Hitler and Nazi Germany

by Frank McDonough

• ISBN13: 9780521595025
• ISBN10: 0521595029
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1999-07-28
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Frank McDonough provides an authoritative, balanced and up-to-date study of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. His text offers a refreshing perspective on the period, by shifting the central focus away from Hitler the man onto his role in the broad socioeconomic, political and cultural developments of the period. Among the developments and issues explored are the relationship between the Nazi state and the economy, the impact of the Nazi regime on German society and culture, Nazi foreign policy and Hitler's role in the Holocaust.

Table of Contents

Introduction	1	(1)
Adolf Hitler: early life, ideology and rise to power, 1889--1933	2	(22)
Family background and early life	2	(3)
Hitler's Vienna years, 1908--13	5	(3)
Hitler moves to Munich, 1913	8	(1)
Hitler at war	8	(1)
The early growth of the Nazi Party	9	(3)
The Munich beer hall putsch	12	(1)
Hitler's ideology and aims	13	(2)
Hitler's rise to power	15	(9)
Document case study	19	(5)
The Nazi state and economy	24	(19)
The consolidation of power, 1933--34	24	(4)
The Nazi state	28	(4)
The economy in Nazi Germany	32	(11)
Document case study	39	(4)
Life inside Nazi Germany: social and cultural developments	43	(14)
The rituals of Nazi power	43	(1)
Property ownership	43	(1)
The army	44	(1)
Law and order	44	(1)
The family	45	(1)
Education	46	(1)
Youth	47	(1)
Women	48	(1)
Propaganda	49	(3)
Health	52	(5)
Document case study	53	(4)
Opposition and resistance inside Nazi Germany	57	(13)
The church	57	(1)
The army and Foreign Office	58	(3)
Communist resistance	61	(1)
The Kreisau Circle	62	(1)
Industrial workers	62	(1)
Social Democrats	63	(1)
University students (`White Rose Movement')	63	(1)
Youth protest	64	(1)
Humour	65	(5)
Document case study	66	(4)
Foreign policy: Hitler's road to war, 1933--39	70	(16)
Hitler moves cautiously	71	(1)
German rearmament	72	(1)
The Abyssinian crisis	73	(1)
The occupation of the Rhineland	73	(1)
The Spanish Civil War	73	(2)
Relations with Italy, Japan and Britain	75	(1)
The Hossbach memorandum	76	(1)
The Anschluss	77	(1)
The Czech crisis	77	(1)
The Munich agreement	78	(2)
Poland under threat	80	(1)
The prelude to the Nazi--Soviet pact	81	(1)
The outbreak of the Second World War	81	(5)
Document case study	82	(4)
Hitler at war, 1939--45	86	(20)
Hitler as war lord	86	(1)
The successful Nazi Blitzkrieg, 1939--40	87	(2)
The Battle of Britain, 1940	89	(1)
Hitler decides to attack the Soviet Union	90	(2)
Operation Barbarossa: the first phase, 22 June--December 1941	92	(2)
The German campaign in the Soviet Union, 1942--43	94	(3)
Military defeats for the Axis powers, 1942--44	97	(1)
The attack in western Europe	98	(1)
The final assault on Nazi Germany, 1944--45	99	(1)
The last days of Hitler	100	(6)
Document case study	102	(4)
Mass murder under Nazi rule	106	(17)
The development of anti-Semitism	106	(1)
Jewish discrimination in Nazi Germany, 1933--37	107	(2)
The growth of radical anti-Semitism, 1937--39	109	(1)
The euthanasia programme, 1939--41	109	(1)
The persecution of the Jews, 1939--41	110	(1)
The movement towards the Final Solution	111	(1)
The transition to systematic extermination: mass shootings in the Soviet Union	112	(1)
The Wannsee conference (1942)	113	(1)
The administration of death	113	(1)
The extermination camps	114	(2)
The broader dimensions of Nazi genocide	116	(1)
The singular fate of the Jews	117	(6)
Document case study	118	(5)
The verdict of historians	123	(16)
The problems of debate	123	(1)
Adolf Hitler: master of Nazi Germany?	124	(1)
Foreign policy	125	(2)
A social revolution?	127	(2)
The historians and the Nazi economy	129	(2)
The Holocaust	131	(5)
Conclusion	136	(3)
Bibliography	139	(3)
Glossary	142	(2)
Chronology	144	(4)
Index	148