' Party, suggested renaming it the National Socialist German Workers' Party, and designed its red, white, and black flag featuring the swastika. He took over the party and attracted men like Hess, Rohm, Goring, Himmler, Streicher, and Rosenberg as his lieutenants. He was jailed after the failed 1923 putsch. His nine month imprisonment afforded him the opportunity to write 'Mein Kampf,' which enhanced his fame, made him wealthy, and outlined his principles of extremism and hatred. When the Depression shook Weimar to its roots, the communists and the Nazis gained in the Reichstag elections. In an attempt to curtail the political turmoil, President Hindenburg appointed Hitler Reich Chancellor on January 30, 1933. Within a few months, he so manipulated the levers of power that by the summer, he and the Nazi Party were ruling a dictatorship. The Nazis began their long, escalating attack on Germany's Jews immediately upon assuming power. Civil rights were ignored as the SS and Gestapo murdered and imprisoned at will. Desirous of reversing the Treaty of Versailles and obtaining lebensraum in the east, he began to rearm the military. There was never any doubt in his mind that war would follow. He lied, broke every agreement he made on the international stage, and began the war in 1939. The victories of 1939-1941 confirmed in Hitler's mind his delusion of being the greatest military leader of all time, and that he was  incapable of error. His intense focus on the war led to a severe reduction in his public appearances. He completely ignored his generals. Defeats at El Alamein and Stalingrad unhinged Der Fuhrer. He became more isolated and intransigent, and the July 1944 assassination attempt, deepened his distrust of the aristocracy and the army's generals. By the penultimate year of the war, he had eliminated most of the six million Jews from Europe that he had vowed to eliminate. He was now suffering from Parkinson's Disease, a hardening of his arteries, loose teeth,  deteriorating eyesight, and living in a "fantasy world." "More than a third of all German troops killed during the war were killed between January and May 1945." He spent his last months condemning world Jewry and Bolshevism before committing  suicide on April 30. "Adolf Hitler left only death and destruction behind him."

             Herman Goring, a military school graduate and successful fighter pilot, joined the party after hearing Hitler excoriate the Versailles Treaty in 1922. He was elected to the Reichstag, became Speaker and helped Hitler outmaneuver his opponents to become Chancellor. As Prussian Interior Minister, he organized the Gestapo and spread terror far and wide. He amassed vast reservoirs of power and was the most important leader of the country's rearmament. He was also a leader in confiscating Jewish assets. However, his opposition to the war led to his fall from favor. Virtually powerless by 1942, he focused on his art collection and consumed vast amounts of para-codeine and morphine. He vigorously defended himself at Nuremberg, but was sentenced to death.

          Adolf Eichmann was an ambitious anti-semite and not the mere bureaucrat he proclaimed himself to be. He was neither educated nor bright. He grew up in a middle-class Protestant family and was a successful traveling salesman when he joined the party in 1932. He went to work for the Security Service (SD), impressed all with his thorough, efficient work, and was placed in the Jewish section. He managed the forced emigration, and expropriation of the wealth of Austria's Jews. He was put in charge of organizing the transportation of Jews for resettlement in the east.  He was at the Wannsee Conference assisting his boss, Reinhold Heydrich. He became "obsessed with carrying out the extermination of the Jews." He escaped to Argentina, but was captured, tried, and executed by the Israelis.

         "Few if any servants of the Third Reich were as widely or as vehemently reviled as Ilsa Koch. She was known as the Witch of Buchenwald. Her husband was the SS commandant of three different camps. She was tried by the SS, the Americans and W. Germany. She shot prisoners, engaged in orgies, ordered guards to kill innocents, and had gloves and lampshades made from human skin. Her trials garnered the world's attention and the Germans sentenced her to life imprisonment. She committed suicide in the 1960's.

         There are three sections of this book after the Hitler biography: the Paladins, the Enforcers, and the Instruments. Each section has at least half a dozen chapters, but I have read only the three above. I have found that the most enlightening portions of this book are the various section introductions and conclusions, rather than each mini-biography. Almost everyone written about held deep and vengeful memories of the end of the Great War, the inflation, the occupation of the Rhineland, the Depression and Germany's humiliation. Scapegoating the Jews was easy.

         "The perpetrators in this book were not psychopaths; nor were they deranged, or perverted, or insane." They were normal overwhelmingly middle class people to whom Hitler offered a way out of defeat and humiliation. The regime encouraged and enabled people to do heinous things by dehumanizing the communists, the Jews, the Roma, Slavs, and the handicapped. The executioners did their jobs because the state approved and encouraged their actions. In Germany, and in every conquered country, the Nazi's unleashed the anti-semitism lurking just below the surface.