Nazism

by Neil Gregor (Editor)

Overview

The Nazi regime was a regime of unparalleled destructiveness. Nazism presents both key texts from some of the most innovative and challenging of more recent studies and extracts from the older historiography of the origins, nature, impact, and legacy of the National Socialist regime. It suggests both the need to re-read and re-consider much forgotten or ignored texts from earlier generations of commentators and the possibility of considering afresh the structure, style of rule, and consequences of National Socialism in the context provided by the end of the cold war. The texts connect the experiences of the Jewish and non-Jewish victims of Nazi aggression and genocide; links the fates of the victims with analysis of the perpetrators; and stresses the consequences of this unprecedented collapse in civilised values for post war Germany and the world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780191037030
Publisher:	OUP Oxford
Publication date:	10/26/2000
Series:	Oxford Readers
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	882 KB

About the Author

Lecturer in Modern European History at the University of Southampton

Table of Contents

	Preface	v
	General Introduction	1
A.	Contemporary Characterizations of National Socialism
	Introduction	21
1	Germany's Revolution of Destruction	24
2	National Socialism: A Menace	27
3	German Address: A Call to Reason	30
4	The Party	33
5	The Impossibility of Constructive Achievement	36
6	The Third Reich is Here!	38
7	Hitler and Christianity	40
8	The Psychology of Nazism	42
9	Overcoming National Socialism	45
10	Some Causes and Consequences of National Socialism	48
11	The Meaning of Fascism	52
12	On the German Situation	56
B.	The Emergence of National Socialism
	Introduction	59
i	A Special Path?	63
13	The German Empire 1871-1918	63
14	The Causes of National Socialism	66
15	What Produces Fascism: Pre-industrial Traditions or a Crisis of Capitalism?	71
16	The Special Path of German History: Myth or Reality?	77
ii	The National Socialist Movement	81
17	The Social Motivation and Fuhrer Bond in National Socialism	81
18	The Nazi Party in Lower Saxony	84
19	The NSDAP as Party and Movement	88
20	The Rise of German Fascism	90
21	The NSDAP: A 'People's Protest Party'	92
iii	The Failure of Weimar and the Crisis of 1933	95
22	Stages of the Seizure of Power	95
23	The National Socialist Seizure of Power and German Society	97
24	Why Did the Weimar Republic Collapse?	100
25	The Crisis of Classical Modernity	102
26	30 January 1933	106
iv	National Socialism, Civil Society, and the Seizure of Power 1929-1933	109
27	The Nazi Seizure of Power	109
28	The Growth of National Socialism in the Countryside	112
29	Toward the Mass Party	115
30	The Abandoned Regulars' Table	118
31	Protestant Rural Milieu and National Socialism prior to 1933	121
C.	The National Socialist Regime
	Introduction	125
i	The National Socialist Regime as a Monolith: Theories of Totalitarianism	129
32	The Novelty of Totalitarianism	129
33	Ideology and Terror	132
34	Totalitarianism as Concept and Reality	134
ii	Marxist Theories of National Socialism	138
35	The Nature of Hitler Fascism	138
36	The Beginning of a New Stage of State Monopoly Development	140
37	The Fascist State: The German Example	142
iii	The Regime as a Polycratic State	146
a.	Wartime Emigre Writers	146
38	The Dual State	146
39	Behemoth	149
b.	The Regime and the Conservative Establishment	152
40	The Primacy of Politics	152
41	The Nazi Empire 1938-1944	157
42	The Civil Service in the Third Reich	159
43	State Formation and Political Representation in Nazi Germany	163
44	Administration versus Human Leadership	165
45	The Army and the Third Reich	168
46	The Gleichschaltung of the Armed Forces	171
47	The Wehrmacht in the National Socialist State	174
48	Justice in the Third Reich	177
49	Jews on Trial	180
c.	Charismatic Authority and the Erosion of Rational-Bureaucratic Government	183
50	Feudal Aspects of National Socialism	183
51	The Hitler State	186
52	Party and State in the Third Reich	189
53	Cumulative Radicalization and Self-Destruction of the Nazi Regime	191
54	National Socialist Polycracy	194
55	Intention and Explanation	198
56	The State in National Socialist Germany	202
57	Working towards the Fuhrer	206
D.	The 'Seductive Surface' of National Socialism
	Introduction	211
58	Inventory of Revolutionary Appearance	214
59	Magic and Manipulation	216
60	The Aesthetics of Production in the Third Reich	219
61	Split Consciousness	223
62	The 'Seductive Surface' of the Third Reich	226
63	The Honour of Labour: Industrial Workers and the Power of Symbols under National Socialism	230
64	The Matrix of Totalitarian Imagery: Public Space, the National Socialist Year, and the Generational Cycle	232
E.	National Socialism and German Society
	Introduction	238
i	Resistenz?	241
65	Resistenz and Resistance	241
66	The Social Bases of Resistenz and Resistance	244
67	Resistance without the People?	246
68	Resistenz or Loyal Reluctance?	248
ii	Participation	253
69	The Gestapo and Social Cooperation: The Example of Political Denunciation	253
70	Mothers in the Fatherland	255
71	Racial Hygiene and Professional Leadership	258
72	The Problem of Motivation Reconsidered	262
73	Death and Deliverance	266
74	Reflections on a Massacre	268
75	The Missing Years: German Workers, German Soldiers	272
76	The Conditions for Genocide	276
F.	The Impact of National Socialism
	Introduction	279
77	The Third Reich and Society	282
78	National Socialist Germany and the Social Revolution	284
79	Brown Revolution?	287
80	National Socialism and Modernization	291
81	Persecution and Coordination	294
82	The Concentration Camps as Part of the National Socialist System of Domination	297
83	Racial Policy and Women's Policy	302
84	The Persecution of Homosexuals in Nazi Germany	305
85	Between Resistance and Martyrdom	307
86	Hitler's Foreign Workers	310
87	Soviet Prisoners of War--Mass Deportation--Forced Workers	314
88	Killing Operations	317
89	Children	321
90	The Number of Victims	323
91	Operation Reinhard	326
92	Poland	329
93	The Persecution of Sinti and Roma	331
G.	The Legacy of National Socialism
	Introduction	334
i	Confronting the Past	338
94	On the Engagement with National Socialist Violent Crimes in the Federal Republic of Germany	338
95	Post-war Society and National Socialism: Memory, Amnesia, Defensiveness	341
96	The Politics of the Past	344
ii	Denazification and War Crimes Trials	347
97	The Fellow-Travellers' Factory	347
98	Denazification	350
99	In the Name of the German People	352
100	National Socialist Extermination Camps as Reflected in German Trials	357
iii	Bitburg, Historicization, and the Historikerstreit	360
101	Bitburg History	360
102	Bitburg as Symbol	363
103	Nazism, Politics, and the Image of the Past	366
104	The Historikerstreit in Context	370
iv	Holocaust Memory in the 1990s	374
105	Germany: The Ambiguity of Memory	374
106	Jews and Russians in the Memory of the Germans	377
107	A War against Memory?	381
	Notes	385
	Further Reading	438
	Acknowledgements	444
	Index	451