Hitler the Germans and the Final Solution

A deeply insightful social history of Hitler's rise to power and the attitudes of the German people during the era of the Third Reich. This book is the culmination of more than three decades of meticulous historiographic research on Nazi Germany by one of the period’s most distinguished historians. The volume brings together the most important and influential aspects of Ian Kershaw’s research on the Holocaust for the first time. The writings are arranged in three sections—Hitler and the Final Solution, popular opinion and the Jews in Nazi Germany, and the Final Solution in historiography—and Kershaw provides an introduction and a closing section on the uniqueness of Nazism.

Kershaw was a founding historian of the social history of the Third Reich, and he has throughout his career conducted pioneering research on the societal causes and consequences of Nazi policy. His work has brought much to light concerning the ways in which the attitudes of the German populace shaped and did not shape Nazi policy. This volume presents a comprehensive, multifaceted picture both of the destructive dynamic of the Nazi leadership and of the attitudes and behavior of ordinary Germans as the persecution of the Jews spiraled into total genocide.

Fiche Technique

• Titre : Hitler the Germans and the Final Solution
• ISBN-13: 9780300151275
• Author : Ian Kershaw
• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Publication date: 06/16/2009

Editorial Reviews

James J. Sheehan

Ian Kershaw, professor of history at the University of Sheffield and the author of a magisterial two-volume biography of Hitler, has spent the last quarter-century trying to explain Nazism's origins and appeals. By bringing together 14 essays written mostly for academic conferences or scholarly journals between 1983 and 2006, Hitler, The Germans, and the Final Solution provides a splendid summary of his accomplishments. In a characteristically candid and thoughtful introduction, Kershaw reflects on how his views have changed in response to new scholarly challenges and opportunities. —The Washington Post

From The Critics

Seventy-five years have passed since Adolf Hitler took power in Germany, and popular interest in his life and times has not waned. Since 1933, at least 5000 books in English have been published on Hitler and Nazism. Among the thousands of authors involved, one must place Sir Ian Kershaw at or near the top. Over the past 25 years, Kershaw (modern history, Univ. of Sheffield, Hitler) has crafted one excellent book after another seeking to understand how Hitler and his minions were able to take political power in Germany, launch a highly destructive world war, and also murder six million Jews. Kershaw's two-volume biographical study of Hitler stands as the most definitive work to date, but he has published at least eight other books all treating different aspects of the Nazi experience in Germany.

This volume brings together a number of Kershaw's most significant essays and book chapters and in so doing assists the busy reader in capturing in fewer than 400 pages the essence of Kershaw's interpretive brilliance. Kershaw provides an introduction and closing piece to newly frame these works with his summary estimation of the subject. For anyone interested in gleaning Kershaw's best insights into Hitler and the Third Reich in a single volume, this work is highly recommended. —Ed Goedeken

Meet the Author

Ian Kershaw is a highly acclaimed historian and professor of modern history at the University of Sheffield. He is well known for his writings on Nazi Germany, especially his definitive two-volume biography of Adolf Hitler, Hitler, 1889–1936: Hubris and Hitler, 1936–1945: Nemesis. He lives in Manchester, GB.