Fresh look at Nazism is a warning for future

It might be asked why, eight decades after World War Two ended, we need to re-examine  these functionaries, many of whom have been probed seemingly endlessly through studies, essays, documentaries, diaries, letters, documents and more. Even so, despite the passage of time, Evans still has been able to draw on “a mass of recently unearthed new evidence”.

That’s surely a prerequisite these days, and the British historian, born two years after the war ended, promises rounded, fresh and often startling new portraits of the leading figures, the enforcers and followers of Hitler’s orders, propagandists, low-level perpetrators, and little-known sympathisers and fellow-travellers who helped the regime in myriad ways.

The author is considered a leading authority on modern Germany, and his 28 books include “The Coming of the Third Reich” (2003), “The Third Reich in Power 1933-1939” (2005), “The Third Reich at War 1939-1945” (2008) and “The Third Reich in History and Memory” (2015).

Also, “Lying about Hitler. History, Holocaust, and the David Irving Trial” (2001), “In Hitler’s Shadow. West German Historians and the Attempt to Escape from the Nazi Past” (1989) and “Rethinking German History: Nineteenth-century Germany and the Origins of the Third Reich” (1987). In 2012 Evans became Sir Richard, knighted for services to scholarship.

The historian’s declared aim in this latest work is to explain who were the Nazis, what motivated them and what happened to their moral compass. He offers a close look at these people who overthrew the fragile democracy of the Weimar Republic, created the Third Reich, kept it in power for a dozen years, then drove it to war, genocide and self-destruction.

The Weimar Republic is the name given to the German government between the end of the Imperial period in 1918, when the monarchy under Kaiser Wilhelm II gave way to a republic, and the beginning of dictatorial Nazi Germany in 1933. Weimar is the town in the centre of the country where the constitutional assembly met, but the government was shaky, with many Germans blaming it for the national humiliation of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919-20.

The Third Reich, meaning “Third Realm” or “Third Empire”, claimed to be the successor to the Holy Roman Empire (800-1806) and the German Empire from the unification of Germany in 1871 until 1918. The so-called Thousand-Year Reich ended in May 1945 with war defeat.

“Hitler’s People” is divided into four parts. The first is a longish section looking again at the career and ideas of the Leader, Adolf Hitler, himself. The second part turns to his immediate subordinates, seven “Paladins”, or champions of the cause. The third tells the stories of seven “Enforcers” who the Paladins relied upon as “enablers and executors” of Nazi ideology. Finally, nine “lower-level perpetrators” and “instruments” who served the regime.

Thus – Part I, The Leader. The Dictator: Adolf Hitler.

Part II The Paladins. The “Iron Man”: Hermann Göring; The Propagandist: Joseph Goebbels; The Soldier: Ernst Röhm; The Policeman: Heinrich Himmler; The Diplomat: Joachim von Ribbentrop; The Philosopher: Alfred Rosenberg; The Architect: Albert Speer.

Part III The Enforcers. The Deputy: Rudolf Hess; The Collaborator: Franz von Papen; The “Worker”: Robert Ley; The Schoolmaster: Julius Streicher; The Hangman: Reinhard Heydrich; The Bureaucrat: Adolf Eichmann; The Loudmouth: Hans Frank.

Part IV The Instruments. The General: Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb; The Professional: Karl Brandt; The Killers: Paul Zapp and Egon Zill; The “Witch” and the “Beast”: Ilse Koch and Irma Grese; The Mother: Gertrud Scholtz-Klink; The Star: Leni Riefenstahl; The Denunciator: Luise Solmitz. (Some readers might like to start at the back with the more unfamiliar names.)

Thus the individuals who stand at the centre of the book range from top to bottom, from Hitler himself all the way down to the lowest ranks of the Nazi Party and beyond. This circle has been understood in many different ways, Evans argues, as a group of psycopaths, a gang of criminals, a collection of outsiders, even a modern version of the most deranged and destructive Emperors of Ancient Rome and their courts.

As individuals they often had sharply delineated personalities, and their thoughts and actions had a material effect, especially under a dictatorship that imposed few restrictions on their appetites, their desires, their ideas, their actions or their lust for power.

Evans points out that in recent years deeply researched biographies have covered virtually all the major Nazi leaders, and a great many studies have examined those people lower down the ladder of power. The world’s knowledge of men such as Goebbels, Speer, Himmler, Rosenberg and indeed Hitler too has been transformed by the publication of diaries, letters and memoirs, of annotated scholarly editions of documents, and of numerous previously unavailable sources of many kinds.

A rich and complex harvest of new material has deepened the understanding  of the problems facing Hitler’s Germany and the ways in which they tried to deal with them. The author concedes that much has changed since his earlier looks at Nazi Germany. The new research, new archival discoveries and previously unpublished documents have resulted in fresh perspectives and novel interpretations.

And,  importantly, expanding our knowledge of who were and what made the Nazis has taken on fresh urgency and importance in the past few years. “For, since shortly after the beginning of the twenty-first century, democratic institutions have been under threat in many countries across the world,” Evans writes.

“Strongmen and would-be dictators are emerging, often with considerable public support, to undermine democracy, muzzle the media, control the judiciary, stifle opposition, and undermine basic human rights.

“Political corruption, lies, dishonesty and deceit are becoming the new currency of politics, with fatal results for our fundamental freedoms. Hatred and persecution of minorities are on the increase, stoked by unscrupulous politicians. The future is bleak, the prospects for freedom and democracy uncertain.”

Evans says it is only by understanding “how Nazism exerted its baleful influence” that “we can perhaps start to recognize the threats that democracy and the assertion of human rights are facing in our own time, and take action to counter them”.