About this item
Know thy enemy. That's what the wisdom of history teaches us. And Adolf Hitler was surely the greatest enemy ever faced by modern civilization. Over half a century later, the horror and fascination still linger. And no one is better able to explain the unexplainable about this man and his movement than Professor Childers. These 12 lectures are designed to answer two burning questions that have nagged generations for decades, ever since Hitler and Nazism were destroyed: How could a man like Adolf Hitler and a movement like Nazism come to power in 20th-century Germany, an industrially developed country with a highly educated population? How were the Nazis able to establish the foundations of a totalitarian regime in such a short time and hurl all of Europe - and the world - into a devastating war that would consume so many millions of lives? As you travel back in time to answer these questions, you'll gain fascinating (and sometimes troubling) insights into the historical nightmare sparked by Hitler and his beliefs. You'll discover who voted for the Nazis and why; how the Nazis campaigned, and what they appeared to stand for; why there was apparently so little resistance to them; what made the Nazi regime so popular at home; how the Nazis were able to seize control of the press, radio, courts, and police; how the Nazis were ultimately destroyed by Allied forces; and whether or not something like this could happen again - and how to make sure that it doesn't. Taken together, these lectures are an opportunity to reflect on lessons from this chapter of what Churchill called "the dark and lamentable catalogue of human crime."
About the Author
THOMAS CHILDERS is the Sheldon and Lucy Hackney Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of five previous books on the Third Reich and World War II, most recently, Wings of Morning and In the Shadows of War.
