英文版第一版序言 ------------------------ 盛传于世的关于飞碟的传说，对心理学家提出了一个有若干理由的挑战。基本的问题（显然也是最重要的问题）是：到底确有其事，还是纯属幻想？对此仍众说纷纭。如果确有其事，那么它们到底是什么？如果仅仅是幻想，那为什么会产生这样的传说？ …… 这一奇怪的事实本身无疑值得心理学家注意。为什么人们宁信其有而不信其无？在这本书中，我试图回答这一问题。…… C.G.荣格 1958年9月

Conspiracy theories have grown more popular and pervasive, powered both by the rising power of the Internet and social media and by the declining influence of traditional gatekeepers of information. In his new book, Richard Evans, one of the world's leading historians of the Third Reich, explores this new golden age of conspiracy theories and what fuels it. Evans focuses on five of the most enduring theories, all of them involving the Nazi period, including those that accompanied and even buttressed Hitler's rise in the first place. Hence he reexamines the notorious anti-Semitic forgery The Protocols of the Elders of Zion; the "stab-in-the-back" myth about the of the role of Jews in Germany's loss in World War One; and the burning of the Reichstag, which generated conflicting conspiracy theories by Communists and Nazis, who certainly used it to solidify their grip on power. Evans also examines the multiple rumors regarding the ill-fated 1941 flight to England by Rudolf Hess, Deputy Leader of the Nazi party, and his death in Spandau prison in 1987. Lastly, he explores the durable rumor that Hitler managed to escape from Berlin in 1945 and lived out his days in Argentina. The Hitler Conspiracies is a book about fantasies and fictions, fabrications and falsifications. A distinguished work of history, it offers equally a hard look at our own troubled times, a "post-truth" era in which "alternative facts" have gained new standing.