First published in French in 1936, The Third Reich is Professor Henri Lichtenberger's analysis of the then-current developments in Germany since the takeover of the National Socialists three years before. He gives in-depth discussions of the rise of National Socialism, their foreign policy, economics, and the underlying philosophy and ideals of the movement, including their views on race, religion, and on youth training and education. With numerous appendices featuring source documents in translation, this rare attempt at an objective view of Hitler's Germany, written before the outbreak of war by a scholar of German history and culture who was not a partisan of National Socialism, is a document of great historical value.

Henri Lichtenberger (1864-1941) was a French scholar of German literature and history who taught at the Sorbonne and at Harvard. He was among the first to write on the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, about whom he published widely throughout his life. He also wrote books on Heinrich Heine, Richard Wagner and Novalis, and translated the works of Goethe and the Nibelungenlied.