Choices, Corruption and Compromise in the Third Reich
To date no scholar has satisfactorily explained how ordinary people, leading everyday lives, should have adapted so easily to the evils of the Nazi regime. Some historians have argued that the Gestapo reign of terror forced Germans and non-Germans alike to collaborate with their Nazi rulers. Goldhagen takes the view that the German people were programmed for genocide by centuries of eliminationist anti-Semitism.
In 'Surviving Hitler' Adam LeBor and Roger Boyes show that neither view is correct and argue that the only way to understand how the Holocaust could happen is to step right into the heart of daily life in the Third Reich. Drawing on new research and recently declassified documents, they paint a compelling picture of life for the average citizen, uncovering new examples of protest and disenchantment as well as eager complicity with the Nazis.
They examine how many Germans really knew about the extermination camps, and asked how ideologically driven was the Holocaust? Above all they show how, for normal "decent" people, life was steadily warped under Hitler. They expose the moral compromises made at work and at home which allowed a corrupt, inefficient and genocidal regime to stay in power.
Richly detailed, 'Surviving Hitler' not only provides the most comprehensive illustration of the reality of life under the Nazi dictatorship, but gives the most convincing explanation yet of how mass murder could be accepted by a supposedly civilised country.
