bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Hitler and Christianity
Authors: Wild Alfons 
Published: November 2023

Abstract
Many Christian commentators, especially Roman Catholic ones, were moved by Hitler’s claim that National Socialism embodied ‘positive Christianity’ to offer analyses of the movement and its goals. These often highly exegetical critiques, of which Wild represents a good example, sought to contrast statements from Mein Kampf with passages from the Bible or from papal pronouncements to prove that National Socialism was anything but a Christian doctrine.Hitler’s theory of the rightsof the Aryan race is closely associated with his racial theory, which regards the members of the Aryan race as the real human beings whilst seeing the members of other human races as sub-humans, ‘half-apes’, and so on.
The Politics of the Past
Authors: Frei Norbert 
Published: November 2023

Abstract
The question of amnestying past crimes, of releasing imprisoned war criminals or former Nazis, and of reintegrating such ‘victims of denazification· (as they were widely and sympathetically regarded in West Germany) into society and professional life was central to the domestic political agenda of the 1950s. A broad political consensus existed between the Christian Democrats and SPD on the policy of amnesty and reintegration. Cold War exigencies aside, as Norbert Frei argues, this was largely due the fact that both major parties had to appeal for votes in a fledgling democracy whose population, only ten years earlier, would have voted overwhelmingly for Hitler, and who now refused to accept the reality of the enormity of the crimes committed by and under the regime, especially in the east.
National Socialist Extermination Camps as Reflected in German Trials
Authors: Rückerl Adalbert 
Published: November 2023

Abstract
General problems of lack of evidence combined with the legal obligation to prove individual guilt for specific murders (proving membership of a group which had carried out mass murder collectively was not enough) made securing convictions of former Nazi criminals extremely difficult in the early years after the war. This was especially the case given that judges were often insufficiently informed of the broader historical context in which these occurred. Adalbert Riickerl, who headed the Zentrale Stelle der Landesjustizver-waltungen from 1966, discusses some of the problems involved in this extract.
Overcoming National Socialism
Authors: Mierendorff Carl 
Published: November 2023

Abstract
Carl Mierendorff, a young Social Democrat (SPD) member of the Reichstag and later member of the Resistance, wrote regular discussions of National Socialism for the journal Sozialistische Monatshefte during the years 1930 to 1933. Critical both of the SPD’s policy of ‘toleration’ of Chancellor Bruning, which he regarded as overly passive, and of calls for a ‘Popular Front’, which he believed were based on an illusory belief in the potential for cooperation between the SPD and the Communists, Mierendorff argued that the only way to defeat Hitler was for the Republic to register political successes itself This was rooted in hisperceptive recognition that National Socialism's success was not merely a product of economic protest votes, but was made possible as a result of a deeper-seated political crisis of democracy itself.
A War Against Memory?
Authors: Wollaston Isabel 
Published: November 2023

Abstract
As Isabel Wollaston suggests, even variations in the terminology we use to signify the National Socialist genocide of the Jews betray different basic assumptions about its nature and its place in history and memory.The 1980s and 1990s have been marked by a series of fiftieth anniversaries relating to Nazism, World War II, and the Holocaust. For example, 1985: the Nuremberg Laws; 1988: the Anschluss, Munich, KristaUnacht; 1989: the outbreak of World War II; 1990: the Battle of Britain; 1991: the invasion of the Soviet Union, Pearl Harbour; 1992: the Wannsee Conference, El Alamein; 1993: the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising; 1994: D-Day, the Warsaw Rising; 1995: the liberation of Auschwitz, Dresden, VE-Day, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the end of World War II. Such anniversaries are observed with varying degrees of solemnity and public interest. Few of them are immune to controversy.
Some Causes and Consequences of National Socialism
Authors: Kautsky Karl 
Published: November 2023

