A leading American journalist travels to Nazi Germany in December 1939, arriving in wartime Germany where all the lights are blacked out in preparation for an English or French bombing campaign. T. Lothrop Stoddard's provocatively-titled book refers to the eerie experience he felt of first encountering this total blackout.
Into the Darkness was the product of an assignment by the North American Newspaper Alliance company in which Stoddard was detailed to report on wartime conditions in Nazi Germany--at a time before the US became involved in the war.
Stoddard was not unknown in Germany. Due to his leading work in the areas of racial history, racial science and eugenic in America, he was granted unprecedented access to the inner workings of the National Socialist government and provided the first--and possibly only--accurate, unbiased account of German racial policy ever written by a non-German writer.
Stoddard was granted personal interviews with Adolf Hitler, Joseph Goebbels, Heinrich Himmler, Robert Ley, Wilhelm Frick, Walter Darré, Eugen Fischer, Fritz Lenz, and Hans F. K. Günther, and many other Nazi leaders.
His interview with Hitler in particular, provided the only English-language firsthand physical description of the German leader ever to appear in print:
"There are certain details of Hitler's appearance which one cannot surmise from photographs. His complexion is medium, with blond-brown hair of neutral shade which shows no signs of gray. His eyes are very dark-blue. Incidentally, he no longer wears a cartoonist's mustache. It is now the usual "tooth-brush" type, in both size and length. In ordinary conversation, Hitler's voice is clear and well-modulated. Throughout the audience he spoke somewhat rapidly, yet never hurriedly, and in an even tone. Hitler's whole appearance was that of a man in good health. He certainly did not look a day older than his fifty years. His color was good, his skin clear and un-wrinkled, his body fit and not over-weight. He showed no visible signs of nervous strain, such as pouched eyes, haggard lines, or twitching physical reactions. On the contrary, appearance, voice, and manner combined to give an impression of calmness and poise."
In addition, Stoddard was allowed to attend the workings of a German Eugenics court--the only such account ever to reach the rest of Europe and America.
Among the many other insights in this unique book:
- The trials and tribulations of civilian Germans at war;
- The real attitude of Germans to the war;
- The German Labor Front, the Winter Help, the Hitler Youth and women in the Third Reich;
- The economic policies of the Third Reich;
- The treatment of Jews inside Nazi Germany; and much more besides.
Stoddard was a renowned and well-respected journalist when he made this trip and subsequent report, because it recounts accurately the events of the time, his name--not to mention his report--has all but disappeared from today's "official" history concerning that period.
This edition has been completely reset and contains new illustrations.
