Author Description

Now in paperback, the "disturbing, brutally honest, and scrupulously fair " (Booklist) study of Germany during the Nazi years, by the celebrated author of The Nazi Question. In a highly praised study hailed by Library Journal as "thorough" and "balanced," Pierre Aycoberry combines mastery of German history with original research to give us an unparalleled account, now available in paperback for the first time, of life in Hitler's Third Reich. Aycoberry uncovers the struggles of individuals and social and professional groups who stood up to the pressures of the Nazi Party and often paid a high price, while he also sheds light on the attempts of others--mainly upper- and middle-class professionals--to salvage or improve their positions by casting their lots with the Fuhrer. In this complex answer to the easy judgments passed by many, Pierre Aycoberry writes what the Washington Post Book World calls "a subtle book that eschews facile generalizations and sensational accusations, and is full of prudent qualifications and warnings that what was true in one place and one time was not necessarily true twenty miles away or one year later."