The Coming of the Third ReichFrom one of the world's most distinguished historians, a magisterial new reckoning with Hitler's rise to power and the collapse of civilization in Nazi Germany. In 1900 Germany was the most progressive and dynamic nation in Europe, the only country whose rapid technological and social growth and change challenged that of the United States. Its political culture was less authoritarian than Russia's and less anti-Semitic than France's; representative institutions were thriving, and competing political parties and elections were a central part of life. How then can we explain the fact that in little more than a generation this stable modern country would be in the hands of a violent, racist, extremist political movement that would lead it and all of Europe into utter moral, physical, and cultural ruin? There is no story in twentieth-century history more important to understand, and Richard Evans has written the definitive account for our time. A masterful synthesis of a vast body of scholarly work integrated with important new research and interpretations, Evans's history restores drama and contingency to the rise to power of Hitler and the Nazis, even as he shows how ready Germany was by the early 1930s for such a takeover to occur. With many people angry and embittered by military defeat and economic ruin; a state undermined by a civil service, an army, and a law enforcement system deeply alienated from the democratic order introduced in 1918; beset by the growing extremism of voters prey to panic about the increasing popularity of communism; home to a tiny but quite successful Jewish community subject to widespread suspicion and resentment, Germany proved to be fertile ground in which Nazism's ideology of hatred could take root. The first book of what will ultimately be a complete three-volume history of Nazi Germany, The Coming of the Third Reichis a masterwork of the historian's art and the book by which all others on this subject will be judged. |
Contents
GERMAN PECULIARITIES | 2 |
GOSPELS OF HATE | 22 |
THE SPIRIT OF 1914 | 42 |
DESCENT INTO CHAOS | 60 |
THE WEAKNESSES OF WEIMAR | 78 |
THE GREAT INFLATION | 103 |
CULTURE WARS | 118 |
THE FIT AND THE UNFIT | 139 |
THE VICTORY OF VIOLENCE | 266 |
FATEFUL DECISIONS | 289 |
THE TERROR BEGINS | 310 |
FIRE IN THE REICHSTAG | 328 |
DEMOCRACY DESTROYED | 350 |
BRINGING GERMANY INTO LINE | 375 |
DISCORDANT NOTES | 392 |
THE PURGE OF THE ARTS | 405 |
BOHEMIAN REVOLUTIONARIES | 156 |
THE BEERHALL PURTSCH | 176 |
REBUILDING THE MOVEMENT | 195 |
THE ROOTS OF COMMITMENT | 217 |
THE GREAT DEPRESSION | 232 |
THE CRISIS OF DEMOCRACY | 247 |
AGAINST THE UNGERMAN SPIRIT | 419 |
A REVOLTION OF DESTRUCTION? | 441 |
Notes | 462 |
| 535 | |
| 585 | |
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Common terms and phrases
antisemitism army arrested banned Bavarian became began Berlin Bismarck Broszat brownshirts Brüning cabinet campaign Catholic cent Centre Party civil servants coalition Communist conservative cultural declared democracy deputies Deutsche deutschen Deutschland dictatorship Düsseldorf early economic electoral Ernst force Frankfurt am Main Free Corps German history Germany's Geschichte Goebbels Göring Gregor Strasser groups Hamburg Heinrich Heinrich Brüning Hermann Göring Hindenburg Hitler Hugenberg Ibid influence institutions Jewish Jews Joseph Goebbels Klemperer labour leader leadership League liberal London Ludendorff majority March mass middle-class military million Ministry Morsey eds movement Munich National Socialist nationalist Nationalsozialismus Nazi Germany Nazi Party Nazism organization Pan-German Papen paramilitary Party's police Political Violence Politische propaganda Prussian putsch racial regime Reich Chancellor Reichstag Election Republik Revolution revolutionary Schleicher Social Democrats society Steel Helmets stormtroopers Strasser Third Reich threat trade union Treaty of Versailles voted Nazi Weimar Republic Wilhelm workers World