Hitler's True Believers: How Ordinary People Became Nazis

by Robert Gellately

Understanding Adolf Hitler's ideology provides insights into the mental world of an extremist politics that, over the course of the Third Reich, developed explosive energies culminating in the Second World War and the Holocaust. Too often the theories underlying National Socialism or Nazism are dismissed as an irrational hodge-podge of ideas. Yet that ideology drove Hitler's quest for power in 1933, colored everything in the Third Reich, and transformed him, however briefly, into the most powerful leader in the world. How did he discover that ideology? How was it that cohorts of leaders, followers, and ordinary citizens adopted aspects of National Socialism without experiencing the leader first-hand or reading his works? They shared a collective desire to create a harmonious, racially select, community of the people to build on Germany's socialist-oriented political culture and to seek national renewal. If we wish to understand the rise of the Nazi Party and the new dictatorship's remarkable staying power, we have to take the nationalist and socialist aspects of this ideology seriously.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Politics, World War II, Germany, War, Holocaust

464 pages, Hardcover

Published June 1, 2020

About the author

Robert Gellately (born 1943) is a Newfoundland-born Canadian academic who is one of the leading historians of modern Europe, particularly during World War II and the Cold War era. He is Earl Ray Beck Professor of History at Florida State University. He often teaches classes about World War II and the Cold War, but his extensive interest in the Holocaust has led to his conducting research regarding other genocides as well. He is occasionally known to give lectures on specific genocides. Gellately has very strict guidelines for what he will deem a genocide, and has had several televised debates regarding his somewhat controversial views.

Gellately's most recent work is Stalin's Curse: Battling for Communism in War and Cold War (Knopf (March 5, 2013) Gellately recently published a set of original documents by Leon Goldensohn dealing with the 1945-46 Nuremberg trials of war criminals in The Nuremberg Interviews: An American Psychiatrist's Conversations With The Defendants and Witnesses (Alfred A. Knopf, 2004).

His other books include Backing Hitler: Consent and Coercion in Nazi Germany, 1933-1945 (Oxford University Press, 2001). It has been published in German, Dutch, Spanish, Czech, and Italian. Japanese and French translations are in press. Backing Hitler was chosen as a main selection for book clubs in North America and the United Kingdom.

In the book Backing Hitler: Consent and Coercion in Nazi Germany, 1933-1945, Gellately argues that the Gestapo were not in fact all-pervasive and intrusive as they have been described. The Gestapo only numbered 32,000 for the entire population of Germany, and this clearly limited their impact. In the city of Hanover there were only 42 officers. Instead, Gellately says that the atmosphere of terror and fear was maintained by 'denunciations' from ordinary Germans, whereby they would inform any suspicious 'anti-Nazi' activity to the local Nazi authority. According to Gellatley, these denunciations were the cause of most prosecutions, as in Saarbrücken 87.5 per cent of cases of 'slander against the regime' came from denunciations. This diminished the Gestapo's role in maintaining fear and terror throughout the Third Reich, however they still proved to be a powerful instrument for Hitler and continued to provide the security apparatus needed for the Nazi Regime.

His first book was The Politics of Economic Despair: Shopkeepers in German Politics, 1890-1914 (London, 1974). In 1991 he published The Gestapo and German Society: Enforcing Racial Policy, 1933-1945 (Oxford University Press.) It has been translated into German and Spanish.

In addition, Gellately has co-edited a volume of essays with Russian specialist Sheila Fitzpatrick, Accusatory Practices: Denunciation in Modern European History, 1789-1989 (University of Chicago Press, 1997). With his colleague Nathan Stoltzfus (also at Florida State University) he co-edited a collection called Social Outsiders in Nazi Germany (Princeton University Press, 2001). With Ben Kiernan, Director of the Genocide Studies program at Yale, he recently co-edited The Specter of Genocide: Mass Murder in Historical Perspective (Cambridge University Press, 2003).

Professor Gellately has won numerous research awards, including grants from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in Germany and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Many of the books written or edited by him are used as textbooks in college classrooms across America.

Credits: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_...

Reviews

[Dennis McCrea · Rating 5 out of 5]

I started reading this book 2 months before Trump’s 2024 US presidential election, as I was observing a virtual repeat of 2016. It seemed nothing Trump could say or do turned off the electorate and bring about a Harris landslide victory.

