The Third Reich in Power opens with a comprehensive summary of the initial development of the Nazi phenomenon (described in detail in The Coming of the Third Reich, the first volume of this trilogy) to unfold from there the terrible story of the Nazi regime from the moment Hitler seized power until he plunged Europe into war.

Richard Evans examines how it became possible for a group of fervent ideologists to reshape a society known for its complexity and development into a one-party state oriented towards racial hatred and war. He shows how the Nazis won the hearts and minds of German citizens, distorted science, religion, and culture, and transformed the economy, education, law, and order in their attempt to dominate German politics and society entirely.

The main events of the dictatorship – such as "the Night of Broken Glass," "the Night of the Long Knives," the Nuremberg anti-Jewish laws, the Olympic Games, the pogroms, the frenzied preparations for war – are reassembled with brilliant narrative skill.

Equally important is the author's engagement with the countless small ways in which an entire population became entangled in the web of a horrific experiment in human engineering at the very heart of Europe. Drawing from an impressive range of research and mixing narrative, description, and analysis, the book penetrates both the high politics of Hitler and his circle as well as the world of ordinary Germans who were swept up in the whirlpool of these unprecedented developments.