Hitler’s People: The Faces of the Third Reich

What drove so many Germans to embrace Hitler’s vision and carry out the unspeakable crimes of the Nazi regime? For too long, the Nazis have been dismissed as mere psychopaths or criminals. In Hitler’s People, renowned historian Richard J. Evans dismantles this oversimplified view, revealing a far more unsettling reality—the architects and enforcers of the Third Reich were disturbingly human.

Drawing from newly unearthed evidence, Evans presents fresh and startling portraits of the figures who built and sustained Nazi Germany. From Hitler himself to infamous figures like Goebbels, Göring, Himmler, Eichmann, and Heydrich, as well as lesser-known perpetrators—the propagandists, the enforcers, the willing executioners—he exposes how ordinary individuals became cogs in a system of mass murder.

Through chilling detail and unparalleled historical insight, Hitler’s People peels back the layers of myth and legend to reveal the psychology, motivations, and moral compromises of those who followed Hitler to the bitter end. A masterwork of history, this book forces us to confront an uncomfortable truth: the capacity for darkness lies closer to home than we’d like to believe.