Being an unprofessional WWII history buff, I knew much of Hitler, Nazism and its influencer, Mussolini and Fascism. But why did 2024 here in the United States seem so eerily similar to 1930-1933 in Germany? Starting with several other books I have recently read (Peter Fritzsche’s ‘Hitler’s First Hundred Days’, Ruth Ben-Ghiat’s ‘Strongman’, Jason F. Stanley’s ‘How Fascism Works’, and Edward L. Bernay’s ‘Propaganda’ amongst other books, I felt I had an understanding of how a thriving democracy like the early 1930’s Germany became all too quickly a dictatorship. And I noticed too many similarities between the then Germany and the United States today, under Trump’s and Trumpism’s spell.

But I wanted an in depth explanation of how Germany and her people embraced Hitler and Nazism.

This book provided that bridge. And I see too many similarities to today in the United States.

[Monica Willyard Moen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I knew when I picked up this book that it wouldn’t be pleasant reading. I knew I would probably feel sad and angry as I read, and that was the case. What I didn’t know was how deep the roots of racism figured into the early origins of Hitler’s party and plans. I mean, I knew he had a hatred for Jewish people, but I thought that was an outgrowth of some of his other beliefs. I didn’t realize how much racism was baked into nationalism and socialism at the infancy of the Nazi party and how that racism guided every step forward as they went from being a fringe party that met in beer halls to ruling the nation of Germany. Now that my understanding has been shifted, I have begun to fear that something similar is happening here in America now, not especially with Jewish people but between black and white people. I picked up this book because I hoped I could learn some lessons from history, but maybe I could learn something that would help me in a small way try to shift the tide away from the accelerating hostility and anger in our present day. Now I’m not so sure that’s possible. If racism is not a tacked on thing, if it is entwined as a root factor along with nationalism and other ideas like socialism or communism, small individual actions once this much momentum has built may not be enough. So rather than reassurance or encouragement, I feel even more unsettled. I still trust God, and I still believe that how I treat people individually matters, but now I’m really not sure my behavior can make that much difference. I hope I’m having a temporary fit of pessimism.

[Denise · Rating 4 out of 5]

Deeply unpleasant and unsettling though wading through the morass that is Nazi ideology may be, this comprehensive and well-researched study of what drove so many ordinary people to subscribe to it is very much worth reading - an important lesson that remains undeniably relevant.

[Jan Notzon · Rating 3 out of 5]

I must admit that I was rather disappointed by this book. I gave it three stars rather than two mainly because my disappointment may have been the result of my expectations. The fact that the subtitle made me look forward to a deep psychosocial analysis of what in the German character, at that time and in the situation of the 1920s and 30s led a majority in the country to support such a monster may have colored my appreciation of the book.

Of course, I do know the horrible economic and social climate of the era, plus most Germans' resentment of the Versailles treaty. And I'm sure those issues were crucial, especially since the economy and job market markedly improved during Hitler's reign.

Mr. Gellately tends to confirm at least to a degree the conclusions of Daniel Jonah Goldhagen of the pervasiveness of virulent antisemitism. Apparently, according to Mr. Goldhagen, that was also true in many European countries at the time.

But what Mr. Gellaty provides is more of a play-by-play (in quite a bit of detail) of all the events that led to the establishment of the Third Reich--which is valuable in itself. And that is why I gave the book three stars instead of two.

[Aidan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Modern explanations of the rise of the Third Reich tend to emphasise the singular importance of Hitler. The argument usually runs that the dark charisma of Hitler, combined with his iron will, was a combination that appealed to Germans as they came to grips with the aftermath of World War One and the growing dissatisfaction with Weimar democracy. The Nazis as an ideological force is often overlooked.

Gellately's book corrects this. He explains how Nazi beliefs offered a coherent and compelling programme for Germany that was popular not because of Hitler's ability to sell it, but because many Germans found the notion of Aryan supremacy and a socialist programme built on Germanic terms already meshed with their own.

Read if you are looking for answers to questions like: "To what extent was Germany anti-semitic prior to the Nazis?" (answer, tragically so) and "Were the Nazis socialist?" (answer: in their own specific terms, yes - elements of their programme were socialist in nature).

[Kristen · Rating 4 out of 5]

The larger picture people faced from 1933 onward was the shocking suddenness in which Hitler……changed a parliamentary democracy into a one party dictatorship.

This book was difficult for me to read. It was quite depressing to hear all the steps that led to the destruction of millions of lives. Could this happen again? Absolutely. That may be why it was such a difficult read. However, I did anticipate more of a psycho analysis of the German people with the title. There are many historical dates and political parties that I struggled to remember. This author brought all the receipts for his conclusions.

In short, the author believes that peoples’ discontent with their status and hatred snowballed into the events that eventually shocked the world.

