The Nazi State and German Society
A Brief History with DocumentsFirst Edition ©2010
The Nazi State and German Society invites students to view the history of the twentieth century’s most infamous totalitarian regime through the voices of people who experienced it. Robert Moeller’s comprehensive introduction presents an overview of the Nazi regime, from Weimar to the end of t...
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The Nazi State and German Society invites students to view the history of the twentieth century’s most infamous totalitarian regime through the voices of people who experienced it. Robert Moeller’s comprehensive introduction presents an overview of the Nazi regime, from Weimar to the end of the war, explaining the factors that led millions of ordinary Germans to sacrifice individual rights in the interest of collective goals and national security. The effects of Nazi rule on Aryans, Jews, and other "undesirables" are explored, along with a discussion of why so few people organized against the regime. Over 50 documents from a broad range of perspectives — including speeches, memoirs, letters, diaries, and propaganda posters — bring this history to life and illustrate the effect of Nazi rule on German society. Document headnotes, a chronology, questions for consideration, and a selected bibliography provide pedagogical support.
"Moeller’s brief history with documents is first-rate. The collection’s value is enhanced because it covers the Weimar period and outlines some of the experiences Germans had at the very end of the war. As a result, there are multiple points of entry and exit, which make this history all the more useful."— Peter Fritzsche, University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana"An intelligent and insightful introduction to the complex tangle of issues at the heart of the Nazi regime. The documents are interesting and genuinely significant."— Derek Hastings, Oakland University
Table of Contents
Foreword
Preface
PART ONE
Introduction: Understanding Nazi Germany
The Weimar Republic and the Rise of the Nazi Party
Life in Nazi Germany
Germany Goes to War
The Persecution of the Jews and the Final Solution
The Limits to Resistance
The Last Days of the Nazi Regime
PART TWO
The Documents
THE WEIMAR REPUBLIC AND THE RISE OF THE NAZI PARTY
1. Adolf Hitler, On His Hopes for Germany in 1914 from
Mein Kampf, 1925
2. Magnus Hirschfeld, Sexual Catastrophes, 1926
3. Elsa Herrmann, This is the New Woman, 1929
4. Adolf Hitler, Anti-Semitic Speech, April 22, 1922
5. Adolf Hitler, On the Use of Mass Meetings from Mein Kampf, 1925
6. Elsbeth Zander, Tasks Facing the German Woman, January 23, 1926
7. Adolf Hitler, Adolph Hitlers Manifesto, September 10, 1930
8. Albert Speer, On Joining the Nazi Movement in 1931, 1969
9. Melita Maschmann, A German Teenager’s Response to the Nazi
Takeover in January 1933, 1963
10. New York Times, Germany Ventures, January 31, 1933
11. Poster Critiquing Hitler, 1932
LIFE IN NAZI GERMANY
12. Reports on the Sources of Working-class Support for
the Nazis and the Limits to Opposition, 1935-39
13. Joseph Goebbels, "The Tasks of the Ministry for Propaganda,"
March 15, 1933
14. William Shirer, Description of the Nazi Party Rally in Nuremberg,
September 4-5, 1934
15. Concordat between the Holy See and the German Reich, July 2 , 1933
16. Protestant Church Leaders, Declaration of Independence from
the Nazi State, October 21, 1934
17. Adolf Hitler, Opening Address at the House of German Art in
Munich, July 19, 1937
18. "Degenerate Music" Brochure, 1939
19. New York Times, Report on a Visit to a Reich Prison Camp,
July 26, 1933
20. Gabriele Herz, Description of an Early Concentration Camp for
Women, 1937
21. Reports on Working-class Attitudes Toward the Murder of SA leader Ernest Röhm
22. Adolf Hitler, Speech to the National Socialist Women’s Organization,
