Josef Goebbels, Hermann Goring, Heinrich Himmler, Rudolph Hess, Albert Speer and Karl Donitz. These were the men who smoothed Adolf Hitler's path to power and became the perpetrators of a reign of terror unparalleled in history. They were the supporters and executives at Hitler's regime, carrying out his orders with deadly efficiency. This radical new assessment of power under the swastika reveals many unknown facts and gives a unique but disturbing glimpse behind the scenes of the Nazi state.an TV journalist and presenter Guido Knopp has unearthed a wealth of new material about the Third Reich. Based on meticulous research and countless interviews, this is essential reading for anyone interested in Hitler and the Second World War.

No crime in the twentieth century has so deeply shocked mankind as the Holocaust. And none has so stubbornly resisted every attempt to explain it. More than six million people were murdered, and countless more endured horrific suffering. Guido Knopp's disturbing account is the most complete history of the Holocaust to date. It reveals the appalling truth using the most recent historical research, including minutes of daily briefings by Joseph Goebbels, private papers of the SS Einsatzgruppen in charge of mass murder, and East German State Security documents detailing the deportation of Jews. The book relives the agony of the victims and investigates the motives of the perpetrators. Survivors talk for the first time about their horrifying torture and their eventual escape from Nazi persecution. The persecutors now at last confront the atrocities they committed. This is not an attempt to rewrite the history of the Holocaust, but a searing account of the greatest crime of the twentieth century - if not of all time - using the latest research on the subject.

What made six ordinary men instigate the terrifying criminal Nazi regime throughout German society and beyond with such enthusiasm and diligence? Supported by recently discovered files from all over the world, and interviews with former Nazi members and victims, Guido Knopp examines the background and activities of some of Hitler's right-hand men. Here is Adolf Eichmann, who arranged the deportation of Jews in crowded trains, before sentencing thousands to a terrifying death as part of the Final Solution; Martin Bormann, Hitler's secretary and deputy, who controlled sensitive papers to influence government policy; Joachim von Ribbentrop, Hitler's foreign advisor; Roland Friesler, known as the hanging judge on account of his brutality in administrating Nazi law; Baldur von Schirach, leader of the Hitler Youth movement; and Joseph Mengele, the doctor involved in the bizarre genetic experiments on concentration camp prisoners. These very different people all shared an awestruck dedication to Hitler and a deep hatred of the Jews. Through the diaries and first-hand observations of those around them, their personalities are brought to life to provide an exemplary portrait of the elusive minds of willing Nazi executors.

The best known but least understood organ of the Nazi state, the SS grew from a minor politician's small, unpaid bodyguard into a force which dominated the racial, cultural and professional spheres of the most powerful empire Europe has ever seen. Often referred to as 'the state within a state', the SS was Heinrich Himmler's personal fiefdom and its influence pervaded all walks of German life, both private and public. Its tentacles extended into the army and police, the business world and of course the death camps. The author reveals Himmler to be a man despised but indulged by Hitler who was obsessed with crackpot theories of Germanic mythology and deeply involved in the Final Solution. He assesses the career of Reinhard Heydrich, who put the organisational muscle and ruthlessness into the SS. The Totenkopt Brigade, set up specifically to run the concentration camps and death camps, is examined, as is the Waffen-SS, the military formation which killed thousands of Jews and partisans across Eastern Europe and fought bitterly against the Allies in Normandy. The postwar story of the SS is also outlined, from clandestine organisations of former SS men to the activities of ex-Nazis today. Supported by photographs and the words of former SS men, their close friends and colleagues, Guido Knopp brings back to life a generation whose fanaticism and violence shaped the identify of the Third Reich.

Hitler's Third Reich was responsible for the betrayal and exploitation of an entire generation. Even today, some former members of the Nazi youth organisations are unable to come to terms with the part they played in Germany's dark past. This book is the first comprehensive history of the youth organisations used by the Third Reich to indoctrinate the young people of Germany. Hitler's programme of 'Gleichschaltung' was designed to bring the whole of German society into line with Nazi aims; even the youngest children were moulded into willing recruits of Nazism. Millions of young people were dazzled by the oratory about 'Blood and Soil' and 'Lebensraum', and by fanatical racism. Relied on as enthusiastic support forces, they were also willing cannon-fodder. The small minority that resisted the fascination of the Nazi regime became outcasts - marginalised and persecuted. But Germany's unconditional surrender on 8 May 1945 shattered all illusions, exposing the true horrors of the Third Reich hidden from the German people. Following the successful style adopted in Hitler's Henchmen, Guido Knopp presents the shocking and personal accounts of former Hitler Youth members.