Abstract
The Austrian Marxist and leading theoretician of the Second International Karl Kautsky shared Mierendorffs pessimistic assessment of the strength of the Left in the face of the National Socialist onslaught. In this piece, written shortly after Hitler’s seizure of power, Kautsky is dismissive of National Socialist ideology, characterizing the movement’s electoral success as the product of general disorientation born of the crisis; however, he also stresses the limits to which the movement should be seen solely as a product of the Depression. In particular, he draws attention to the cultural legacy of the First World War and to the climate of embittered nationalism which it engendered.
What Produces Fascism: Pre-industrial Traditions or a Crisis of Capitalism?
Authors: Eley Geoff 
Published: November 2023

Abstract
One of the most sophisticated critics of the Sonderweg thesis, Geoff Eley, has consistently argued that this view overstates the importance of long-term origins and places too much emphasis on ‘pre-industrial traditions’. In this piece, he argues that fascist potential was rooted not so much in pre-industrial classes as in social groups which were precisely a product of Germany’s emergence as a mature industrial society, and that the causes of National Socialism are to be located more within a short-term crisis of capitalism itself, combined with a crisis of political legitimacy, from the First World War onwards.
The NSDAP as Party and Movement
Authors: Tyrel Albrecht 
Published: November 2023

Abstract
Tyrell, like many scholars, sees the characteristics which the movement developed during the ‘time of struggle’ as crucial to understanding the development of the regime after 1933 and its internal dynamic. In this passage, he examines the permeation of the ‘leadership principle’ through the movement following its second foundation in 1925, and the combination of absolute authority on the one hand with the existence of extensive space for the pursuit of individual initiatives on the other, a combination which gave the movement its peculiar dynamism.
The National Socialist Seizure of Power and German Society
Authors: Mommsen Hans 
Published: November 2023

Abstract
Mommsen’s article represents an attempt to place the cabbalistic machinations of 1932 to 1933 within the broader context of the period of presidential politics since 1930. Whilst placing blame firmly at the door of the conservative elites, rather than on the mass constituency of the Nazi movement, he rejects the notion that Hider’s appointment can be seen solely as the product of a backstairs intrigue’. The intriguers of 1932—3 are seen very much as representatives of broader social forces and lobbies—above all of the army and of sectors of business. The Nazi seizure of power thus appears as a compromise between the various interests and lobbies exerting influence during the early 1930s, all other attempts to find a basis for an authoritarian regime of the Right with mass support having failed.
Why Did the Weimar Republic Collapse?
Authors: Bessel Richard 
Published: November 2023

Abstract
Richard Bessel here relates the failure of the Republic to establish its legitimacy to the legacy of the First World War-a legacy which was clearly huge in both economic and political terms. but also in cultural terms. Above all, as Bessel emphasizes in this passage, German society in the 1920s suffered from a collective unwillingness to accept the fact of Germany’s defeat in the war. Its refusal to accept the realities of Germany’s economic and political situation after the war encouraged a false sense of what government could achieve in the 1920s, measured against which the Republican system would inevitably be found wanting.
Totalitarianism as Concept and Reality
Authors: Bracher Karl-Dietrich 
Published: November 2023

Abstract
Despite the critical responses to the concept over the last thirty years, many influential and highly regarded scholars continue to see value in the term. Amongst these is the political scientist Karl-Dietrich Bracher, who regards the conflict between totalitarianism and democracy as the key characteristic of the twentieth century. While his analysis implicitly addresses some of the concerns raised by critics of the concept, his emphasis on terror and propaganda arguably betrays one of the fundamental weaknesses of the idea of totalitarianism—namcly its underestimation of the genuinely voluntarist aspects of National Socialist rule.
The Fascist State: The German Example
Authors: Gottschling Ernst 
Published: November 2023

Abstract
Ernst Gottschling’s treatment of the fascist state is indicative of a move towards a more differentiated analysis in the late years of the GDR. In place of a completely deterministic reading of the development of capitalism and its impact upon politics more emphasis was placed upon historical contingency, as scholars asked why this particu¬ lar crisis of capitalism, occurring in this particular context, led to this specific form of fascist regime. They also started to problematize, in their own language, the polycratic and charismatic aspects of the National Socialist regime. Nonetheless, the continued emphasis on the centrality of the ‘monopoly bourgeoisie’, and the marginality of the genocide of the Jews in their discussion, remained key weaknesses in GDR historiography until the end.
The Dual State
Authors: Fraenkel Ernst 
Published: November 2023

