The interwar period in Germany (1918-1938) was a tumultuous era marked by political instability, economic hardship, and significant social change. Following its defeat in World War I, Germany underwent a dramatic transformation with the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II and the establishment of the Weimar Republic in 1919. The Treaty of Versailles imposed harsh penalties on Germany, including substantial territorial losses, military restrictions, and reparations payments, which fostered widespread resentment and economic strain.
The early years of the Weimar Republic were characterized by severe economic problems, including hyperinflation in the early 1920s. The German mark became virtually worthless, leading to widespread poverty and social unrest. Despite these challenges, the Republic experienced a period of relative stability and cultural flourishing known as the "Golden Twenties," marked by advancements in the arts, sciences, and a more liberal social atmosphere.
However, the Great Depression of 1929 plunged Germany back into economic despair, causing massive unemployment and political radicalization. Extremist parties, particularly the National Socialist German Workers' Party (Nazi Party) led by Adolf Hitler, gained increasing support by exploiting public discontent and promising to restore Germany's former glory. The Nazis' rise was aided by effective propaganda, political maneuvering, and the use of paramilitary violence against opponents.
In 1933, Hitler was appointed Chancellor, and the Nazis quickly consolidated power. The Reichstag Fire in February 1933 allowed the Nazis to push through the Reichstag Fire Decree, suspending civil liberties and enabling mass arrests of political opponents. The Enabling Act passed shortly thereafter, granting Hitler dictatorial powers and marking the end of the Weimar Republic.
By the mid-1930s, Hitler's regime had transformed Germany into a totalitarian state. The Nuremberg Laws of 1935 institutionalized anti-Semitism, stripping Jews of their rights. Germany began rearming and pursuing aggressive foreign policies, culminating in the annexation of Austria in 1938 (Anschluss) and the Sudetenland, setting the stage for World War II. This period was a prelude to the catastrophic conflict that would engulf the world.
Alfred Hugenberg : the radical nationalist campaign against the Weimar Republic by 
Ambassador Frederic Sackett and the collapse of the Weimar Republic, 1930-1933 : the United States and Hitler's rise to power by
This book details a striking political relationship between American Ambassador Frederic Sackett and German Chancellor Heinrich Brüning and their attempts to save the Weimar Republic, achieve German nationalist goals, and thwart Adolf Hitler's drive to power. Sackett believed that financial policy was at the heart of German problems and, unless resolved, could be the basis for Hitler's success. Very early in his tenure in Berlin, Sackett saw Hitler and the Nazis as a serious danger to the Weimar Republic and to peace in Europe. The American thought that misrule by incompetent and inefficient Nazis would pave the way for a communist state. Although at first he saw the Nazis as harbingers of worse to come, in time he came to see Hitler as the real threat to democracy in Germany.
The Berlin diaries, May 30, 1932-January 30, 1933. by 
The Chatter of the Visible : Montage and Narrative in Weimar Germany by
The Chatter of the Visible examines the paradoxical narrative features of the photomontage aesthetics of artists associated with Dada, Constructivism, and the New Objectivity. While montage strategies have commonly been associated with the purposeful interruption of and challenge to narrative consistency and continuity, McBride offers an historicized reappraisal of 1920s and 1930s German photomontage work to show that its peculiar mimicry was less a rejection of narrative and more an extension or permutation of it--a means for thinking in narrative textures exceeding constraints imposed by "flat" print media (especially the novel and other literary genres). McBride's contribution to the conversation around Weimar-era montage is in her situation of the form of the work as a discursive practice in its own right, which affords humans a new way to negotiate temporality, as a particular mode of thinking that productively relates the particular to the universal, or as a culturally specific form of cognition.
Chronicle of a downfall : Germany 1929-1939 by
Few figures of interwar Germany were as influential as Leopold Schwarzschild, the brilliant editor of the liberal magazine 'Das Tage-Buch'. In the uncertain years of the Weimar Republic, Schwarzschild became famous for his perceptive political analyses and critique of the economic policies of successive governments in the twilight of Germany's first experiment with democracy. When he was forced to emigrate in 1933, following Hitler's rise to power, he pursued his analysis of developments in Germany from Paris, where he resumed publication of his journal under the new name 'Das Neue Tage-Buch', while also mounting a furious attack on the European powers taken by surprise by the Nazi ascendancy. 'One thing is already beyond question today...', he wrote in the spring of 1933, '...part of the new era is an unremitting descent into some kind of military conflagration'. Winston Churchill, a great admirer of Schwarzschild, made one of his later books required reading for the War Cabinet, yet his campaigning journalism has never before appeared in English. In bringing his writings to an English-speaking readership, Chronicle of a Downfall will restore Leopold Schwarzschild to his rightful place as one of the most poignant chroniclers of the fall of German democracy and the descent of Europe into World War II.
