Living with Hitler : Liberal Democrats in the Third Reich

by Eric Kurlander

• ISBN13: 9780300116663
• ISBN10: 0300116667
• Format: Trade Book
• Copyright: 2009-08-11
• Publisher: Yale University Press

Summary

This book addresses key questions about liberal democrats and their activities in Germany from 1933 to the end of the Nazi regime. While it is commonly assumed that liberals fled their homeland at the first sign of jackboots, in reality most stayed. Some even thrived under Hitler, personally as well as professionally. Historian Eric Kurlander examines the motivations, hopes, and fears of liberal democratsGermans who best exemplified the middle-class progressivism of the Weimar Republicto discover why so few resisted and so many embraced elements of the Third Reich. German liberalism was not only the opponent and victim of National Socialism, Kurlander suggests, but in some ways its ideological and sociological antecedent. That liberalism could be both has crucial implications for understanding the genesis of authoritarian regimes everywhere. Indeed, Weimar democrats' prolonged reluctance to oppose the regime demonstrates how easily a liberal democracy may gradually succumb to fascism.

Author Biography

Eric Kurlander is associate professor of history at Stetson University. He lives in Deland, Florida.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	p. viii
Acknowledgements	p. x
Note on Translations and Abbreviations	p. xii
Introduction	p. 1
"A Gift to Germany's Future?" The Liberal Resistance to Hitler	p. 11
"Writing between the Lines": The Struggle for Liberal Ideals in Cultural and Intellectual Life	p. 47
"The Woman" in the Third Reich: Gertrud Bäumer, Social Policy, and the Liberal Women's Movement	p. 81
Hitler's War? Liberal Nationalism and Nazi Foreign Policy	p. 114
"Neither Jews nor Anti-Semites": The Liberal Answer to Hitler's "Jewish Question"	p. 152
Conclusion	p. 194
Notes	p. 204
Bibliography	p. 255
Index	p. 284
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