Hitler and the Nazis : a history in documents / David F. Crew.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Crew, David F., 1946-

Series:

Pages from history

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Hitler, Adolf, 1889-1945.

National socialism--History--Sources.

National socialism.

Hitler, Adolf, 1889-1945--Sources.

Hitler, Adolf.

History.

Germany--History--1918-1933--Sources.

Germany.

Germany--History--1933-1945--Sources.

Genre:

Sources.

Physical Description:

171 pages : illustrations, maps ; 26 cm.

Place of Publication:

Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, [2005]

Summary:

The Holocaust-the systematic killing of millions of Jews and others considered enemies of the Nazi state-was one of the darkest episodes in human history. But the Holocaust and World War II were the culmination of a succession of political and economic events in Nazi Germany. Hitler and the Nazis: A History in Documents explains how an unknown, unemployed Austrian became the modern world's personification of evil. The Nazis were meticulous record keepers, and many of the documents that chronicle Hitler's dictatorship come from the Nazis themselves. For example, the Nazis' Law for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring lists the conditions that could require a person to be sterilized in order to purify the Aryan race. And an invoice for Zyklon B, the poison used in concentration camp gas chambers, was ultimately used as evidence at the postwar trial of war criminals at Nuremberg.

The Nazis were masters of propaganda, and a picture essay demonstrates the far-reaching control the Nazis had over the eyes and minds of the German people. Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels manipulated Hitler's image to portray him as victorious general, German "everyman," brave Fuhrer (Leader), Christ-like prophet, and even lover of small children. The Nazis left a wealth of revealing documents, but primary sources from witnesses, survivors, and resistors against the Nazi regime offer different perspectives. A pamphlet distributed by a group of students appeals to the German people to stop supporting the Nazi Party. A Holocaust survivor describes his three-day trip to the Auschwitz concentration camp in a cramped cattle car. Beginning with the factors that led to the demise of the Weimar Republic, the most democratic political system Germany had ever known, moving on to the construction of Hitler's dictatorship, and continuing through the most devastating and brutal war in world history, David F. Crew provides a first-hand history of the rise and fall of Hitler and the Nazi Party.

Contents:

What is a Document? 6

How to Read a Document 8

What Made Nazism Possible? War, Revolution, and the Weimar Republic 17

Memories of a Brutal War 20

The Promise and Problems of Weimar Democracy 22

The New Woman and the Movies 29

Economic Crises 34

Chapter 2 Enter Hitler 39

From the War to the Failed Attempt to Seize Power in 1923 41

Hitler's Rise to Power 46

The Rise and Fall of Hitler's Storm Troopers 52

Chapter 3 Picture Essay: Selling Hitler's Image: Nazi Propaganda 59

Chapter 4 The Racial State: Nazi Germany, 1933-1939 69

Making German Jews and "Community Aliens" Socially Dead 70

Kristallnacht 79

Shaping the Aryan Race 87

Training Aryans for the Future 89

The SS and the Concentration Camp System 93

Chapter 5 Hitler's War 99

Racial War and War of Plunder 101

The Battle of Britain 102

The Invasion of the Soviet Union 104

The End of Blitzkrieg 109

The Tide Turns 110

Slave Labor for the German War Effort 113

Resistance and Invasion 115

The Air War against Germany 118

Chapter 6 The Holocaust 121

The First Steps toward Mass Murder 122

The War against Eastern Jews 125

Killing Centers 129

Rescue, Escape, and Resistance 135

Chapter 7 Germany After the Holocaust 143.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 159-161) and index.

ISBN:

0195152859

OCLC:

60715231

Publisher Number:

9780195152852