Life in the Third Reich / Edition 1

by Richard Bessel

Overview

Even today, the Third Reich--the regime that instigated the most destructive war in modern history--evokes powerful images of fascination and horror. Yet how were the lives of the ordinary German people of the 1930s and '40s affected by the politics of Hitler and his followers? Looking beyond the catalog of events, this intriguing book reveals that daily German life involved a complex mixture of bribery and terror; of fear and concessions; of barbarism and appeals to conventional moral values employed by the Nazis to maintain their grip on society. Eight leading historians present essays that shed fresh light on topics as familiar as the role of political violence in Nazi seizure of power and the German view of Hitler himself. It also focuses on lesser-known aspects of life in the Third Reich, such as village life, the treatment of "social outcasts," and the Germans' own retrospective view of this period of their history.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780192802101
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	12/20/2001
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	150
Sales rank:	458,726
Product dimensions:	7.73(w) x 5.12(h) x 0.48(d)

About the Author

Richard Bessel is Professor of Twentieth Century History at the University of York. He works on the social and political history of modern Germany, the aftermath of the two world wars and the history of policing. He is co-editor of German History and is a member of the editorial board of History Today. His recent publications include Patterns of Provocations: Police and Public Disorder, and 'Mobilizing German Society for War', in R. Chickering and S. Foerster (eds) Great War, Total War: Combat and Mobilization in the Western Front, 1914-1918.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction, Richard Bessel2. Political Violence and the Nazi Seizure of Power, Richard Bessel3. Village Life in Nazi Germany, Gerhard Wilke4. Youth in the Third Reich, Detlev Peukert5. Hitler and the Germans, Ian Kershaw6. The Nazi State Reconsidered, Michael Geyer7. Nazi policy against the Jews, William Carr8. Social Outcasts in the Third Reich, Jeremy Noakes9. Good Times, Bad Times: Memories of the Third Reich, Ulrich Herbert

Editorial Reviews

Review from previous edition: "A useful, concise bibliography completes the picture; altogether a most welcome addition to the ever-increasing pile of books on this topic and likely to prove more attractive to our pupils than many of them."—Teaching History Review

From the Publisher