Within three years of their first electoral success, the Nazis acquired political power in Germany when Adolf Hitler became chancellor on January 30, 1933. That evening Hitler stood in the window of the Reich Chancellery waving to thousands of Storm Troopers who staged parades through the streets of Berlin. By June 1940, Hitler toured Paris as the conqueror of the French nation the Wehrmacht had defeated in a matter of weeks.
The Nazis proclaimed that their Third Reich would be the greatest civilization in history and last for a thousand years. But the meteoric rise of Hitler and National Socialism was followed by an almost equally rapid defeat. The Third Reich lasted a mere twelve years.
By 1945, Hitler was forced to retreat to his underground bunker, where, surrounded by the ruins of his empire, he took his own life. Within the entire scope of modern history, the Nazi era occupies a minuscule span of time. Yet during that brief period, the Nazis instituted one of the most oppressive dictatorships known, launched a world war, dominated most of the European continent, and perpetrated crimes against humanity of staggering enormity. Indeed, the Third Reich drastically altered the political structure of Europe and the course of world history.
For these reasons, nazism still occupies a distinctive place in the collective consciousness of the Western world almost a century after the founding of this political movement. This remains the case long after the end of the Cold War eliminated the postwar territorial, political, and ideological divisions of Europe caused by Hitler’s war. Few other historical developments of such limited duration have plagued our consciences and attracted such widespread interest throughout the Western world so long after the event.
In stark contrast, interest in Soviet Communism has dropped precipitously, despite the significance of that oppressive regime, which lasted seventy years. And for the Germans, the Nazi dictatorship still looms like a dark shadow an “Unmiserable Past”—over the political culture of that nation, even though introduction for the past fifty years the German republic has proven to be one of the most democratic and progressive societies in human history.
The study of the Third Reich has also recently taken on a global dimension, as Chinese and Latin American academics display a serious interest in the subject. And increasingly political scientists and commentators invoke nazism as a historical framework for understanding and assessing militant Islamic movements. From research scholars and university classrooms to popular culture, books, and film, nazism stands as a subject that both fascinates and horrifies. The term Nazi has become almost synonymous with evil itself. For millions of people, the disturbing emotional response to anything associated with the Third Reich has certainly not lessened with the passage of time.
The mere mention of nazism still immediately conjures up in the minds of many persons ghastly images of destruction, barbarism, and the murder of innocents on a massive scale. When historians, philosophers, writers, and even laymen seek an extreme case to substantiate some ethical or moral argument, they often cite an example from the Third Reich. In a Western world characterized by uncertainty and moral relativism, nazism appears to be one of the few subjects about which a universal moral consensus exists. Widespread interest, revulsion, and moral condemnation do not, however, in themselves indicate historical understanding.
Over the decades, I have encountered general audiences and numerous students who have read widely about various aspects of the Third Reich. But often I have been surprised at how little they have grasped the nature of nazism or the reasons for its successes and failures. Despite their general knowledge, they could not explain the ability of the Nazis to seize power so quickly and implement their barbaric policies in such a culturally advanced society as Germany.
Yet these and other key questions are exactly what historians have argued over for almost a century. How could a nation once guided by the brilliant statecraft of Otto von Bismarck follow the reckless foreign policy of Adolf Hitler? How could the humanistic educational ideals of Wilhelm von Humboldt, respected and emulated around the world, be replaced so easily by the anti-intellectualism and hateful propaganda of Josef Goebbels?
Why was nazism attractive to so many, and why did Germans (and others) fail to resist the racial policies of the Third Reich that led to the extermination of millions of human beings? Was the Nazi rise inevitable, the natural culmination of German history or manifestation of a peculiar German national character? Or was it caused by a particular set of historical and social circumstances? Answering such questions and comprehending the essence of this movement requires an understanding that can only be derived from a systematic examination of the origins and history of the Third Reich.