Abstract
Fraenkel sees the Nazi polity as a combination of the normative state, by which he means a rational state governed in accordance with clearly defined legal norms, and the prerogative state, by which he means a state which exercises power arbitrarily. The normative state is maintained as a precondition for the stability of capitalism, while the scope for arbitrary violence provided by the prerogative state enables the state to persecute its enemies. The escalation of the persecution of the Jews is particularly related to the growth of the prerogative state. However, for Fraenkel the ideology of community, and the pursuit of the perfect ethnic community via the persecution of the Jews, exists and occurs in order to obscure the reality of National Socialism’s role in restabilizing capitalism and reasserting class relations. It is Fraenkel’s emphasis on the nature of Nazi polity as an evolving system whose pursuit of ideological goals was a product of the increasing erosion of legal norms and their replacement with a state of growing lawlessness which makes his work central to subsequent discussions.
The Gleichschaitung of the Armed Forces
Authors: Deist Wilhelm 
Published: November 2023

Abstract
Those officers of the Reichswehr who had supported Hitler’s succession to power had done so partly out of the hope that the Reichswehr would be able to regain its traditional position ‘above politics’. However, as this passage argues, the logic of a one-party state with totalitarian claims demanded the opposite —the subordination of the armed forces to the political leadership. The Blomberg-Fritsch crisis of February 1938 marked the completion of this process of subordination; nonetheless, although the army was keen to protect its autonomy vis-a-vis the SA and SS, its leadership was itself responsible for some of the subordination process. Indeed, as Wilhelm Deist argues, the fact that the armed forces’ leadership shared many of the aims of the National Socialist regime led it to active complicity in the transformation of the military into a ‘National Socialist Wehrmacht’.
The Wehrmacht in the National Socialist State
Authors: Messerschmidt Manfred 
Published: November 2023

Abstract
The theme of complicity in the ideological penetration of the armed forces is developed further by Manfred Messerschmidt, who examines the infusion of the army’s personnel policy and propaganda with National Socialist ideology. Application of National Socialist ideology may have been partly motivated by the desire to prove the army’s reliability and to sustain its position against the SA and the SS, but it was at least partially a product of conviction among the leadership of the armed forces. In any case, as Messerschmidt argues, far from enabling the army to retain its independence, it led to ever deeper complicity in the translation of Hitler’s goals into reality.
Jews on Trial
Authors: Angermund Ralph 
Published: November 2023

Abstract
The terroristic nature of the Nazi regime naturally created a prominent role for the judiciary in general. Beyond this, moreover, they played an important role in reinterpreting existing laws in line with the new state ideology, and thus in infusing the legal system with National Socialist values. Not only pressure from the party, but also substantial sympathy with the anti-Semitism of the regime on the part of the judiciary, meant that the legal establishment proved more than amenable to facilitating ever greater discrimination against the Jewish population. This was despite the fact that the party had relatively little success in influencing the personnel policy of the legal authorities.
The Hitler State
Authors: Broszat Martin 
Published: November 2023

Abstract
Martin Broszat’s study of the ‘Hitler State’, which originally appeared in Germany in 1969, was the first influential attempt at a synthesizing analysis which sought to emphasize the relationship between the evolution of policy and structural developments within the regime. Broszat argued that the ‘coordination’ of the state and public sphere which occurred in 1933—4 resulted in a regime which combined authoritarian and fascist elements and which lasted until 1936—7; thereafter, the increasing fragmentation of government reduced institutional and bureaucratic restraints upon the exercise of arbitrary power. These systemic pressures, rather than fixed ideological goals which Broszat characterizes as being ‘of a very general nature’, led to the destruction of the Jews.
Cumulative Radicalization and Self-Destruction of the Nazi Regime
Authors: Mommsen Hans 
Published: November 2023

