Believe & Destroy is a dense book based on Ingrao's doctorial dissertation and packed with useful information on this important Nazi cadre. Sometimes his concentration on their genocidal roles leads him to miss out on other interesting aspects of their work: Werner Best, for example, whose role in Denmark remains ambiguous; or Franz Six, a former university teacher who headed the Informationsabteilung (Information Department) and who carried out research into the enemies of the regime while unwittingly employing several of them on his staff. One of these was Adam von Trott, who described his boss as a "badly trained police dog". Six was prominent in SS foreign policy and he and his assistant Horst Mahnke, tried to protect Trott after his arrest on July 25, 1944. The SS was hoping to secure some sort of peace too and was aware that the opposition was negotiating with the Allies. The blurred lines that demarcate good and bad are what make the study of the Third Reich as compelling as it is repulsive.