With its battlefields paved over and its bunkers crumbled, the Third Reich of Nazi Germany nevertheless lives on in countless photographs that record an era of extraordinary brutality. This collection of more than 500 photographs taken by amateurs and professional propagandists provides a panoramic overview of Nazi Germany, offering intimate glimpses into living rooms and killing grounds, kitchens and concentration camps, movie theaters and battle fronts. The explanatory text explores the context of the images. Together, these photographs, most never before seen, create a time capsule, capturing the faces of Hitler’s soldier’s as well as those who suffered under the Nazi onslaught on humanity.

Paul Garson has a 30-year background in journalism and photography that has produced some 2500 magazine and periodical features, including a number of articles in World War II History and World War II Quarterly. A free-lance writer, he lives in Los Angeles.

Compiled and with Captions by Paul Garson
Format: softcover (7 x 10)
Pages: 496
Bibliographic Info: 531 photos, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2012
pISBN: 978-0-7864-6966-6
eISBN: 978-0-7864-9090-5
Imprint: McFarland

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS      vi

PREFACE      1

INTRODUCTION: THE ROLE OF THE CAMERA      3

The Photographs

Kinder—From the Cradle to the Grave      37

Hitler Youth—Emotion over Intellect      42

RAD—The Spade Soldiers      53

Women’s Role—From Kitchen to Uniform      62

Children of the Enemy—Useless Eaters      75

The Photo as Sign of the Times—Text Messages of the Third Reich      84

Intimations of the War Within a War—Racial Terror      109

Non-Uniform Uniformity—The German Soldier      113

The Camouflage of Kultur—Art Imitates Death      142

Acting the Part—The Third Reich Entertains Itself      164

Waffen: Weapons of Fire, Blood, and Steel      202

Warhorses—The Myth of the Mechanized War      . 212

Stealth Cycles—Of War      230

Iron War Horses      235

Death from Above and from Below—Flak      .246

The Healing Arts—The Cured and the Inflicted      263

Essen und Trinken—Feeding the Third Reich      275

Gott mit Uns—An Ambivalent Faith      289

Arbeit Macht Frei—In Service to the Reich      295

Das Krieg—The War Begins      302

On to France—Belgian Passage      310

France—Six Weeks to Victory      314

Victims of Another Color—French Colonial Soldiers      327

The Third Reich—Axis Allies and Collaborators      335

The Great Patriotic War—The Invasion of the Soviet Union      363

Carnage Incarnate—Death Seen Through the German Camera      380

The Holocaust by Bullets—Prelude to Institutionalized Murder      397

The Tide of Defeat Turns Red—The Third Reich Reels in Reverse      408

Heldentod—Cult of Death      420

Post-Mortem—Revelations, Retributions and Revisions      428

Aftermath—Cover-Up and Revenge Revealed?      457

ADDENDA: THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDERS—CAMERAS IN USE DURING THE THIRD REICH      473

BIBLIOGRAPHY      481

INDEX      485

“valuable contribution to the history of photography under the Third Reich”—The NYMAS Review; “a valuable contribution to the history of photography under the Third Reich”—StrategyPage.com; “Paul Garson has compiled an endlessly fascinating book that contains hundreds of images, most published for the very first time. Be engrossed, be enthralled, be revolted by them but don’t look away. They are too important to ignore”—Flint Whitlock, Editor, WWII Quarterly; “Paul Garson’s New Images of Nazi Germany provides a vivid and sometimes shocking portrait of the Third Reich, from mundane scenes of everyday life experiences enjoyed by German families to important photographic evidence about mass murder of the European Jewish population. This important book will make one both feel and think about the nature and actions of National Socialist Germany in a way that is both disturbing and exasperating, but nonetheless of great importance”—Eric Johnson, Central Michigan University.