Bidspirit auction | ”The Third Reich” – How

”The Third Reich” – How Germany Became a Totalitarian Racial State – an early publication written during the years of Nazi rule. New York, 1937 – first edition - The Third Reich – by Henri Lichtenberger – published by The Greystone Press – how Germany became a totalitarian racial state threatening the peace of the entire world – an in-depth study published at the height of the Nazi regime's rise to power. New York, 1937 – first English edition, with additions and documents that did not appear in the French edition. An early work of historical and political analysis focusing on the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime in Germany. Lichtenberger’s book, published in the 1930s, is one of the first comprehensive accounts of the Nazi movement and its implications for Europe and the world. The author, Henri Lichtenberger [1864–1941], a native of Alsace, was a French scholar and professor specializing in German culture and history. In his book, he documents the political and social dynamics that led to the rise of the Third Reich. The book explores the origins of National Socialism, the political ideologies that drove its ascent, the historical context in which Hitler and the Nazi Party succeeded in gaining power, and how Nazi racial theory spread throughout Germany. Lichtenberger examines the cultural, economic, and political factors that led to the establishment of the Third Reich. The book also discusses the impact of the Nazi regime on German society, its policy of militarization, and the consequences for international relations. Lichtenberger’s work is an early attempt to understand and explain the dangers of the Nazi regime prior to the invasion of Poland and the outbreak of World War II. The author, a brilliant expert in German history and culture, explains why ideas such as racial theory and Nazism found a receptive audience specifically in Germany, alongside the political developments regarding Germany's rearmament since the end of World War I  -“Germany did not become a land of barbarians overnight, ” he writes. He shows how Adolf Hitler’s grandiose speeches fell on receptive ears precisely in Germany, and explains how the German people themselves cooperated with the “purification of the social organism” (as Hitler defined it in his speech of March 23, 1933), and illustrates the role of the German press in the creation of Nazi propaganda. The chapter dealing with Nazi racial theory - under the title The Myth of Race — is one of the most important documents ever published on the subject of Nazi racial ideology. Lichtenberger explains that the idea which provides the Nazi movement with its power is the myth of race, and that it precedes the idea of the state. It is, in fact, the highest priority in the hierarchy of importance within the Nazi regime. In this, he essentially foresaw the reality in which, at the height of World War II, even as Nazi Germany was fighting on multiple fronts and had already begun to retreat, it continued to invest the majority of its resources in the murder of the Jews in the death camps. This was a sharp observation made already in 1936 (!), a true foresight, at a time when many around the world failed to grasp this in real time - understanding it only years after the war, when the full scale of Nazi Germany’s totalitarianism became evident through established facts.  Lichtenberger demonstrates, through passages from Hitler’s Mein Kampf, how in the Führer’s view, the state is merely a necessary condition for the creation of a superior human culture, and is nothing more than a tool serving this higher purpose. Another point he emphasizes is that Nazi Germany’s drive to advance the teaching of racial science exceeded its belief in the doctrine itself. The indoctrination of the next generation with the idea of race stood at the top of Nazi Germany’s priorities - more so than examining the scientific credibility of the theory. From this, he explains how the persecution of the Jews became, in practice, the ultimate goal of Germany at that time: “With the advent of Hitlerism, this flood of antisemitic passion assumed immense proportions. The myth of race condemned the Jew as ‘the principle of evil.’ He is the chief enemy of Germany, who throughout history has harmed the free development of the Nordic race.” “The French edition… appeared in the spring of 1936 under the title L'Allemagne nouvelle… The present English version, however, is more than a translation of the French text. Professor Lichtenberger has provided several additional sections which did not appear in the original Paris edition. The editor has also revised the text and added numerous notes in order to update the work and to shed light on various issues of particular interest to the English-speaking reader” (from the introduction). This edition includes rare and important documents that record the totalitarianism of Nazi Germany in real time. Extremely rare.