Debate still rages over how much ordinary Germans knew about the
concentration camps and the Gestapo's activities during Hitler's reign.
Now, in this well-documented and provocative volume, historian Robert
Gellately argues that the majority of German citizens had quite a clear
picture of the
extent of Nazi atrocities, and continued to support the Reich to the
bitter end.
Culling chilling evidence from primary news sources and citing dozens of
case studies, Gellately shows how media reports and press stories were
an essential dimension of Hitler's popular dictatorship. Indeed, a vast
array of material on the concentration camps, the violent campaigns
against
social outsiders, and the Nazis' radical approaches to "law and order"
was published in the media of the day, and was widely read by a highly
literate population of Germans. Hitler, Gellately reveals, did not try
to hide the existence of the Gestapo or of concentration camps. Nor did
the Nazis try
to cow the people into submission. Instead they set out to win converts
by building on popular images, cherished ideals, and long-held phobias.
And their efforts succeeded, Gellately concludes, for the Gestapo's
monstrous success was due, in large part, to ordinary German citizens
who singled out
suspected "enemies" in their midst, reporting their suspicions and
allegations freely and in a spirit of cooperation and patriotism.
Extensively documented, highly readable and illustrated with
never-before-published photographs, Backing Hitler convincingly
debunks the myth that Nazi atrocities were carried out in secret. From
the rise of the Third Reich well into the final, desperate months of the
war, the destruction of
innocent lives was inextricably linked to the will of the German
people.