It doesn’t appear that Hitler was entirely systematic in his mass murder of the Jews but from 1919 he took many steps towards accomplishing this goal. This book stresses many times that it wasn’t his charisma that led people to follow him. This book makes the case that Hitler only amplified and projected the small seeds of hatred and discontent with their financial situation that already existed in the “German Identity.” Many of the populous believed they lived in a state of victimhood from the Versailles Treaty and the international conspiracy of the Jewish people which caused social anxiety of losing their class status.

Burning books especially those with content of birth control, LGBTQ and pornography was part of the progression towards accomplishing the government’s goals. It was also interesting to hear that Hitler elevated Nordic people along with the Germanic which is reminiscent of current political views that Norwegian immigrants are superior to other countries’ immigrants. He Concentrated the attention of the masses upon one enemy. While the German government was not unique in controlling female bodies with either sterilization or enacting cruel policies for them to breed healthy individuals, the Germans also sterilized males against their will. While Hitler appreciated women in the workforce, their first priority should be to breed genetically superior offspring.

Considering the importance of nationalism, demonization of a group or people and then replacing the unbridled fervency of the economic system of socialism instead with capitalism conjures a strong sense of deja vu in 2024.

[Lorita Strong · Rating 5 out of 5]

This could easily be titled Trump's Maga Cultists. Will we stop the insanity? I am not sure 😕

[Natalie · Rating 1 out of 5]

Making an exception to my rule of always finishing every book I start.

DNF at 22%

Whole lot of yapping about nothing, I could name the things I learned from 5 hours of listening to this book on one hand.
How does one take such an interesting topic and write about it in the most uninteresting way.

[Leticia Bench · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting and informative, but just read the conclusion at the end and you'll get the whole book.
Spends more time recounting events than talking about "how ordinary people became Nazis."

[Maria · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gellately argues that people were eager to become Nazis because it gave them access to the national in-group. By defining who wasn't German, it was easier to define who was German.

Why I started this book: Noticed that it was being dropped from Audible's free offerings at the end of the month.

Why I finished it: This book was okay, but I felt itchy about more than a couple of Gellately's points. Not enough wrong to tell someone why, but certain that I had read better interpretations of the facts elsewhere. I recommend The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy, The Third Reich in Power, Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin and A Demon-Haunted Land: Witches, Wonder Doctors, and the Ghosts of the Past in Post-WWII Germany, since I can't pinpoint which of these books was my trigger for unease.

[Matthew Buchholtz · Rating 2 out of 5]

Yes, how? Gellately’s answer amounts to what soberer analysts of human nature find axiomatic: they were always that way. So, his quixotic obsession here is to convince you that the Nazis were really just racist versions of the socialists they threw in the camps (after all, “socialist” is right in the name, eh?). That Nazi rhetoric loudly and viciously condemned “Marxism” and “Bolshevism” doesn’t deter him from including it in his characterization of their program as socialist, however, which makes for a somewhat confused and ultimately unsatisfying argument. The reality is that when Gellately says “socialism” he really just means a vaguely communitarian utopianism which was broadly fashionable in the early 20th century. Unfortunately this is too much of the book — most of it, to be clear, except the final section which merely samples Nazi atrocities with no apparent connection to the “ordinary people” of the subtitle. The book’s real through-line, to the extent that it has one, is that Nazi supporters were happy racists who tired of austerity and were plenty excited about the promise of sorting out the Jewish thing once and for all. In short: ordinary people became Nazis because they liked the Nazis. That’s a bummer, sure — but it’s no bombshell.

[MM1990 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wreszcie jakieś naprawdę interesujące podejście do kwestii ruchu nazistowskiego i ideologicznej podbudowy działalności Adolfa Hitlera. Nie zaś kolejna freudowska pseudppsychoanaliza pod tytułem "przywódcy NSDAP mieli ciężko w dzieciństwie, a Hitler miał tylko jedno jądro, więc dlatego stali się sadystami". Nie zajmuje się także równie sensacyjnymi, co nie mającymi pokrycia w rzeczywistości związkami nazizmu z pogaństwem (w rzeczywistości był to margines ruchu nazistowskiego).

Autor zgodnie z zapowiedzią ze wstępu zajmuje się więc fenomenem nazizmu od zupełnie innej strony, wskazując na ówczesne realia życia w Niemczech i odpowiedzi dawane przez nazistów na konkretne problemy. W tym kontekście cytuje relacje działaczy NSDAP, polityków partii opozycyjnych (niekiedy rzeczywiście chwalą oni narodowy socjalizm), intelektualistów i nade wszystko zwykłych Niemców.

Jednocześnie nie jest to książka spod znaku udowadniania, że nazizm to lewica, chociaż przez całą publikację przewija się wątek idei "niemieckiego socjalizmu". Między innymi dlatego zdecydowanie warto sięgnąć po tę pozycję, a nie po całą masę bezwartościowych sensacyjnych wypocin na temat nazizmu.

