Culture in Nazi Germany

“Absorbing, chilling study of German artistic life under Hitler.”—Max Hastings, The Sunday Times

“While providing a chronology for understanding the creeping totalitarianism, Kater shines most when discussing individual artists and their work, displaying a thoroughness and texture unrivalled by any other scholar.”—Jonathan Petropoulos, Art Newspaper

“A much-needed study of the aesthetics and cultural mores of the Third Reich, with often surprising turns . . . in a narrative rich in detail and documentation. . . . ‘The relation between culture and tyranny is a complex one,’ Kater concludes. Indeed, and his book does much to make it comprehensible.”—Kirkus Reviews, starred review

“Kater’s work is strongest where it uncovers the suppressed histories of primary sources and archival material. There is a subtlety and sensitivity of scholarship here, which Kater presents with contemporary urgency. While the book is about the past, it prompts us to ask what the archival evidence of tomorrow will reveal about our actions today.”—Marlo Alexandra Burks, Literary Review of Canada

“Kater’s book is a grim but necessary chronicle of the 12-year Third Reich as seen through the culture it destroyed . . . and the culture it then produced to replace it. . . . A nation’s citizens are, collectively, the one and final bulwark against fascism. It’s worth thinking about all over again in 2019.”—Alan Bisbort, Waterbury Republican-American

“There is no greater authority on the culture of the Nazi period than Michael Kater, and his latest, most ambitious work gives a comprehensive overview of a dismally complex history, astonishing in its breadth of knowledge and acute in its critical perceptions.”—Alex Ross, music critic at the New Yorker and author of The Rest Is Noise