The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany

“This burning hatred, which was to infect so many Germans in that empire, would lead ultimately to a massacre so horrible and on such a scale as to leave an ugly scar on civilization that will surely last as long as man on earth.”

This quotation appears at the end of a passage that describes Hitler’s experiences in Vienna from 1909 to 1913, when he developed fanatical antisemitic ideas that one day would “infect” the people of “that empire” (the Third Reich) and lead to the Holocaust. Sentences such as this raise the question of whether Hitler impressed his hatred on the German mind or whether the German mind already harbored a dormant antisemitism that only required a Hitler to activate it, which also highlights the theme of The Complicity of The German Generals and The Strange Docility of the German People. Shirer’s book includes evidence that could support either interpretation.

“No one could say he had not given ample warning, in writing, from the very beginning.”

In a general sense, this statement applies to all of Hitler’s writings. This particular quotation, however, refers to the first official program of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party. In a speech delivered on February 24, 1920, Hitler identified 25 Nazi Party principles and objectives. Some of these he later ignored, but most, including calls for a Greater German Reich and the destruction of the semi-autonomous states, he carried into effect almost immediately upon taking office in 1933.