Abstract
In another defining statement of the ‘structuralist’ position, Mommsen argues that specific or concrete ideological imperatives played only a very subordinate role in the formulation of policy in the ‘Third Reich’, the dynamic of whose internal development was responsible for what he characterizes as the ‘cumulative radicalization’ of the regime.
Inventory of Revolutionary Appearance
Authors: Bloch Ernst 
Published: November 2023

Abstract
The unorthodox Marxist philosopher Ernst Bloch stressed how the appropriation of elements of the political activism and ritual of the Left was aimed at creating the illusion of Nazism’s revolutionary nature and disguising what he saw as its reactionary goals.When two do the same thing, they do not do the same thing. Especially when one copies what the other is doing, in order to deceive. So it is today, when the Nazi cannot yet reveal the way he really looks and what he really wants, and thus disguises himself. He pretends to be rebellious, as we know; the most dreadful white terror against populace and socialism which history has ever seen camouflages itself as socialist. To this end its propaganda must develop sheer revolutionary appearance, garnished with thefts from the commune.
The Aesthetics of Production in the Third Reich
Authors: Rabinbach Anson G 
Published: November 2023

Abstract
The ‘aestheticization of politics’ in National Socialist Germany reproduced itself in all spheres of society, including in the factory environment and industrial relations, where improvements to work conditions and symbolic assertions of the notion of ‘community’ within the workplace served as compensation for the political emasculation of the working class. These methods simultaneously embodied capitalist strategies of management and control and a eugenics-orientated programme of hygiene and health improvement.
The Matrix of Totalitarian Imagery: Public Space, the National Socialist Year, and the Generational Cycle
Authors: Dülffer Jost 
Published: November 2023

Abstract
In the following discussion of National Socialist efforts to remodel the public sphere, Jost Dulffer offers a cautious assessment of the extent to which the regime succeeded in using architecture, public ceremony, and education to mobilize the ‘people’s community’ behind war.Hitler’s position within the system was based not least on the faith of others in him as the Führer. As that faith had its limits, not only among the victims of National Socialism, the claim that Germany was one national community was not completely accepted. But in the stereotyped phrases of Nazi propaganda the Fuhrer and the nation constituted a unity, and this was expressed in many ways. The organization of public space, the calendar of events and celebrations during the year, and the teaching that every German was simply a biological link in a long succession of generations reflected the claim to totalitarian inclusiveness.
The Social Bases of Resistenz and Resistance
Authors: Tenfelde Klaus 
Published: November 2023

Abstract
Whilst the pioneering work of the 1970s and 1980s into patterns of dissent and nonconformity in everyday life played a major role in, for example, enabling scholars to think about the responses of various groups in society in more nuanced and differentiated ways, the notion of Resistenz was also criticized for encouraging too broad a definition of resistance. Further, as Klaus Tenfelde argues, one should not overestimate the extent to which Resistenz had a genuine political dimension in the sense that resistance did.
Resistance without the People?
Authors: Kershawi Ian 
Published: November 2023

Abstract
In the following passage, Ian Kershaw questions whether manifestations of dissent—however widespread among various sectors of the population—had any real limiting effect on the ability of the regime to implement its murderous policies, and stresses the extent to which genuine resistance took place within a context of far broader popular support for the regime.On the basis [of a] survey of various manifestations of dissent we can conclude that the regime’s ability to function was hardly undermined by them, and that its ‘will to power’ was at best only temporarily and very partially limited. The extent of dissent is often astonishing, but its compatibility with a fundamental agreement with the main elements of National Socialist policy is even more astonishing.
Racial Hygiene and Professional Leadership
Authors: Weindling Paul 
Published: November 2023

