内容简介
There is a certain way of writing about German history, and especially about Nazism, that is characteristically British. Soon after the demise of Adolf Hitler's "one-thousand-year Reich," such historians as A.J.P. Taylor, John Wheeler-Bennett, Hugh Trevor-Roper and Alan Bullock wrote influential accounts of the course of German history, the nemesis of Prussian militarism and the nature of Nazi tyranny. Aimed at scholars and the general public, these often elegantly written books avoided excessive footnotes, synthesized and generalized complex events and eschewed both high-flown rhetoric and convoluted interpretations.
By perceiving the Third Reich through their own rationalist and empiricist prism, though, British historians gave short shrift to the ideological fanaticism that was an inherent part of Nazism. It was impossible for them to believe that any more than a handful of extremists would have either taken Hitler's rhetoric seriously or willingly perpetrated the crimes he ordered. For some, not even Hitler himself could have meant what he preached. Rather, he was depicted as an especially ruthless but otherwise quite "normal" dictator whose main goal was to seize and hold on to power.
By perceiving the Third Reich through their own rationalist and empiricist prism, though, British historians gave short shrift to the ideological fanaticism that was an inherent part of Nazism. It was impossible for them to believe that any more than a handful of extremists would have either taken Hitler's rhetoric seriously or willingly perpetrated the crimes he ordered. For some, not even Hitler himself could have meant what he preached. Rather, he was depicted as an especially ruthless but otherwise quite "normal" dictator whose main goal was to seize and hold on to power.