Nazi Terror

The Gestapo, Jews, and Ordinary Germans

By: Eric A. Johnson

Narrated by: Edward Lewis

Who were the Gestapo officers? Were they merely banal paper shufflers, or were they recognizably evil? Were they motivated by an eliminationist anti-Semitism? Did the average German know about the mass murder of Jews and other undesirables while they were happening? Exactly how was Nazi terror applied in the daily lives of ordinary Jews and Germans? Eric A. Johnson answers these questions as he explores the roles of the individual and of society in making terror work.

Based on years of research in Gestapo archives as well as extensive interviews with perpetrators and victims, Nazi Terror settles many nagging questions about who, exactly, was responsible for what, who knew what, and when they knew it. It is the most fine-grained portrait we may ever have of the mechanism of terror in a dictatorship.

Destined to become the classic study of terror in the Nazi dictatorship, and the benchmark for the next generation of Nazi and Holocaust scholarship, Nazi Terror tackles the central aspect of the Nazi dictatorship head on by focusing on the roles of the individual and of society in making terror work.

©1999 Eric A. Johnson (P)2000 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

“The great virtue of Nazi Terror…is the high degree of levelheadedness and common sense, backed by painstaking research, it brings to questions that unfailingly provoke agitated debate.” ( New York Times Book Review)

Chilling research, mesmerizing story.

Clearly presented, very well organized and comprehensive. The author did such extensive research. I was fascinated all the way to the last page. What a horrific period of human history.

Amazing

The book was great; Johnson incorporates careful research on historical archives in Germany into his work and convincingly overthrows many myths about the interaction between the German people during the second world war and the Gestapo.

The narrator is slightly faster than normal but still slower than a normal person talking. He did a fine job.

Answered Some Questions For Me

I first learned about the terrible crimes committed by the Nazis when the story of the of the death camps was shown on broadcast television in the late 1950s. I could not then, and still do not understand how the so many people stood around and let this happen, much less assist in the exterminitation of the Jewish and Polish people. Ths book provided some insight and answered many of my quations.

Love the content but narrator is way too fast

I am trying very hard to enjoy this as the subject matter is so intruiging, and the writing is good. My challenge is how 'fast' the narrator speaks. I am seriously looking for a way to slow down the audio over all, otherwise I feel like someone is speed reading and audio books are not so.

See John Lee. If he read this, I would be in bliss. Or if the current gentleman just slowed down.

Sincerely, Not so Speedy I plead thee

Annoying narration and a tedious writing style

What disappointed you about Nazi Terror?

The first hour of the book is excruciating. The topic for this section is how this researcher performed his research and a seemingly endless recitation of other author's works and the conclusions the other authors reached. This book is an academic exercise, not an effort to engage the listener in the narrative. Coupled with the author's tedious style, the narrator has a fast paced monotone that had me fighting to stop until I finally became able to tolerate it enough to get through the book.