[Philip Kuhn · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really good book overall that cuts through commonly held misconceptions about Nazi Germany. First that all early followers of Hitler did so because of his charisma. No, it was because they liked his ideas. Very few had actually met him in person. Point two is that National Socialism wasn't really socialist. Yes they were, very much so. But they were "German socialists ". You'll have to read the book to understand. But one key thing was Jews or dark skinned people need not try to be part of the community and receive its benefits.

The last few chapters stray a bit and that cost it a star. But really good book overall.
PHILIP KUHN

[Paul Narvaez · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a phenomenal book. Really gets into the social dynamics of why Germans thought the way they did and acquiesed to the things they did. National Socialism just tapped into the thinking that was already in the open. One of the highlights of this book was defining the "socialism" part of National Socialism. How it was very distinct from the Communist/Marxist usage of the term. In essence, it was Nationalism and Socialism (ie. catering to the needs of "Germans") and opposed strongly to universal brotherhood or general class consciousness. It was opposed to Jewish capitalism but not so much German capitalism. Actually, there is a ton of interesting material in this book.

[Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book, as you can imagine, is a heavy read. However, everything that Gellately describes is backed up by numerous sources. About 1/3 of the book is footnotes and sources...so much factual information. It is a deep dive into how everyday German citizens became supporters of Hitler's Nazi Germany. Though the systems are logical, it is still hard to accept. Germany was ripe for a Dictatorship in the late 1920's. The evolution into full- blown antisemitism is a cautionary tale into our potential and present political schema. This is definitely a book that allows us to learn from our past.

[Laney]

"Only gradually did more true-believing activists join the struggle, and they did so less because they fell victim to Hitler’s charisma than because they found in National Socialism a doctrine that was akin to their own rough-and-ready thinking. This cluster of ideas proved to be successful precisely because they were unoriginal and were already embedded in Germany’s political culture."

Very informative, but I was not a big fan of the writing style.

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall an excellent and enthralling book. Even though most of his arguments are not unique to him, the way he goes through them chronologically and progressively is very effective. My only dings are that he seemed to dismiss Hayek's perspective on socialism and there was no mention of Nietzsche and the influence of his philosophy on Hitler.

[Brett Bosley · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was highly informative (and relevant). Thesis is that rather than the charisma of the Great Man theory, H only built upon existing notions of nationalism, antisemitism, and the classlessness of socialism.

[AnnieM · Rating 4 out of 5]

Frightening

[KT Bob · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nazism and Fascism have never left human beings. They lurked and woke up in different disguises.

[Oolalaa · Rating 4 out of 5]

16/20

[Hina Ansari · Rating 4 out of 5]

While the writing could use some flow help, but the information was both fascinating and familiar.

[Shay Miles · Rating 3 out of 5]

Unfocused but instructive

[Arpin Bhullar · Rating 5 out of 5]

great read, very interesting insight to how things got to where they did.

[Eric Schwebel · Rating 3 out of 5]

*read for Senior Colloquium

Well researched but the argument is a bit bland imo

[Delaney Nash · Rating 2 out of 5]

There's a lot of interesting stuff in this so I'm not saying don't read it but the author engages in historical revisionism by claiming that the Nazis were socialists throughout the entire book. For that reason alone, I can't give it a good rating. If you get the well documented and researched political ideology of the Nazis wrong, what else are you getting wrong?

[Kimmo K · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book rather as a source for my own writing project (thus all the books about the Nazis and 1920s-1940s Germany in the last months in the books that I've read) rather than of great interest in the topic. That maybe reflecting on my rating of the book.

Major issue in the book for me was the secondary title 'How ordinary people became Nazis' as it was not properly answered. You need to find hints of the answer for that by yourself and common outlines don't always match with individual actions. So there should have been far more explanations from the individual point of view. Generally the reasons why the Nazi regime was enormously popular in its first years were given: lowering the unemployment rate from insanely high to almost non-existent, turning the crisis in agriculture to thriving situation on the countryside all around Germany and giving common people the illusion that "we all are of same value and aiming for the same goal" (which was later totally wrecked by "the golden pheasants") are very strong reasons for supporting a regime. (Even if you know that behind the facade is lurking something not so pleasant)

Also the fact that the work has been published by Oxford University Press made the expectations high. But I think the survey the author had done and wrote here was somewhat "sloppy". Really "heavy drilling into the topic" was nowhere to be found and most of the chapters were filled with stuff that was familiar already from school books and if not there, then from relatively superficial tv-documents. Conclusions were also tame.