The Nazi Germany Sourcebook is an exciting new collection of documents on the origins, rise, course and consequences of National Socialism, the Third Reich, the Second World War, and the Holocaust.
Packed full of both official and private papers from the perspectives of perpetrators and victims, these sources offer a revealing insight into why Nazism came into being, its extraordinary popularity in the 1930s, how it affected the lives of people, and what it means to us today.
This carefully edited series of 148 documents, drawn from 1850 to 2000, covers the pre-history and aftermath of Nazism:
*the ideological roots of Nazism, and the First World War
*the Weimar Republic
*the consolidation of Nazi power
*Hitler's motives, aims and preparation for war
*the Second World War
*the Holocaust
*the Cold War and recent historical debates.
The Nazi Germany Sourcebook focuses on key areas of study, helping students to understand and critically evaluate this extraordinary historical episode.
PDF of book: http://www.mrmichaelstuart.com/uploads/ ... cebook.pdf
BOOK REVIEW
Roderick Stackelberg, Sally A. Winkle. The Nazi Germany Sourcebook: An Anthology of Texts. London and New York: Routledge, 2002. 496 pp. $90.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-415-22214-3.
Reviewed by Warren Rosenblum (Webster University)
Published on H-German (March, 2004)
In their 1994 collection, The Weimar Republic Sourcebook, Anton Kaes and his fellow editors exploded the genre of the primary source reader.[1] Alongside well-known documents like the Weimar Constitution and the Spartakus Manifesto, the work introduced obscure texts on a hodge-podge of traditionally marginal topics like fashion, sexual promiscuity, murder, drug use, and radio. Most of the documents had no transparent connection to the great political and social issues of the Weimar Republic, yet the reader was immediately embraced by political and social historians. The collection has proven a wonderful asset in the classroom. Its brilliance was precisely in how the assembled artifacts made the task of cultural analysis seem necessary and accessible. The strange articles and vignettes cried out for interpretation.
But what about the Nazi era? The weight of a "totalitarian state," a destructive war, and Holocaust seem to force a measure of sobriety and rigidity upon the teaching of the Nazi era. Perhaps the tools of the cultural historian seem trivial next to the more traditional apparatus for piecing history together wie es eigentlich gewesen. Still, I wish the editors of the present anthology had done more to broaden the scope of their documentation. The documents describe the evolution of National Socialism, the consolidation of Nazi power, Hitler's march toward war, and the unfolding of the Final Solution. But there is amazingly little here on women, youth and family, sexuality and science, sports, education, and labor. Nor does the reader encourage students to explore the complexities of popular consent, participation, and resistance which have been so much a part of recent scholarship on the Third Reich. As a primer on Nazism, this reader will undoubtedly be useful for classes on modern Germany, twentieth-century Europe, and, of course, the Third Reich. As a sourcebook on Germany under the Nazis, however, it barely scratches the surface.
The collection is divided into seven sections, proceeding more or less in chronological order. The first two sections concern the roots of National Socialism in Imperial Germany and the ascendance of Hitler during the Weimar Republic. The next two parts cover the Third Reich from 1933 to 1935 and 1936 to 1939 respectively. The final sections contain documents on the Second World War, the Holocaust, and the legacy of the Third Reich in German politics and culture.
The selections, which are generally two to four pages in length, include speeches, memoirs, proclamations and decrees, news articles, and letters. Many of the documents are newly translated, and a few are published here in English for the first time. Every selection is preceded by a brief "critical analysis," describing the origins of the text and the background of the authors. The editors have aimed to produce a work that could be used not only as a supplement to textbooks, but might potentially stand by itself. The more or less chronological organization provides a certain narrative pull, while the short, clear, and balanced introductions to each chapter offer broader contextualization.
The anthology's first section trots out the usual suspects in the pre-history of National Socialism. Richard Wagner, Houston Stewart Chamberlain, and Heinrich Class rail against Jewish influence in German culture and public affairs. Heinrich Treitschke celebrates war as the creator of the state and "the only remedy for ailing nations." Adolph Stoecker attacks Social Democracy and calls for a nationalist movement to counteract its appeal.
Book Review: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=9000