Based upon the major historical studies and the latest research, this book explains the crucial events and factors involved in the rise and fall of Nazi Germany. Although not designed for experts in the field of German history, it covers many important aspects of nazism often neglected in more specialized studies or biographies that deal with only certain dimensions of the Nazi movement or its illustrious personalities. The popularity of this book has remained strong among students and general readers.
However, the enormous amount of important new research and publications on this subject since A History of Nazi Germany first appeared has required several revisions. The second edition reorganized and expanded the text to include the fruits of the burgeoning field of Holocaust studies. It also integrated the new data and interpretations contributed by social history. Social historians, often assisted by quantitative methods, provided competing interpretations of the various social groups from which the Nazis recruited members and voters.
They likewise broadened our knowledge of German women during the Nazi rise to power as well as of the multidimensional relationship women had to the nature and policies of the Third Reich. The third edition continued to reflect the trends in social history while reemphasizing the crucial role played by racial ideology in determining the policies and practices of the Third Reich. This edition showed more of the complexity of social life within the Nazi state.
It clarified the situation of average citizens negotiating their way with both the threatening power behind certain Nazi policies and the strong enticements to acquiesce or collaborate with others. German Christians struggled to preserve a central place for religion in social life against Nazi paganism and euthanasia programs.
Simultaneously, individuals and groups in public, government, and business sectors became complicit in the persecution of the Jews out of economic or institutional self-interest. Although some young Germans were fanatical members of the Hitler Youth, many were as rebellious as an adolescent generation. It was a society, however, whose laws, policies, and expectations were increasingly determined by a Nazi racial ideology based upon a biological and Darwinian perception of life, society, and history.
A fundamental Nazi domestic goal was to purify the Aryan race and German society by eliminating those Germans deemed unfit physically, mentally, or behaviorally. The Nazi objective for European civilization was the ethnic cleansing of the so-called inferior races across the continent through war, enslavement, and genocide.
This racial purification would open the way for the domination of the Aryan master race in the Thousand-Year Reich envisioned by Hitler and Nazi ideologues. This is continuing to incorporate the incessant flow of impressive research published by the outstanding scholars working in the field of German history. The most recent literature has made it necessary to clarify and highlight the ideological and political distinction between nazism and conservatism found in earlier editions.
Although these two forces shared certain common characteristics (nationalism, antiliberalism, anti-Marxism, anti-Semitism, etc.), they were starkly differentiated by their essence and their visions of a future for Germany and the world. Rather than being an extension of the extreme right, Nazism was a unique synthesis of various previously opposing historical forces and ideologies, especially nationalism and socialism. At heart, the Nazis were not only fanatical racialists but truly social revolutionaries. As the advocates of the sweeping revolutionary transformation of society, the Nazis were as much the enemies of conservatives and reactionaries as they were of democracy and the left.
Only by perceiving this significant difference can one truly understand the essence of this new movement, or its appeal to such a wide-ranging constituency of followers and voters. This edition addresses the illuminating new scholarship on war crimes trials and the controversies over German memory and the Third Reich. And among other revisions, it expands coverage of often-overlooked persecuted groups such as homosexuals and Jehovah’s Witnesses.
In addition, given the technological advances in media that have made films readily available as educational instruments, a section has been included in highly recommended documentary and feature films from the period or about the Third Reich. If used properly, in conjunction with relevant readings, such films can bring the period to life while enhancing our understanding of the multidimensional aspects of the Nazi phenomenon.
These films are invaluable tools in grasping the nature and horrific consequences of the National Socialist movement, as well as in comprehending the varied responses to nazism from the 1930s through World War II and into debates over its legacy for contemporary Germany and its historical memory. This new research has been integrated while retaining the strengths of the earlier editions, particularly their brevity and reliability.
One of this work’s most attractive features, however, has been its organization and writing style, which combine narrative storytelling with analysis. Students, general audiences, and historians have found it captivating reading as well as an easily understandable explanation of the origins, nature, and consequences of nazism. The intriguing account of the Third Reich for those seeking a brief, though thematically comprehensive, the study of a subject that retains its historical significance and widespread contemporary fascination.
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