Neil Gregor is Reader in Modern German History at the University of Southampton. His previous publications include Daimler-Benz in the Third Reich (1998) (winner of the Fraenkel Prize for Contemporary History; shortlisted for the Longman/History Today Book of the Year); and Nazism: A Reader (2000).

• Introduction to the paperback editionList of common German abbreviations used in the text1 Neil Gregor Nazism-A Political Religion? Rethinking the Voluntarist Turn2 Jane Caplan Political Detention and the Origin of the Concentration Camps in Nazi Germany, 1933-1935/63 Dick Geary Working-Class Identities in the Third Reich4 Robert Gellately Social Outsiders and the Consolidation of Hitler's Dictatorship, 1933-19395 Nikolaus Wachsmann 'Soldiers of the Home Front': Jurists and Legal Terror during the Second World War6 Jill Stephenson Germans, Slavs and the Burden of Work in Rural Southern Germany during the Second World War7 Ian Kershaw Did Hitler Miss his Chance in 1940?8 Mark Roseman Shoot First and Ask Questions Afterwards?Wannsee and the Unfolding of the Final Solution9 Norbert Frei Auschwitz and the Germans: History, Knowledge and MemoryNotesList of ContributorsSuggestions for further readingIndex

Taken together, the essays presented in this collection do a splendid job of summarising and criticising the state of our knowledge of the field they cover. All are further characterised by a very accessible style and great readability... this book is an ideal way for undergraduates, graduate students, lay people or specialists in other fields to quickly learn the essentials of our current knowledge of some of the central issues surrounding the history of the Third Reich.Bruce B. Campbell, H-German