Formally inaugurated in Potsdam in 1933, the Third Reich was regarded by Hitler as the greatest in a line of might German empires. His mystical belief that this empire would last a thousand years proved unfounded, but not before a world war which resulted in the loss of at least 70 million lives.

This atlas charts the rise and fall of Hitler's Nazi state, from the first mass meeting of the NSDAP in Munich in 1920, through the relentless territorial aggression and anti0Jewish atrocities of World War II, to the execution of war criminals in Nuremburg in 1946.

The Historical Atlas of the Third Reich offers penetrating insights into the seemingly inexorable rise of National Socialism and examines the nature of Hitler's power structures both within his party and within Germany as a whole.

Richard Overy is a professor of history at the University of Exeter. A leading expert in World War II history, he has written more than twenty books, including Why the Allies Won, and The Twilight Years.