Into the Darkness: An Uncensored Report from Inside the Third Reich at War

Description

By T. Lothrop Stoddard. A leading American journalist travels to Nazi Germany in December 1939, arriving in wartime Germany where all the lights are blacked out in preparation for an English or French bombing campaign.

Stoddard’s provocatively titled book refers to the eerie experience he felt of first encountering this total blackout. Stoddard was sent to report on wartime conditions in Nazi Germany—at a time before the U.S. became involved in the war.

Stoddard was not unknown in Germany. Due to his leading work in the areas of racial history, racial science and eugenic in America, he was granted unprecedented access to the inner workings of the National Socialist government and provided the first—and possibly only—accurate, unbiased account of German racial policy ever written by a non-German writer.

Stoddard was granted personal interviews with Hitler, Goebbels, Himmler, Robert Ley, Wilhelm Frick, Walter Darré, Eugen Fischer, Fritz Lenz, and Hans Günther, and more Nazi leaders.

His interview with Hitler in particular, provided the only English-language firsthand physical description of the German leader ever to appear in print:

“There are certain details of Hitler’s appearance which one cannot surmise from photographs. His complexion is medium, with blond-brown hair of neutral shade which shows no signs of gray. His eyes are very dark-blue. Incidentally, he no longer wears a cartoonist’s mustache. It is now the usual “tooth-brush” type, in both size and length. In ordinary conversation, Hitler’s voice is clear and well-modulated. Throughout the audience he spoke somewhat rapidly, yet never hurriedly, and in an even tone. Hitler’s whole appearance was that of a man in good health. He certainly did not look a day older than his fifty years. His color was good, his skin clear and un-wrinkled, his body fit and not over-weight. He showed no visible signs of nervous strain, such as pouched eyes, haggard lines, or twitching physical reactions. On the contrary, appearance, voice, and manner combined to give an impression of calmness and poise.”

In addition, Stoddard was allowed to attend the workings of a German Eugenics court—the only such account ever to reach the rest of Europe and America.

Among the many other insights in this unique book:

• – The trials and tribulations of civilian Germans at war;
• – The real attitude of Germans to the war;
• – The German Labor Front, the Winter Help, the Hitler Youth and women in the Third Reich;
• – The economic policies of the Third Reich;
• – The treatment of Jews inside Nazi Germany; and much more besides.

Stoddard was a renowned and well-respected journalist when he made this trip and subsequent report, because it recounts accurately the events of the time, his name—not to mention his report—has all but disappeared from today’s “official” history concerning that period.

This edition has been completely reset and contains new illustrations.

Contents

• Chapter 1: The Shadow
• Chapter 2: Berlin Blackout
• Chapter 3: Getting on with the Job
• Chapter 4: Junketing Through Germany
• Chapter 5: This Detested War
• Chapter 6: Vienna and Bratislava
• Chapter 7: Iron Rations
• Chapter 8: A Berlin Lady Goes to Market
• Chapter 9: The Battle of the Land
• Chapter 10: The Labor Front
• Chapter 11: The Army of the Spade
• Chapter 12: Hitler Youth
• Chapter 13: Women of the Third Reich
• Chapter 14: Behind the Winter-Help
• Chapter 15: Socialized Health
• Chapter 16: In a Eugenics Court
• Chapter 17: I See Hitler
• Chapter 18: Mid-Winter Berlin
• Chapter 19: Berlin to Budapest
• Chapter 20: The Party
• Chapter 21: The Totalitarian State
• Chapter 22: Closed Doors
• Chapter 23: Out of the Shadow

Softcover, completely reset with new illustrations, 205 pages