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In this classic work of twentieth-century history, William Sheridan Allen demonstrates how dictatorship subtly surmounted democracy in Germany and how the Nazi seizure of power encroached from below. Relying upon legal records and interviews with primary sources, Allen dissects Northeim, Germany with microscopic precision to depict the transformation of a sleepy town to a Nazi stronghold. This cogent analysis argues that Hitler rose to power primarily through democratic tactics that incited localized support rather than through violent means.

In Hitler's Army, Omer Bartov focuses on the titanic struggle between Germany and the Soviet Union—where the vast majority of German troops fought—to show how the savagery of war reshaped the army in Hitler's image. Both brutalized and brutalizing, these soldiers needed to see their bitter sacrifices as noble patriotism and to justify their own atrocities by seeing their victims as subhuman.

Read the history behind the series THE HUNTERS (starring Al Pacino) in this “captivating book rooted in first-rate research” (New York Times Book Review) that tells the true story of how America became home to thousands of Nazi war criminals. For the first time, once-secret government...

After her mother's death, Robinson was thrilled to find her beloved grandfather's diaries - only to discover that he had been a Nazi. The diaries show Api, a doctor in Berlin, trying to help the wounded in bunkers without water or light. Living in the ruins, he himself was near collapse. As Robinson retraces Api's steps half a century later, she tries to come up with answers to why he joined the Nazi party and reflect on German guilt while also remembering the happiest years of her childhood with him.

In 1941 Hitler's armies blocked the last roads leading into Leningrad. What followed was one of the most horrific sieges in history. When the German High Command encircled Leningrad it was a deliberate policy to eradicate the city's civilian population by starving them to death. As winter set in and food supplies dwindled, starvation and panic set in.

Harald Jähners große Mentalitätsgeschichte der Nachkriegszeit zeigt die Deutschen in ihrer ganzen Vielfalt: etwa den "Umerzieher" Alfred Döblin, der das Vertrauen seiner Landsleute zu gewinnen suchte, oder Beate Uhse, die mit ihrem "Versandgeschäft für Ehehygiene" alle Vorstellungen von Sittlichkeit infrage stellte; aber auch die namenlosen Schwarzmarkthändler oder die stilsicheren Hausfrauen am Nierentisch der anbrechenden Fünfziger. Das gesellschaftliche Panorama eines Jahrzehnts, das entscheidend war für die Deutschen und in vielem ganz anders, als wir oft glauben.

Based on a lifetime living in and reporting on Germany and Central Europe, award-winning journalist and author Peter Millar tackles the fascinating and complex story of the people at the heart of our continent. Focussing on nine cities (only six of which are in the Germany of today), he takes us on a zigzag ride back through time via the fall of the Berlin Wall through the horrors of two world wars and the patchwork states of the Middle Ages to the splendour of Charlemagne and the fall of Rome.

In Drunk on Genocide, Edward B. Westermann reveals how, over the course of the Third Reich, scenes involving alcohol consumption and revelry among the SS and police became a routine part of rituals of humiliation in the camps, ghettos, and killing fields of Eastern Europe. Westermann draws on a vast range of newly unearthed material to explore how alcohol consumption served as a literal and metaphorical lubricant for mass murder. It facilitated "performative masculinity," expressly linked to physical or sexual violence.

The Franco-Prussian War started in 1870 when Otto von Bismarck engineered a war with the French Second Empire under Napoleon III, as part of his plan to unite Prussia with the southern German states as a new Germany. Stephen Badsey examines the build-up, battles, and impact of the war, which was an overwhelming Prussian victory with massive consequences.

This audiobook will take you on a thrilling ride through history, starting with the modest origins of Prussia and its Hohenzollern dynasty. You will be amazed at how they traversed the historical barbwire of late medieval times, unwillingly entangled in wars with greater powers and religious reformation. You will learn of their struggles against the Habsburgs and Austria, France and Napoleon, and many other adversaries in the countless wars in which the Prussians found themselves - wars which weren’t always won by them.

