The proposed book opens Richard Evans' trilogy dedicated to the history of the Third Reich. It tells the story of the difficult time Germany experienced after the First World War, when the totalitarian Nazi state was born in an atmosphere of political chaos, economic disaster, mass unrest and ideological polarization of society. Initially not representing a serious political force, the Nazis in a very short time established a one-party dictatorship in Germany and plunged the country into a deep moral, social and cultural crisis. The author tells how this happened and tries to answer the question of whether Hitler's rise to power was inevitable and why, throughout the 1920s, citizens of the free Weimar Republic increasingly leaned towards the ideals of authoritarianism. Richard Evans' trilogy is exciting and at the same time time, an extremely detailed and historically accurate narrative about the most tragic era in German and European history of the last century.