I've met many Holocaust survivors who find the era infinitely compelling because they have this deep hunger to understand how it all… — Erik Larson Copy Share Image
The Nazis hijacked the Jewish thing early on by defining it as 'the Jewish problem' and started looking for a solution. These… — Erik Larson Copy Share Image
There's something so relentless and foul about Hitler and his people, and the way things progressed from year to year. It just… — Erik Larson Copy Share Image
“Recalling his first impression of Hitler, Hanfstaengl wrote, "Hitler looked like a suburban hairdresser on his day off.” — Erik Larson Copy Share Image
“Within two months we will have pushed Hitler so far into a corner that he’ll squeak.” It was possibly the greatest miscalculation… — Erik Larson Copy Share Image
“But Hitler’s government was neither civil nor coherent, and the nation lurched from one inexplicable moment to another.” — Erik Larson Copy Share Image
“But I had at least hoped to find some decent people around Hitler. I am horrified to discover that the whole gang… — Erik Larson Copy Share Image
Hitler was such an anomalous character - he was so over-the-top chaotic in his approach to statesmanship, his manner and in the… — Erik Larson Copy Share Image
“Even more systemic persecution was on the way, Messersmith wrote. He had learned that a draft existed of a new law that… — Erik Larson Copy Share Image
“He came from plebeian roots and had failed to distinguish himself in any way, not in war, not in work, not in… — Erik Larson Copy Share Image
“TO DODD, PAPEN’S REMARK ranked as one of the most idiotic he had heard since his arrival in Berlin. And he had… — Erik Larson Copy Share Image
“Like most people, I acquired my initial sense of the era from books and photographs that left me with the impression that… — Erik Larson Copy Share Image
“The Chancellor’s assurances were so satisfying and so unexpected that I think they are on the whole too good to be true,”… — Erik Larson Copy Share Image
“No one wanted the job. What had seemed one of the least challenging tasks facing Franklin D. Roosevelt as newly elected president… — Erik Larson Copy Share Image
“The thing that weighed on him most, however, was the irrationality of the world in which he now found himself. To some… — Erik Larson Copy Share Image
I've heard from the movie marketplace that James Cameron did such a killer job with 'Titanic' that it's almost impossible to do anything better. — Erik Larson Copy Share Image
As a rule, I am very skeptical of tying books to anniversaries. I don't think readers care. I also feel that it just about… — Erik Larson Copy Share Image
“look as if they had been plucked from the Palace of Versailles or a Jacobean mansion—that you were aboard a ship being propelled far… — Erik Larson Copy Share Image
That's what I love about history - nuance. I don't believe in unalloyed heroes. Everyone's got warts, and everyone's got a surprise side. — Erik Larson Copy Share Image
“Holmes was charming and gracious, but something about him made Belknap uneasy. He could not have defined it. Indeed, for the next several decades… — Erik Larson Copy Share Image
. . . why some men choose to fill their brief allotment of time engaging the impossible, others in the manufacture of sorrow. — Erik Larson Copy Share Image
“At present," he said, "I am responsible for conveying my associates to a place called Chicago. I understand it is somewhere in the hinterland.” — Erik Larson Copy Share Image
I knew from an online search that the Wisconsin State Historical Society, on the vast University of Wisconsin campus, held the papers of Sigrid… — Erik Larson Copy Share Image
Dodd continued to hope that the murders would so outrage the German public that the regime would fall, but as the days passed he… — Erik Larson Copy Share Image
I envy other writers who claim to have a backlog of books they'd like to write. — Erik Larson Copy Share Image
Trying to find ideas is the hardest part of my job. You'd think it would be the most fun. Just sitting around reading whatever… — Erik Larson Copy Share Image
“Her blind endorsement of Hitler’s regime first faded to a kind of sympathetic skepticism, but as summer approached,” — Erik Larson Copy Share Image
