Hitler's People: The Faces of the Third Reich

"With a surge in the success of populist politicians in recent years—and warnings how we face a possible re-run of the 1930s and the rise of Fascism —I probably wasn’t the only one who picked up Hitler’s People, a new book by historian Richard Evans , with a partial eye to the present. It can perhaps be described as a group biography, offering short portraits of major and minor players in the Third Reich, and what motivated them. It opens with a section on Adolf Hitler himself. I’ve never read any biographies of any of the men surrounding Hitler, so reading about their background and how they ended up getting involved made for interesting reading. Education and appreciation for culture were absolutely no guard against becoming a devout Nazi (some had PhDs, one or two were skilled pianists). One ray of hope for the present: most countries have not recently been through a catastrophe on the scale of World War I for Germany."