The Third Reich in Power

By: Richard J. Evans

Narrated by: Sean Pratt

Length: 31 hrs and 58 mins

Publisher's summary

The definitive account of Germany's malign transformation under Hitler's total rule and the implacable march to war. This magnificent second volume of Richard J. Evans's three-volume history of Nazi Germany was hailed by Benjamin Schwartz of The Atlantic Monthly as "the definitive English-language account... gripping and precise." It chronicles the incredible story of Germany's radical reshaping under Nazi rule. As those who were deemed unworthy to be counted among the German people were dealt with in increasingly brutal terms, Hitler's drive to prepare Germany for the war that he saw as its destiny reached its fateful hour in September 1939.

The Third Reich in Power is the fullest and most authoritative account yet written of how, in six years, Germany was brought to the edge of that terrible abyss.

©2006 Richard J. Evans (P)2010 Gildan Media Corp

Critic reviews

“[Evans’s] three-volume history... is shaping up to be a masterpiece. Fluidly narrated, tightly organized and comprehensive." (William Grimes, The New York Times)

educational

if you are interested in unbiased history of the third Reich this is for you

Sale of New Fermenting Wine in Old Cracked Bottles

At least as brilliant as Vol. 1 of the Trilogy. I suggest you listen to the last of the Section of March Into The East ( IV) beginning at around 31:37 on the audio and pages 705-712 in the book (I like reading the book at the same time I am listening to get a better grasp of it.) It won't spoil the narrative. It will quickly give you the hateful results of a megalomaniac's tactics in duping the public with crackpot, bigoted and dangerous ideas packaged in old bunting and hatreds and the corollary social control through incessant propaganda. rallies, surveillance, incarceration and violence.You have to listen to the whole book to get a sense of how people simply resigned and inured themselves to the lack of humanity and brutality urged by the Great One in this period. (1933-39). The narration improved in this Volume to my ears.

Third Reich in Power

Very insightful narrative of the events leading up to World War 2. Highly recommended! Listen to whole trilogy to get the full context!

A view point not often shown

Many books have been written that describe how the Third Reich affected the rest of the world. This is one of the rare books that describes how the Third Reich affected Germany.

read this or you'll might get caught by surprise

This book explains the moments before Nazi Germany went insane and went to world against the world at behest of insanity

Great narrator and great book.

The Evans' Third Reich Trilogy is one of my favorite works of popular history. This particular volume I find the most interesting and troubling as it documents the period when the Nazis are in power just before the war. Great Book!

Great history reading

Very well written and never boring.
Heart breaking stories. Hard to believe how low a society and its military can get...

Daunting account detailed and explicit

Every aspect of life being managed, orchestrated, restricted to groom a nation of Nazis. I cannot recommend enough this book to raise awareness of what happened before the history we know generally. Music, sex, education, banned books, unions, food, vacations, inventions, the list is excruciatingly detailed for social engineering. We need this knowledge to prevent history repeating itself.

Recommended

This trilogy is long but, the details tell you so much more than the superficial documentaries or pop histories.
Evans doesn’t waste your time with moralizing or foreshadowing. He just lays it out for you to work out for yourself. This is where the depth pays off. You will learn why National Socialism turned Germany into an asylum and the war was lost before it ever began.
I can say I never quite “got it” until this history gave me, finally, enough information to put the puzzle together.

Fantastic, just not exactly what I was looking for

It’s an important and valuable work on life in the prewar Third Reich. The structure of the book is thematic, and the listener walks away with a vast amount of knowledge on nearly all social aspects of the Third Reich, to the point of revulsion.

It took me some time to get fully immersed, I probably didn’t fully buy into the book until halfway through. But it did happen. When I learned of Mickey Mouse’s distribution in Germany, I was mildly interested. When I learned about Darre’s idealistic agrarian nonsense, I was intrigued. By the time I learned of some disgusting German housewife’s idiotic self justification of Jewish boycotts in Braunschweig, I was all in. But it took a while.

It should probably be a 5 star work, but the brevity of the coverage of international relations and high politics was a little disappointing to me. The narrative history portion in the last part of the work was done very well, it was just too truncated for my particular tastes. Those looking for more coverage of the world confronted by the Third Reich before September 1939 may wish to look elsewhere.

Additionally, it’s actually a testament to the accomplishment of the author, but by the 2/3 mark I felt exhausted with, and repulsed by, the Germans. Because of that, I didn’t love this book as I’ve loved many others on this time period. Again though, maybe that’s the way it should be. It shows how masterfully the author recounts the repugnance on this state and it’s society.

With a different reader, it may have been easier to be entranced by this difficult subject matter. But the reader was mediocre at best. Not terrible, but poor pronunciation and rather boring on the whole. Not what this work called for.

Overall, it’s actually a fantastic work and an important achievement for the author. It just wasn’t exactly what I wanted, but maybe it’s what I needed.