The Richard J. Evans Third Reich Trilogy

Has anyone else here read Richard J. Evans' trilogy about the Third Reich?





I've read the first two twice each and found them to be fantastic books. I haven't read the last one yet, but if it's half as good as the first two, then it will be worth every penny I spend to buy it.

And if you have read them, what did you think of them? Good, bad or just mediocre?

And no, that's not me nor am I related to him.

 

Hello,
I think someone has mentioned this series before on this forum but I can't find it at the moment. But here is a link that has a few comments about the book...

Feldgrau.net • View topic - Third Reich At War by Richard J. Evans

I can only agree with the comments on the thread. I enjoyed the first two volumes but I gave up a third of the way through Vol 3.

 

Well, thanks for the link.

However I disagree strongly with some of those posters reviews. They seem to complain alot about English translations of German terms. Like Der Fuhrer is replaced with The Leader and so on. Evans explains his reasons for this in the preface/introduction of the 1st book. He feels that using the German terms give the definitions a sort of honorary quality that should not be there. It is disconcerting at first but you get used to it.

Another problem is right in the first post and it repeated a few times down the page. The poster seems to think that Evans being a David Irving detractor is a bad thing. David Irving is a well known Holocaust denier and if he's not a Nazi sympathizer, he's darn close. I'm not sure that one can do anything else but detract/criticize Irving's work.

Again, thanks for the link and that's what I started the thread for, discussion about these books.

 

I have all three and they're a valuable addition to my library. I don't rate them in their way quite as highly as Kershaw's 2-volume biography of Hitler , and Evans seems surer of the political rather than than the 'at war' facets of the Third Reich.

However I admire Evans and his book - 'Telling Lies About Hitler' - about his experiences as expert witness in the 'Irving case' is a real favourite of mine....

 

I've never heard of these and they sound interesting. One thing I don't find any fault at all in the Author doing-is translating German terms for English terms. What if a person is newly interested in WWII and gets these books-which would certainly make it much easier to understand things when using English language translations for German terms.

Example: when I first got interested in reading about the German parts of WWII-I didn't even know what a Panzer was-even though I knew what a Tiger Tank was. Same can be said for Ranks and such as well as other general terms used. Had I had found a good book 30+++ years ago that had the English versions of German terms listed-I might not have had to ask so many embarassing questions-such as: What's a Panzer? What's a Himmelfahrtskommando? What's a Ritterkreuz? yadda yadda yadda.

 

I would definitely recommend the first 2 books. Especially The Third Reich In Power. Eye-opening. I had never realized that the Nazis controlled, or tried to, almost every aspect of life during the period before the war. Even down to riding clubs and singing choirs. All had to be "Nazified". Scary stuff.

 

Kershaw's books are on my Christmas wish list. I'm glad you recommend it so highly. I'm actually kind of ashamed to say that I've never read a biography of Hitler outside of David Irving's Hitler's War which is utter garbage. Maybe I shouldn't say that as his books need to be read as an example of a "historian" being selective with the facts.

I'll also put Evans' Telling Lies book on the list. I've never heard of it but it sounds interesting.

Besides, us Evans' have to stick together.

 

Anyone with even the slightest interest in the Irving controversy needs to read Evans' book. Most people - especially on internet forums - castigate Irving and sling insults without having read a word of his books, or anything about the way in which his work was proven to be unreliable.

Evans tells the story in great detail - and interestingly, he isn't too enamoured of Debra Lipstadt, either.....

 

I wouldn't take any notice of that thread, I've come across the poster panzermahn before on other sites, he is a well known Irving fan, who probably hates Evans just for the role in played in Irving's downfall so expecting a balanced review off him is a little optimistic to say the least

 

Hi R.E (and anyone who has the same initials of my favorite Cousin-is OK in my book ;-)) Anyway, ill look into those books but-right now Eastern Front is my main focus-fortunately or unfortnately ;-)) Now if I could just win even a small lottery-i'd have all the books I want and in no more than a few orders ;-))

 

I dipped into Vol III recently but gave up ..I found Evans use of translated terms throughout just too annoying. My first thought was that Evans would have known better (as a 'professional' historian) than to use English equivalents of German words which are quite difficult to translate into English eg Racial Observer (Volksicher Beobachter), Death Head (Totenkopf), People's Storm (Volkssturm) or "The Stormer" (Der Stürmer) ..is that even a word in English ? But then I got to thinking that he does it deliberately in an attempt to strip away any 'exoticism' from the subject - the 'banality of evil' springs to mind.

I found his writing style rather turgid and boring - nothing as entertaining as Beevor's - no style or flair at all. Just a dull recital of events...a good example is the chapter on the Battle of Britain, one of Evans's 'key turning points' - " Hitler's first defeat ".
Despite the author's protestations in the Foreword the third volume is not so much a history of the Third Reich at war as titled, more a treatise on the 'Final Solution' and Nazi administration of the occupied territories ..