This book had a surprising reception. No one—not my publisher, my editor, my agent, my friends—believed that the public would buy a book so long, so full of footnotes, so expensive, and on such a subject. My lecture agent had told me there was no more interest in Hitler and the Third Reich and that I would have to talk about something else. My publisher printed only 12,500 copies in advance. The fact that the book started at once to attract considerable readership was therefore a pleasant surprise to us all.
