Republican and Fascist Germany

This study treats the Weimar Republic and the Third Reich as a continuum, exploring a series of key themes through the 1920s and 1930s, without artificial breaks. It considers political, economic, social and foreign policy issues across the period and examines the legacy of the Third Reich.

This important addition to modern German studies treats the Weimar Republic and the Third Reich as a continuum, exploring its themes through the 1920s and 1930s without artificial breaks. John Hiden looks at key issues in political, social and economic history, and in international relations. He highlights Germany's potentially constructive role in Europe before Hitler; analyses the country's structural problems; considers the importance of personalities and personal responsibility in the period; and examines the legacy of the Third Reich to postwar Germany. Filled with energy and ideas, the book has an intellectual substance far beyond its relatively modest length.

Autorentext

John Hiden

Inhalt

Acknowledgements Abbreviations and Acronyms

Introduction

1. Policy for the sake of the Republic
   The conditions of peace
   A note on German 'revisionism'
   The illusion of East-West choices 1921-23 Stresemann and the primacy of Westpolitik Stresemann and Russia
   Trade and Ostpolitik
   The role of the Auslandsdeutsche

2. Democratic Prospects
   The Weimar constitution

3. The Parties
   The German Socialist Party The Centre Party
   The German Democratic Party
   The German People's Party
   The German Nationalist People's Party The German Communist Party
   The National Socialist German Workers' Party

4. The Practice of Parliament
   Coalition patterns
   Interlude - the election of President Hindenburg

   Sectional interests in politics
   An indecent burial 1930-33

5. Governmental Plurality in the 'Single-Party State'
   The debate on polycracy The practice of polycracy Hitler in government

6. Life at the Top; State Economic Policy and Big
   Business
   Some economic facts of life
   Governmental strategies in the Weimar Republic
   Briining's economic policy
   The view from the board room; big business, the Republic
   and the rise of Hitler
   ' Governmental strategies in the Third Reich
   Big business and 'full fascism'
   The economy and war preparations
7. Drudgery for Germany; The Path from Worker to
   Soldier of Labour
   Trade unions and the law
   The decline of the unions
   The German Labour Front
   The conditions of work
   Labour in the Third Reich
8. Feeding the Reich; Farmers and Politics
   The strains within German agriculture
   NSDAP and agriculture before 1933
   Darn 's work and ideas
   The Reich Food Estate and the Law of Hereditary
   Entailment
   The burdens of honour
9. The Middle Classes; Angst and Reality
   Case study - civil servants
   The NSDAP's appeal to the Mittelstand
   Expectation and coordination

10. Policing the 'People's Community'
    The Gestapo; Limits to policing

    lV

    Qualifying the 'SS State' The Volksgemeinschaft
    Resistance without the people

11. The 'Racial War' and its Legacy The genesis of the 'Final Solution' The challenge of explaining genocide Living with genocide

12. The Quest for German Hegemony in Europe
    Policy before power
    The vain pursuit of Britain
    The imperatives of foreign trade Hitler's obsession with Russia Strategy and foreign policy
    The limits to 'opportunism'

    Bibliographical Essay
    Index