Dispatches from the Weimar Republic: Versailles and German Fascism by
'This is a superb text which is relevant for anyone who has an interest in the turbulent post war years of Germany and the Weimar period ... It is very accessible ad easy to read, bolstered by the clarity of its language and organisation.' History Teaching ReviewThe period immediately following the First World War was one of great turbulence in Germany. The widespread dislocation throughout the country left morale crushed, and the economy crippled by Allied demands for reparations. Russia was in the hands of the Bolsheviks and Germany seemed on the brink of falling to working-class revolutionaries. Writing between 1919 and 1923 as special correspondent for the Manchester Guardian, Price was one of the very few British journalists in Weimar Germany during these important years. His unique position as an outsider allowed him to record what he saw with an objective eye, and his sympathy with the Bolsheviks gave him an understanding of the deeper implications behind the unfolding of events. These remarkable writings, reprinted for the first time in 80 years, cover the key events in postwar Germany. Price witnesses the establishment of the Weimar Republic, the emergence of Hitler and the Nazi Party, the inflammatory violence in the south of the country, which threatened civil war, and the signing of the Versailles Treaty.
Dragonslayer : the legend of Erich Ludendorff in the Weimar Republic and Third Reich by
In this fascinating biography of the infamous ideologue Erich Ludendorff, Jay Lockenour complicates the classic depiction of this German World War I hero. Erich Ludendorff created for himself a persona that secured his place as one of the most prominent (and despicable) Germans of the twentieth century. With boundless energy and an obsession with detail, Ludendorff ascended to power and solidified a stable, public position among Germany's most influential. Between 1914 and his death in 1937, he was a war hero, a dictator, a right-wing activist, a failed putschist, a presidential candidate, a publisher, and a would-be prophet. He guided Germany's effort in the Great War between 1916 and 1918 and, importantly, set the tone for a politics of victimhood and revenge in the postwar era. Dragonslayer explores Ludendorff's life after 1918, arguing that the strange or unhinged personal traits most historians attribute to mental collapse were, in fact, integral to Ludendorff's political strategy. Lockenour asserts that Ludendorff patterned himself, sometimes consciously and sometimes unconsciously, on the dragonslayer of Germanic mythology, Siegfried--hero of the epic poem The Niebelungenlied and much admired by German nationalists. The symbolic power of this myth allowed Ludendorff to embody many Germans' fantasies of revenge after their defeat in 1918, keeping him relevant to political discourse despite his failure to hold high office or cultivate a mass following after World War I. Lockenour reveals the influence that Ludendorff's postwar career had on Germany's political culture and radical right during this tumultuous era. Dragonslayer is a tale as fabulist as fiction.
German Diplomatic Documents, 1871-1914 by
v. 1. Bismarck's relations with England, 1871-1890.--v. 2. From Bismarck's fall to 1898.--v. 3. The growing antagonism, 1898-1910.--v. 4. The descent to the abyss, 1911-1914
Also online from the HathiTrust Digital Library
Gustav Stresemann : Weimar's greatest statesman by
Gustav Stresemann was the exceptional political figure of his time. His early death in 1929 has long been viewed as the beginning of the end for the Weimar Republic and the opening through which Hitler was able to come to power. His career was marked by many contradictions but also a pervading loyalty to the values of liberalism and nationalism. This enabled him in time both to adjust to defeat and revolution and to recognize in the Republic the only basis on which Germans could unite, and in European cooperation the only way to avoid a new war. His attempt to build a stable Germany as an equal power in a stable Europe throws an important light on German history in a critical time. Hitler was the beneficiary of his failure but, so long as he was alive, Stresemann offered Germans a clear alternative to the Nazis. Jonathan Wright's fascinating new study is the first modern biography of Stresemann to appear in English or German.
Hitler versus Hindenburg : the 1932 presidential elections and the end of the Weimar Republic by
Hitler versus Hindenburg provides the first in-depth study of the titanic struggle between the two most dominant figures on the German Right in the last year before the establishment of the Third Reich. Although Hindenburg was reelected as Reich president by a comfortable margin, his authority was severely weakened by the fact that the vast majority of those who had supported his candidacy seven years earlier had switched their support to Hitler in 1932. What the two candidates shared in common, however, was that they both relied upon charisma to legitimate their claim to the leadership of the German nation. The increasing reliance upon charisma in the 1932 presidential elections greatly accelerated the delegitimation of the Weimar Republic and set the stage for Hitler's appointment as chancellor nine months later.
Press and Politics in the Weimar Republic by
Press and Politics offers a new interpretation of the fate of Germany's first democracy and the advent of Hitler's Third Reich. It is the first study to explore the role of the press in the politics of the Weimar Republic, and to ask how influential it really was in undermining democraticvalues.Anyone who seeks to understand the relationship between the press and politics in Germany at this time has to confront a central problem. Newspapers certainly told their readers how to vote, especially at election time. It was widely accepted that the press wielded immense political power. And yetpower ultimately fell to Adolf Hitler, a radical politician whose party press had been strikingly unsuccessful.Press and Politics unravels this apparent paradox by focusing on Berlin, the political centre of the Weimar Republic and the capital of the German press. The book examines the complex relationship between media presentation, popular reception, and political attitudes in this period. What was therelationship between newspaper circulation and electoral behaviour? Which papers did well, and why? What was the nature of political coverage in the press? Who was most influenced by it? Bernhard Fulda addresses all these questions and more, looking at the nature and impact of newspaper reporting onGerman politics, politicians, and voters. He shows how the press personalized politics, how politicians were turned into celebrities or hate figures, and how - through deliberate distortions - individual newspapers succeeded in building up a plausible, partisan counter-reality.
