German Social Democracy and the Rise of Nazism explores the failure of Germany's largest political party to stave off the Nazi threat to the Weimar republic. In 1928 members of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) were elected to the chancellorship and thousands of state and municipal offices. But despite the party's apparent strengths, in 1933 Social Democracy succumbed to Nazi power without a fight. Previous scholarship has blamed this reversal of fortune on bureaucratic paralysis, but in this revisionist evaluation, Donna Harsch argues that the party's internal dynamics immobilized the SPD. Harsch looks closely at Social Democratic ideology, structure, and political culture, examining how each impinged upon the party's response to economic disaster, parliamentary crisis, and the Nazis. She considers political and organizational interplay within the SPD as well as interaction between the party, the Socialist trade unions, and the republican defense league. Conceding that lethargy and conservatism hampered the SPD, Harsch focuses on strikingly inventive ideas put forward by various Social Democrats to address the republic's crisis. She shows how the unresolved competition among these proposals blocked innovations that might have thwarted Nazism. Originally published in 1993. A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.

This is a powerful and original survey of German social democracy breaks new ground in covering the movement's full span, from its origins after the French Revolution, to the present day. Stefan Berger looks beyond narrow party political history to relate Social Democracy to other working class identities in the period and sets the German experience within its wider European context. This timely book considers both the background and long-term perspective on the current rethinking of Social Democratic ideas and values, not only in Germany but also in France, Britain and elsewhere.

Hitler and Nazi Germany: A History is a brief but comprehensive survey of the Third Reich based on current research findings that provides a balanced approach to the study of Hitler’s role in the history of the Third Reich. The book considers the economic, social, and political forces that made possible the rise and development of Nazism; the institutional, cultural, and social life of the Third Reich; World War II; and the Holocaust. World War II and the Holocaust are presented as logical outcomes of the ideology of Hitler and the Nazi movement. This new edition contains more information on the Kaiserreich (Imperial Germany), as well as Nazi complicity in the Reichstag Fire and increased discussion of consent and dissent during the Nazi attempt to create the ideal Volksgemeinschaft (people’s community). It takes a greater focus on the experiences of ordinary bystanders, perpetrators, and victims throughout the text, includes more discussion of race and space, and the final chapter has been completely revised. Fully updated, the book ensures that students gain a complete and thorough picture of the period and issues. Supported by maps, images, and thoroughly updated bibliographies that offer further reading suggestions for students to take their study further, the book offers the perfect overview of Hitler and the Third Reich.

The history of National Socialism as movement and regime remains one of the most compelling and intensively studied aspects of twentieth-century history, and one whose significance extends far beyond Germany or even Europe alone. This volume presents an up-to-date and authoritative introduction to the history of Nazi Germany, with ten chapters on the most important themes, each by an expert in the field. Following an introduction which sets out the challenges this period of history has posed to historians since 1945, contributors explain how Nazism emerged as ideology and political movement; how Hitler and his party took power and remade the German state; and how the Nazi 'national community' was organized around a radical and eventually lethal distinction between the 'included' and the 'excluded'. Further chapters discuss the complex relationship between Nazism and Germany's religious faiths; the perverse economic rationality of the regime; the path to war laid down by Hitler's foreign policy; and the intricate and intimate intertwining of war and genocide, with a final chapter on the aftermath of National Socialism in postwar German history and memory.

This is the first published edition of the diary of Abraham Plotkin, an American labor leader of immigrant Jewish origin who lived in Berlin between November 1932 and May 1933. A firsthand account of the Weimar Republic's final months and the early rise of Nazi power in Germany, Plotkin's diary focuses on the German working class, the labor movement, and the plight of German Jews. Plotkin investigated Berlin's social conditions with the help of German Social-Democratic leaders whose analyses of the situation he records alongside his own. Compared to the writings of other American observers of the Third Reich, Plotkin's diary is unique in style, scope, themes, and time span. Most accounts of Hitler's rise to power emphasize political institutions by focusing on the Nazi party's clashes with other political forces. In contrast, Plotkin is especially attentive to socioeconomic factors, providing an alternative view from the left that stems from his access to key German labor and socialist leaders. Chronologically, the diary reports on the moment when Hitler's seizure of power was not yet inevitable and when leaders on the left still believed in a different outcome of the crisis, but it also includes Plotkin's account of the complete destruction of German labor in May 1933.

