The Third Reich has had a global impact on the politics and history of the twentieth century. Attempts to define National Socialism, or Nazism, began as soon as it became a major force in the 1930s, and has continued unabated ever since. Now in its fourth edition, David G. Williamson’s classic Seminar Studies title draws on recent scholarship to provide students with an up-to-date introduction to the historical controversies surrounding this fascinating period in Germany’s past.
CONTENTS
Introduction to the Series
Acknowledgements
Chronology
Who’s Who
Glossary
Maps
PART ONE: INTRODUCTION
1. THE HISTORICAL DEBATE
Can the Third Reich be ‘Historicised’?
PART TWO: ANALYSIS
2. THE ORIGINS AND RISE OF NATIONAL SOCIALISM
The Ideological Roots
The Bismarckian Reich: An Incubator of National Socialism?
The German Revolution, 1918–19: A Turning Point that did not Turn?
Adolf Hitler and the Formation of the NSDAP, 1919–24
The Renaissance of the Nazi Party, 1925–30
Nazi Voters, 1930–32
The Road to Power, September 1930–January 1933
3. THE LEGAL REVOLUTION AND THE CONSOLIDATION OF POWER, 1933–34
The Dissolution of the Reichstag and the Election of 5 March 1933
The ‘Revolution from Below’ and the Enabling Act
The Process of Gleichschaltung
The Churches
The Defeat of the Second Revolution
4. STATE, PARTY AND FÜHRER: THE GOVERNMENT OF NAZI GERMANY, 1933–39
Ministries and ‘Supreme Reich Authorities’, 1933–38
Himmler and the SS State
The Centralisation of the Reich
The Civil Service
The Party
The Role of Hitler
5. THE ECONOMY, 1933–39
Work Creation and Economic Recovery, 1933–35
Agriculture
The Mittelstand
Schacht and the Financing of German Rearmament
The Four Year Plan
Industrialists and the Four Year Plan: winners and losers
Rearmament and the German Economy, 1936–39
6. THE PEOPLE’S COMMUNITY: GERMAN SOCIETY AND THE THIRD REICH, 1933–39
The Work of the Reich Ministry of Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda
Education and Youth
The Peasantry
Women and the Family
p; Nazi Health and Eugenic Policies
The ‘Asocials’ and Homosexuals
Gypsies, Part-Africans and the Slav Minorities
The Jews
The Germans and the Jews
8. FOREIGN POLICY, 1933–39
Hitler’s Priorities, 1933–37
The Anschluss
The Destruction of Czechoslovakia
The Polish Crisis and the Outbreak of War
9. GERMANY, EUROPE AND THE WORLD, 1939–45
The British Problem, 1940–41
The Decision to Attack Soviet Russia
From European to World War, 1941–45
Europe under German Occupation, 1939–44
‘Ethnic Cleansing’ and Settlement Policies in Eastern Europe
The Holocaust
10. THE HOME FRONT, 1939–45
Disintegration of the Führer State
The Increasing Power of the Political Party and the SS
The War Economy
Food Supplies and Rationing
Solving the Labour Crisis in the War Industries
The Impact of War on the German People, 1942–45
The End of the Hitler Regime
Postscript to the Third Reich: The Doenitz Government
11. THE GERMAN OPPOSITION
Resistance and Resistenz
Opposition from the Churches
Opposition on the Left
The Challenge of Youth Culture
Resistance by the Military and Conservative Elites
The Road to 20 July 1944
Why was there no German Revolution in 1945?
PART THREE: ASSESSMENT
12. THE THIRD REICH IN RETROSPECT
Hitler’s Rise to Power
The Nazi regime
How 'modern'as the Third Reich
The Legacy of Nazi Germany
PART FOUR: DOCUMENTS nbsp; Guide to Further Reading
References
Index
Chapter 10: The Home Front, 1939-45 will be expanded by some 5,000 words, giving the author an opportunity to analyse the impact of the war on the Nazi regime and the German people more thoroughly.
Where necessary the text will be altered to take note of the arguments of important new publications such as Adam Tooze, The Wages of Destruction and Richard Evans, The Third Reich in Power.
Some documents will be replaced by more striking or newly discovered sources.