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In the relatively new field of perpetrator research, this fresh study of the creep's peeps by the veteran Third Reich historian provides a gallery of portraits of supporters high and low, infamous and obscure. Though there was no single fascist personality, there were commonalities among people drawn to the Nazis - they were overwhelmingly middle or lower middle class, from the stuffy conservative bourgeoisie, and had usually suffered personal or family setbacks as well as a shattering sense of betrayal at the German loss in WWI and its aftermath, a 'shared national trauma.' 'One of the most difficult questions is how so many people, far more than in any normal society, even in wartime, became ruthless and sadistic killers.' The not very reassuring answer is the peculiarity of German society of the time, the perfect storm of rigid Prussian militarism and ultra-nationalist political culture that permeated the whole of society with toxic masculinity, coupled with a desperate sense of the need for personal and national regeneration.