The coming of the Third Reich
By: Richard J. Evans.
Edition: 1st American ed.
Publisher: The Penguin Press
Published: 2004
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 622
Subjects: National socialism -- History; Germany -- History -- 1871-1918; Germany -- History -- 1918-1933
Description: "In 1900, Germany was one of modernity's great success stories: The most progressive and dynamic nation in Europe, it was the only country whose rapid economic growth and innovation rivaled that of the United States. Its political culture was far less authoritarian than Russia's and less anti-Semitic than France's. Representative institutions thrived, and competing political parties and elections were a central part of life. How, then, could it be that in little more than a generation this stable modern country would fall into the hands of Adolf Hitler and the violent, racist, extremist political movement he led, a movement that would lead Germany and then all of Europe into utter moral, physical, and cultural ruin?" "There is no story in twentieth-century history more important to understand, and Richard Evans has written the definitive account for our time. A masterful synthesis of a vast body of scholarly work integrated with important new research and interpretations, Evans's history restores drama and contingency to the rise to power of Hitler and the Nazis, even as he shows how ready Germany was by the early 1930s for such a takeover to occur. Its citizens were angry and embittered by military defeat and economic ruin, and its young democracy undermined by a civil service, an army, and a law enforcement system deeply alienated from the new order. The electorate was beset by growing extremism and panic about communism; and the small but successful Jewish community was subject to wide-spread suspicion and resentment. In the end, though nothing about what happened was preordained, Germany proved to be fertile ground for Nazism's ideology of hatred."--BOOK JACKET
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [535]-584) and index.
Table of contents: title: The legacy of the past; title: German peculiarities; title: Gospels of hate; title: The spirit of 1914; title: Descent into chaos; title: The failure of democracy; title: The weaknesses of Weimar; title: The great inflation; title: Culture wars; title: The fit and the unfit; title: The rise of Nazism; title: Bohemian revolutionaries; title: The beer-hall Putsch; title: Rebuilding the movement; title: The roots of commitment; title: Towards the seizure of power; title: The great depression; title: The crisis of democracy; title: The victory of violence; title: Fateful decisions; title: Creating the Third Reich; title: The terror begins; title: Fire in the Reichstag; title: Democracy destroyed; title: Bringing Germany into line; title: Hitler's cultural revolution; title: Discordant notes; title: The purge of the arts; title: Against the un-German spirit; title: A revolution of destruction?