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At Hitler’s Picnic (published on 14 September 2026)
Original price was: £22.00.£19.00Current price is: £19.00.
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Dr Robert Lyman, MBE, historian and author of The Rise of the Third Reich
“This is a remarkable book, which takes us into Hitler’s Heart of Darkness. The photographs are themselves a brilliant find, but Madeleine Johnson’s investigation into the characters they depict, and the story she builds up about this Nazi celebration, are extraordinary.”
Fergus Greer, photographer
“Photographing Leni Riefenstahl at her home in her nineties, I heard her describe how she built the myth of Nuremberg, and I know how completely that spectacle was engineered. These 112 slides are its counterpoint: amateur, off guard and unposed, closer to photojournalism than propaganda. In one, Riefenstahl herself stands at the roadside, the myth-maker caught as a face in the crowd. Framed here by Madeleine Johnson, with a foreword by Roger Moorhouse, this is history caught unawares.”
Phil Craig, bestselling author of 1945: The Reckoning
“Challenging, fascinating and troubling. In a series of incredible images and some frank and insightful writing, Madeleine Johnson shows us the true human complexity of the Hitler era in Germany, and how an evil regime took its character and legitimacy as much from the streets as from the men in black and brown shirts. Not recommended for anyone with a closed mind.”
Iain Ballantyne, historian and author of Martins Eyes
“Many of us have boxes of innocuous family holiday slides stored away somewhere in the house. Few, if any, can yield an amazing or sinister backstory to compare with those published in this book. A grimly fascinating odyssey across the pivotal 1934 Nuremberg Rally, accompanied by Madeleine Johnson’s finely researched and crafted words. She explains the who, what, where, when and why of a jamboree where a nation lost its mind in adoration of the Führer.”
In 1945, an American GI picked 112 glass slides from the wreckage of the Nazi party headquarters in Wetzlar, Germany. They turned out to be an amateur slideshow of the 1934 Nazi party rally at Nuremberg, the world’s most famous propaganda event and icon of totalitarianism, from Hollywood’s The Lion King to North Korea’s Hermit Kingdom.At Hitler’s Picnic shows people experiencing the real rally, not the glamor fest captured by Leni Riefenstahl’s camera in Triumph of the Will.The images and essays of At Hitler’s Picnic uncover what lies behind the images, including the logistical lessons applied to the Third Reich’s invasions and deportations, the now-forgotten party officials, “Little Hitlers”, whose rank and file really ran the Third Reich.It also illustrates the symbolic power and changing role of Nuremberg itself; from ideological heart of the Third Reich to the altar for expiating its crimes in the famous trials.
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