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Big takeaways from reading this book:

1. Aggression was the reason for Nazi Germany's success. In rearming against the contraventions of the Treaty of Versailles, in seizing the Rhineland, Austria, and the Sudetenland, in charging through France's defenses, Hitler grabbed what he wanted and built a myth of invulnerability which made the next conquest more possible. At any point, if he had been seriously opposed, he would have crumbled, but his aura of strength made opposition hard to do.

2. Aggression was also the reason for Nazi Germany's downfall. Each one of the conquests was a diceroll Hitler won - eventually, the pattern broke and was disasterous. Throughout history Germans had feared the prospect of a two front war, but Hitler started one by simultaneously fighting against the west and invading Russia. Constantly demanding more of his troops than they could do pushed them to their limits, and they achieved a lot of his goals, but eventually those limits were surpassed, and once armies began to lose, the myth of German invincibility was gone. Hitler demanded that his generals split their forces to win more territory, and the division destroyed them. He demanded that his armies not cede an inch of ground when they should have retreated, and they were lost when they could have been saved.

3. Developing a fanatical culture around Nazism and himself allowed Hilter to exercise supreme power. People believed in him and supported him even as his actions ultimately brought about their destruction.

4. Up until he broke from this rule, Hitler dealt with his enemies piecemeal, and successfully prevented people from banding together against him. He failed when he could no longer divide his enemies.

5. The Nazis were good at co-opting other movements to gain power. They somehow absorbed socialists and communists even while courting industrialists.

6. People are capable of inflicting horrors on other people, if they are convinced that other people are subhuman.

I think this will be my last World War II book for a while. In addition to Rise and Fall, I've read Blackout/All Clear and Churchill's memoirs. WWII is a fascinating era, but I am now, finally, spent.

I thought it would be satisfying to watch Nazis of another era get annihilated, but all the attrocities they committed beforehand made the ending a relief more than anything.