Power, terror, performance. These notions define our perception of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party at the height of the Third Reich. But behind these impressions Hitler was a rather ordinary man.

On March 16, 1941 – with European cities ablaze and Jews being herded into ghettos – The New York Times Magazine featured an illustrated story on Adolf Hitler’s retreat in the Berchtesgaden Alps.

Information about what the Nazis believed in and who they blamed for Germany’s dire situation was effectively spread by the Party’s propaganda machine. Hitler put Josef Goebbels in charge of ...