How ideas, individuals, and political traditions from Weimar Germany molded the global postwar order The Weimar Century reveals the origins of two dramatic events: Germany's post–World War II transformation from a racist dictatorship to a liberal democracy, and the ideological genesis of the Cold War. Blending intellectual, political, and international histories, Udi Greenberg shows that the foundations of Germany’s reconstruction lay in the country’s first democratic experiment, the Weimar Republic (1918–33). He traces the paths of five crucial German émigrés who participated in Weimar’s intense political debates, spent the Nazi era in the United States, and then rebuilt Europe after a devastating war. Examining the unexpected stories of these diverse individuals—Protestant political thinker Carl J. Friedrich, Socialist theorist Ernst Fraenkel, Catholic publicist Waldemar Gurian, liberal lawyer Karl Loewenstein, and international relations theorist Hans Morgenthau—Greenberg uncovers the intellectual and political forces that forged Germany’s democracy after dictatorship, war, and occupation. In restructuring German thought and politics, these émigrés also shaped the currents of the early Cold War. Having borne witness to Weimar’s political clashes and violent upheavals, they called on democratic regimes to permanently mobilize their citizens and resources in global struggle against their Communist enemies. In the process, they gained entry to the highest levels of American power, serving as top-level advisors to American occupation authorities in Germany and Korea, consultants for the State Department in Latin America, and leaders in universities and philanthropic foundations across Europe and the United States. Their ideas became integral to American global hegemony. From interwar Germany to the dawn of the American century, The Weimar Century sheds light on the crucial ideas, individuals, and politics that made the trans-Atlantic postwar order.

Hitler's Germany provides a comprehensive narrative history of Nazi Germany and sets it in the wider context of nineteenth and twentieth century German history. Roderick Stackelberg analyzes how it was possible that a national culture of such creativity and achievement could generate such barbarism and destructiveness. This second edition has been updated throughout to incorporate recent historical research and engage with current debates in the field. It includes: an expanded introduction focusing on the hazards of writing about Nazi Germany an extended analysis of fascism, totalitarianism, imperialism and ideology a broadened contextualisation of antisemitism discussion of the Holocaust including the euthanasia program and the role of eugenics new chapters on Nazi social and economic policies and the structure of government as well as on the role of culture, the arts, education and religion additional maps, tables and a chronology a fully updated bibliography. Exploring the controversies surrounding Nazism and its afterlife in historiography and historical memory Hitler’s Germany provides students with an interpretive framework for understanding this extraordinary episode in German and European history.

In this text, the author draws together his review essays on the political, economic, cultural and social history of Germany through war and reunification. This book provides a study of how historians - mainly German, American, British, and French - have provided a series of differing and often conflicting readings of the German past in recent years. It also presents a reconsideration of German history in the light of the recent decline and fall of the German Democratic Republic, collapse of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of Germany.

The Routledge Companion to Nazi Germany combines a concise narrative overview with chronological, bibliographical and tabular information to cover all major aspects of Nazi Germany. This user-friendly guide provides a comprehensive survey of key topics such as the origins and consolidation of the Nazi regime, the Nazi dictatorship in action, Nazi foreign policy, the Second World War, the Holocaust, the opposition to the regime and the legacy of Nazism. Features include: detailed chronologies a discussion of Nazi ideology succinct historiographical overview with more detailed information on more than sixty major historians of Nazism biographies of 150 leading figures of Nazi Germany a glossary of terms, concepts and acronyms maps and tables a concise thematic bibliography of works on the Third Reich. This indispensable reference guide to the history and historiography of Nazi Germany will appeal to students, teachers and general readers alike.

In Rereading German History, first published in 1997, Richard J. Evans draws together his seminal review essays on the political, economic, cultural and social history of Germany through war and reunification. This book provides a study of how and why historians – mainly German, American, British and French – have provided a series of differing and often conflicting readings of the German past. It also presents a reconsideration of German history in the light of the recent decline of the German Democratic Republic, collapse of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of Germany. Rereading German History re-examines major controversies in modern German history, such as the debate over Germany’s ‘special path’ to modernity in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and the discussions in the 1980s on the uniqueness or otherwise of Auschwitz. Evans also analyses the arguments over the nature of German national identity. The book offers trenchant and important analytical insights into the history of Germany in the last two centuries, and is ideal reading material for students of modern history and German studies.