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dot com and secure your seats today welcome to the history extra podcast fascinating historical conversations from the makers of BBC History magazine.

What drives people to commit atrocities?

Few periods in history confront this question as starkly as the rise and fall of the Nazis,

whose crimes stand as a chilling testament to humanity's capacity for darkness. In his latest book, historian and filmmaker Lawrence Reese ponderes

what we can learn by probing the psychological and social forces that enabled the cruelty of the Third Reich.

And in today's episode, Danny Bird speaks to him to find out more.

If you find this conversation interesting, then Lawrence is also leading an upcoming

six-part History Extra Masterclass on the rise and fall of Nazi Germany.

To subscribe to the course and access video lectures

and additional learning material, head to history extra.com forward slash Nazi Germany from the 27th of

January. Lawrence, in your introduction, you mentioned that you've met and spoken with many people

who lived under Nazi rule, both its devotees and its victims. Do you think their eyewitness testimonies are more

valuable than archival material when it comes to truly understanding the mentality of that time?

I wouldn't ever say one is necessarily more valuable than the other. Coming from television, which is where I came from,

I always wanted to make history documentaries.

I never wanted to be an academic historian or anything,

but I was inspired by shows way back,

...