Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany provides a comprehensive historical survey of the subject which artfully balances social and cultural history with the more common political and military history of the regime. It unravels the complexities of the daily lives led by perpetrators, victims, bystanders, and those whose position on this spectrum is unclear. The book offers a distinctly transnational narrative of events in Germany from 1933 to 1945. It reveals the latest insights about the 'Third Reich', prompting you to think about important historical and ethical questions that attend this period of history. Pamela E. Swett and S. Jonathan Wiesen address: * The movement's ideological origins * National Socialism's rise in the 1920s * The creation of a police state * Nazi consolidation of political power at national and regional levels * Regime attempts to reshape German society along ideological lines By invoking the concepts of 'people's community' and 'racial community', Swett and Wiesen explore the unique violence and racism of the Nazis, but they also examine how Germany tried to present itself as a 'normal' state, and how it engaged with political models and racial practices in other countries. Discussions of Hitler's foreign policy and economic triumphs, their propagandistic uses, social and cultural changes, and the relationship of Germans to their 'Führer' then lead to a focus on the military and home fronts of the Second World War, and finally on to Germany's eventual defeat. Through exposure to the voices of contemporaries, you will be prompted to consider key questions: How did German democracy give way to a brutal dictatorship so quickly? What was daily life like for 'average' Germans and those labeled as biological and political outsiders? Why did the Nazi dictatorship embark on a destructive war that led to the death of tens of millions of Europeans and to the demise of a political order that had become exceedingly popular by 1939?