ABSTRACT
The third volume of The Origins of Totalitarianism is concerned with the genesis, ideology and practices of the totalitarian movements of the Soviet Union and Germany. In it Arendt produces some of the most powerful, radically original and disturbing writing of her whole career. As with the first two volumes of the study, this volume is essentially an exercise in understanding totalitarianism. Arendt asks, in the introduction to the 1966 edition of her book, ‘What happened? Why did it happen? How could it have happened?’ (OT3: vi).