September 8, 1934
23. "Healthy Parents, Healthy Children!" Poster, 1934
24. Jutta Rüdiger, On the League of German Girls, 1939
25. Peter Gay, A Jewish Teenager Remembers the 1936 Berlin
Olympics, 1998
26. Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring,
July 14, 1933
27. SS Security Service, Report Assessing Public Response to the Film I Accuse, January 15, 1942
28. Heinrich Himmler, On the Question of Homosexuality,
February 18, 1937
29. Heinrich Himmler, Fight against the Gypsy Nuisance,
December 8, 1938
30. Otto D. Tolischus and Frederick T. Birchall,
Reports Introduction of Anti-Semitic Laws
31. Marta Appel, Jewish Life after the Nazi Seizure of Power in
1933, 1940 -41
32. Inge Deutschkron, Growing up Jewish in 1930s Germany, 1978
33. David Buffum, Report on Kristallnacht, November 1938
GERMANY GOES TO WAR
34. Adolf Hitler, Speech before the Reichstag, September 1, 1939
35. Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of the National
Character of the German People, On the Re-Germanization of
Lost German Blood, December 1940
36. Melita Maschmann, A German Colonizer of Poland in 1939 or
1940 , 1963
37. Karl Fuchs, A German Soldier’s Letters from France, 1940
38. Field Marshal Walter von Reichenau, Conduct of Troops in
Eastern Territories, October 10, 1941
39. Karl Fuchs, A German Soldier’s Letters from the Eastern
Front, 1941
40. "Total War" Cover Illustration, 1943
41. Käthe Ricken, Life Under the Bombs, 1943
THE PERSECUTION OF THE JEWS AND THE "FINAL SOLUTION"
42. Victor Klemperer, Reflections on the Meanings of the Yellow Star
for Jews in Germany in 1941, 1947
43. Jewish Cultural Association of Württemberg, On Deportation,
November 17, 1941
44. Ria Bröring, A German Woman’s Account of Jewish Deportations,
April 23, 1942
45. Description of a Mass Execution of Jews in Ukraine in 1942,1945
46. Heinrich Himmler, Speech to SS Officers in Posen, October 4, 1943
47. Chaim Kaplan, In the Warsaw Ghetto, 1939-42
48. Hirsh Glick, Jewish Partisan Song, 1943
49. Ruth Kluger, A Young Girl’s "Lucky Accident" at Auschwitz in 1944, 1992
50. Hanna Lévy-Hass, The Bergen-Belsen Concentration
Camp, 1944-45
THE LIMITS TO RESISTANCE
51. National Socialist Reich Youth Leadership, Report on "Swing"
Dancing as a Form of Resistance, 1942
52. Jokes about the Nazi Regime, 1940 -43
53. The White Rose, Resistance to the Nazi State, 1942
54. Fabian von Schlabrendorff, Account of the Military Conspiracy to
Assassinate Hitler, 1944
55. Soviet Slave Workers in Germany, Anti-Nazi Leaflet, November 27, 1944
THE LAST DAYS OF THE NAZI REGIME
56. Melita Maschmann, The Mobilization of Youth in the Winter 1945, 1963
57. Anna Schwartz, Account of the Entry of Soviet Army Troops into Danzig on March 27, 1945, 1952
58. Gene Currivan, Report on a Visit to a Nazi Concentration Camp Liberated by the U.S. Army, April 18, 1945
59. Adolf Hitler, My Political Testament, April 29, 1945
APPENDIXES
A Chronology of the Rise and Fall of the Nazi State (1914-1945)
Questions for Consideration
Selected Bibliography
Index
Authors
Robert G. Moeller
Robert G. Moeller (Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley) is professor of history at the University of California, Irvine. His work focuses on the history of Germany in the twentieth century, with an emphasis on social history and women’s history. His books include War Stories: The Search for a Usable Past in the Federal Republic of Germany (2001), Protecting Motherhood: Women and the Family in the Politics of Postwar West Germany (1993), and German Peasants and Agrarian Politics, 1914-1924: The Rhineland and Westphalia, 1914-1924 (1986). Moeller is faculty advisor for the UCI History Project, a professional development initiative for middle and high school teachers in Orange County, California.
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