Abstract
Paul Weindling’s study of German medical culture since 1870 stresses the extent to which the German medical profession had adopted the notion of racial hygiene much prior to 1933, and that doctors’ long-standing tendency to regard medicine in terms of service to state and nation rather than to sick individuals made it easy for the National Socialists to co-opt them into the service of the regime’s racial policies; while there were tensions between technocratic-eugenicist and racial-biological anti-Semitic conceptions of social engineering, the points of similarity were sufficient, in a context which offered substantial professional advancement, to facilitate widespread collaboration.
Death and Deliverance
Authors: Burleigh Michael 
Published: November 2023

Abstract
Michael Burleigh’s humane and bleak work on the child and adult ‘euthanasia’ programme demonstrates convincingly that not only were broad sectors of the medical profession (including both doctors and nurses) complicit—for a variety of reasons—in the mass murder of many tens of thousands of mentally ill and mentally handicapped people, but that this was itself rooted in a broader ‘moral climate’ of consent or at least acquiescence, extending, most notably, to parents and relatives themselves.
The Third Reich and Society
Authors: Schoenbaum David 
Published: November 2023

Abstract
David Schoenbaum was one of the first scholars to recognize that, for all its atavistic rhetoric and the anti-modern elements of its ideology, developments under National Socialism in many ways went with the grain of longer-term secular changes. For Schoenbaum, this was a product of the fact that the regime represented a ‘revolution of means and ends’—a revolution against bourgeois industrial society which mobilized bourgeois industrial society itself in its pursuit of the revolution. The resultant acceleration of secular trends inherent in industrial society, combined with the revolution of status engendered by National Socialism’s radical egalitarianism, created the illusion of a classless society open to the talents, a transformation of objective and subjective reality which amounted, in Schoenbaum’s view, to a ‘social revolution’.
Persecution and Coordination
Authors: Peukert Detlev 
Published: November 2023

Abstract
The Nazi seizure of power was accompanied by a massive wave of repression and persecution of political opponents, the main victims of which were the Communists. In this extract, Detlev Peuk.ert illustrates the nature and extent of this process with examples from the Ruhr industrial area.Immediately following the seizure of power the Hitler regime began to establish the fascist system: the reforming of the state apparatus into an even more effective instrument of repression and of state monopoly power, the campaign of destruction against the organizations of the working class, and the coordination of the bourgeois parties and associations.
Soviet Prisoners of War-Mass Deportation-Forced Workers
Authors: Streit Christian 
Published: November 2023

Abstract
Operation ‘Barbarossa’ was conceived and embarked upon as an ideological war of destruction, and represented a type of warfare which was qualitatively different from that which occurred in western Europe. While the SS was at the forefront of implementing the regime’s ideological goals in the east, the Wehrmacht also became deeply implicated-offering support and cooperation to the SS Ein¬satzgruppen, which killed over 2 million Jews, and causing the deaths of millions of Soviet prisoners of war. In this passage, Christian Streit discusses the fate of the Soviet prisoners of war at the hands of the Wehrm.acht.
Operation Reinhard
Authors: Arad Yitzhak 
Published: November 2023

Abstract
Operation Reinhard was the codename given by the Nazi regime to the programme to exterminate the Jews of the Generalgouvernement of Poland. From 1942 to 1943 r.7 million Jews were exterminated at Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka. Not only the Jews of the Generalgouvernement, but Jews from all over Europe perished in these camps. In these passages Yitzhak Arad summarizes the findings of his study of Operation Reinhard.The largest single massacre action of the Holocaust, Operation Reinhard, which lasted twenty-one months, from March 1942 to November 1943, was carried out by, and accomplished according to the plans of, the Nazi extermination machine.
The Persecution of Sinti and Roma
Authors: Burleigh Michael , Wippermann Wolfgang 
Published: November 2023

Abstract
One of the least well-known and at the same time most comprehensive acts of destruction on the part of the National Socialist regime was the genocide of the Sinti and Roma, which has consistently been overshadowed by the much larger genocide of the Jews. Up to 500,000 Sinti and Roma may have been killed in the Holocaust.