Germany is a relatively young nation-state. United in 1871, it's even younger than the United States. However, the territories inhabited by the Germanic people have a rich history that reaches far back in prehistory and antiquity. Located in the heart of Europe, Germany witnessed centuries of conflicts, immigration, and negotiations. Consequently, its shape, size, and ethnicity changed throughout history. The territories which constitute Germany today were often war zones, and at times they would join forces against a common enemy or break apart due to internal conflicts.

The classic history of the political and economic devastation wrought by runaway inflation in Weimar Germany—“brilliant” (Guardian) In 1923, with its currency effectively worthless (the exchange rate in December of that year was one dollar to 4,200,000,000,000 marks), the German republic...

The Weimar Journals, A Confluence of the 1920s and 2020s explores the similarities between the challenges within the Weimar Republic and what is being experienced today in the United States. Several story lines come together in Hans Brown’s journal entries written over the span of fifty years.

Love history? Know your stuff with History in an Hour. In 1914 the world changed. Europe’s great powers were dragged, one by one, into a war by Serbian conflict which affected very few of them directly. At least it would resemble the short sharp battles of the previous century, many thought...

On 25 December 1943, the German battlecruiser Scharnhorst slipped out Altenfjord in Norway to attack Arctic convoy JW55B which was carrying vital war supplies to the Soviet Union. But British naval intelligence knew of the Scharnhorst's mission before she sailed and the vulnerable convoy was protected by a large Royal Naval force, including the battleship Duke of York. In effect the Scharnhorst was sailing into a trap. One of the most compelling naval dramas of the Second World War had begun.

South of the Norman city of Caen, Verrieres Ridge was seen a key stepping-stone for the British Second Army if it was to break out of the Normandy bridgehead in late July 1944. Imposing in height and containing perfect terrain for armored operations, the Germans viewed it as the lynchpin to their defenses south of the city of Caen and east of the Orne river. Following the failure of British Operation Goodwood on 18-20 July and the containment of the Canadian Operation Atlantic, further Allied attacks to seize the ridge would have to defeat the strongest German armored formation in Normandy.

Who were the Gestapo officers? Were they merely banal paper shufflers, or were they recognizably evil? Were they motivated by an eliminationist anti-Semitism? Did the average German know about the mass murder of Jews and other undesirables while they were happening? Exactly how was Nazi terror applied in the daily lives of ordinary Jews and Germans? Eric A. Johnson answers these questions as he explores the roles of the individual and of society in making terror work.

In 1919 the Treaty of Versailles stripped Germany of its overseas colonies. This sudden transition to a post-colonial nation left the men and women invested in German imperialism to rebuild their status on the international stage. Remnants of an earlier era, these Kolonialdeutsche (Colonial Germans) exploited any opportunities they could to recover, renovate, and market their understandings of German and European colonial aims in order to reestablish themselves as "experts" and "fellow civilizers" in discourses on nationalism and imperialism.

The history of East Germany was closely intertwined with the development of its security services, specifically the Stasi. In an era of totalitarian countries dominated by repressive state agencies, the Stasi stood out for its size and the sheer breadth and depth of its surveillance. The Stasi: The History and Legacy of East Germany’s Secret Police Agency examines the history of one of the most notorious agencies in history. You will learn about the Stasi like never before.

Was haben eine Ritterrüstung, die Tabakdose Friedrichs des Großen und der WM-Fußball von 1954 gemeinsam? Es sind drei von 100 Mosaiksteinen der deutschen Geschichte, stumme Zeugen der Vergangenheit. Hermann Schäfer, einer der führenden Vertreter der deutschen Museumsszene, fügt sie in dieser Sammlung zusammen. Anschaulich und gut verständlich dokumentiert er die Geschichte der Objekte und macht zugleich auch ihre erstaunliche Umdeutung im Dienst politischer Interessen und gesellschaftlicher Umbrüche deutlich. Durch ausgefeiltes Sounddesign und mit Hilfe der Sprecher Stefan Wilkening und Katja Bürkle wird der Hörer in verschiedene Klangsituationen und damit auch akustisch in die Vergangenheit versetzt.