Each volume in the series was 192 pages in length, heavily illustrated and with pictorial essays on specific topics within the volume. Each book was executed in faux black leatherette with silver and red text imprints, and featured a large glued-on picture on its front. The books were issued without a dust jacket. Each volume came additionally with a bookmark/map key insert explaining the military symbology used on the maps as featured in the series. The overall Editor-in-Chief for the series was the renowned military historian Col. John R. Elting, already a regular contributing editor on Time Life's prior
World War II (the
de facto progenitor series for
The Third Reich publication) and
The Civil War series. The second-most prolific series contributor concerned American military historian Charles Victor Pennington von Luttichau, who was singularly well suited to serve as such as he had been a participant on the German side in several of the campaigns covered in the series as a
Luftwaffe antiaircraft officer during the war; shortly before the outbreak of war his American mother managed to evade Nazi Germany, but her son was not able to, resulting in that he became drafted by the
Wehrmacht. The technical hardware illustrations were done by
John Batchelor, a renowned British technical illustrator of the era.
International editions In stark contrast to the
World War II progenitor series (which had seen a plethora of international editions in translation), there are only two other international editions of
The Third Reich known. The first one concerned the later UK-specific first print versions with redesigned covers and newly assigned ISBNs published by the
London-based
Caxton Publishing Group, who partially reissued the series (British-spelled this time around, contrary to the ones released earlier by Time-Life themselves) on their home market in the years 2004-06 for sale through the regular bookstore retail channel. They did so under a full license from the Amsterdam "Time-Life Books B.V." European branch (as specified in the
colophons of the UK volumes), which had managed to stay in business a few years longer after its American "Time Life Books, Inc." mother division had gone defunct in 2001 as a dedicated book publisher. Contrary to the US home market version these volume releases were issued with dust jackets, indicative of being from the start destined for the regular bookstore channel. The only known other-language edition had been the 2008-09 Spanish-language
El III Reich y Hitler series released by Time-Life Books' regular go-to licensee in Spain,
Barcelona-based Ediciones Folio, S.A. likewise fully licensed by "Direct Holdings Holland B.V." (the Dutch branch of the worldwide holding company that had acquired Time Life in December 2003) per the book colophons, as Time-Life Books B.V. had by then become defunct as well – likewise with radically redesigned covers. Noteworthy was, that the Spanish edition had three 248-page UK/non-Time-Life pedigree volumes included which had been lacking from the originating English-language release; the first "Hitler: máquina de guerra" title by
William Carr () had originally been the "Hitler's War Machine" release () from 1975. The second by military historian Christopher Chant authored "Los generales de Hitler" () actually concerned his older "Hitler's Generals and Their Battles" title () he had already written in 1976. The third "La Luftwaffe de Hitler" () title by historians
Bill Gunston and
Tony Wood, had likewise been a reissue of their older "Hitler's Luftwaffe" book () from 1977. Interested customers in other-language territories were, alongside their 1990s UK and Spanish contemporaries, offered the opportunity to acquire the original American version via mail through their nearest Time Life Books subsidiary, the aforementioned Time-Life Books B.V. in particular, typically by series subscription.
Spin-off Contrary to several other Time Life Books history series, no spin-offs from this particular series are known, save one; it turned out that Time Life had been commissioned by the
BBC to sell their 1997 six-part
The Nazis: A Warning from History documentary series on DVD in North America. For the BBC's North American July 2006 four-disc DVD set release, Time Life provided retail distribution and promotional services, which included at least one television commercial. ==Promotion==