The Hitler Conspiracies

The Third Reich and the Paranoid Imagination

Richard J. Evans

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English

Allen Lane
16 November 2020

History; European history; 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000; Second World War; Conspiracy theories

Renowned historian Richard Evans puts 'fake news' in historical perspective in this challenging and illuminating study

The idea that nothing happens by chance in history, that nothing is quite what it seems to be at first sight, that everything that occurs is the result of the secret machinations of malign groups of people manipulating everything from behind the scenes is as old as history itself. But conspiracy theories are becoming more popular and more widespread in the twenty-first century. Nowhere have they become more obvious than in revisionist accounts of the history of the Third Reich. Long-discredited conspiracy theories have taken on a new lease of life, given credence by claims of freshly discovered evidence and novel angles of investigation.

This book takes five widely discussed claims involving Hitler and the Nazis and subjects them to forensic scrutiny- that the Jews were conspiring to undermine civilization, as outlined in 'The Protocols of the Elders of Zion'; that the German army was 'stabbed in the back' by socialists and Jews in 1918; that the Nazis burned down the Reichstag in order to seize power; that Rudolf Hess' flight to the UK in 1941 was sanctioned by Hitler and conveyed peace terms suppressed by Churchill; and that Hitler escaped the bunker in 1945 and fled to South America. In doing so, it teases out some surprising features these, and other conspiracy theories, have in common.

This is a history book, but it is a history book for the age of 'post-truth' and 'alternative facts'- a book for our own troubled times.

By: Richard J. Evans
Imprint: Allen Lane
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 240mm, Width: 162mm, Spine: 28mm
Weight: 499g
ISBN: 9780241413463
ISBN 10: 024141346X
Pages: 304
Publication Date: 16 November 2020
Audience: General/trade , College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , ELT Advanced , Primary
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Richard J. Evans is the author of a number of major books, including In Defence of History, The Coming of the Third Reich, The Third Reich in Power, The Third Reich at War and The Pursuit of Power. His most recent book is the biography of Eric Hobsbawm. From 2008 to 2014 he was Regius Professor of History at Cambridge, where he also led a five-year Leverhulme research programme on conspiracy theories and their impact on democracy. He was knighted in 2012 for services to scholarship.

Reviews for The Hitler Conspiracies: The Third Reich and the Paranoid Imagination

A wonderful book that's both hard to put down and brilliantly insightful in its analysis of the ways in which conspiracy theories and so-called alternative facts are constructed and justified - and why they're such nonsense... Evans performs his task with such withering and entertaining wit that it's worth putting up with the nonsense to enjoy the brilliant demolition... It's a 5 out of 5 masterpiece. -- Martin Bentham * Evening Standard *