The propaganda war in the Rhineland : Weimar Germany, race and occupation after World War I by
Piecing together a fractured European continent after World War I, the Versailles Peace Treaty stipulated the long term occupation of the Rhineland by Allied troops. This occupation, perceived as a humiliation by the political right, caused anger and dismay in Germany and an aggressive propaganda war broke out - heightened by an explosion of vicious racist propaganda against the use of non- European colonial troops by France in the border area. These troops, the so-called Schwarze Schmach or 'Black humiliation' raised questions of race and the Other in a Germany which was to be torn apart by racial anger in the decades to come. Here, in the first English-language book on the subject, Peter Collar uses the propaganda posters, letters and speeches to reconstruct the nature and organisation of a propaganda campaign conducted against a background of fractured international relations and turbulent internal politics in the early years of the Weimar Republic. This will be essential reading for students and scholars of Weimar Germany and those interested in Race and Politics in the early 20th Century.
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by
Since its publication in 1960, William L. Shirer's monumental study of Hitler's German Empire has been widely acclaimed as the definitive record of this century's blackest hours. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich offers an unparalleled and thrillingly told examination of how Adolf Hitler nearly succeeded in conquering the world. With millions of copies in print around the globe, it has attained the status of a vital and enduring classic.
Stormtroopers : a new history of Hitler's Brownshirts by
The first full history of the Nazi Stormtroopers whose muscle brought Hitler to power, with revelations concerning their longevity and their contributions to the Holocaust Germany's Stormtroopers engaged in a vicious siege of violence that propelled the National Socialists to power in the 1930s. Known also as the SA or Brownshirts, these "ordinary" men waged a loosely structured campaign of intimidation and savagery across the nation from the 1920s to the "Night of the Long Knives" in 1934, when Chief of Staff Ernst Röhm and many other SA leaders were assassinated on Hitler's orders. In this deeply researched history, Daniel Siemens explores not only the roots of the SA and its swift decapitation but also its previously unrecognized transformation into a million-member Nazi organization, its activities in German-occupied territories during World War II, and its particular contributions to the Holocaust. The author provides portraits of individual members and their victims and examines their milieu, culture, and ideology. His book tells the long-overdue story of the SA and its devastating impact on German citizens and the fate of their country.
Stresemann and politics of the Weimar Republic. by The Weimar era and Hitler, 1918-1933 : a critical bibliography by The Weimar Republic : a history of Germany from Ebert to Hitler by
Concise survey analysis with reading from documents of the period.
The Weimar Republic Sourcebook by
A laboratory for competing visions of modernity, the Weimar Republic (1918-1933) continues to haunt the imagination of the twentieth century. Its political and cultural lessons retain uncanny relevance for all who seek to understand the tensions and possibilities of our age. The Weimar Republic Sourcebook represents the most comprehensive documentation of Weimar culture, history, and politics assembled in any language. It invites a wide community of readers to discover the richness and complexity of the turbulent years in Germany before Hitler's rise to power. Drawing from such primary sources as magazines, newspapers, manifestoes, and official documents (many unknown even to specialists and most never before available in English), this book challenges the traditional boundaries between politics, culture, and social life. Its thirty chapters explore Germany's complex relationship to democracy, ideologies of "reactionary modernism," the rise of the "New Woman," Bauhaus architecture, the impact of mass media, the literary life, the tradition of cabaret and urban entertainment, and the situation of Jews, intellectuals, and workers before and during the emergence of fascism. While devoting much attention to the Republic's varied artistic and intellectual achievements (the Frankfurt School, political theater, twelve-tone music, cultural criticism, photomontage, and urban planning), the book is unique for its inclusion of many lesser-known materials on popular culture, consumerism, body culture, drugs, criminality, and sexuality; it also contains a timetable of major political events, an extensive bibliography, and capsule biographies. This will be a major resource and reference work for students and scholars in history; art; architecture; literature; social and political thought; and cultural, film, German, and women's studies.
What I saw : reports from Berlin, 1920-1933 by
The Joseph Roth revival has finally gone mainstream with the thunderous reception for What I Saw, a book that has become a classic with five hardcover printings. Glowingly reviewed, What I Saw introduces a new generation to the genius of this tortured author with its "nonstop brilliance, irresistible charm and continuing relevance" (Jeffrey Eugenides, The New York Times Book Review). As if anticipating Christopher Isherwood, the book re-creates the tragicomic world of 1920s Berlin as seen by its greatest journalistic eyewitness. In 1920, Joseph Roth, the most renowned German correspondent of his age, arrived in Berlin, the capital of the Weimar Republic. He produced a series of impressionistic and political essays that influenced an entire generation of writers, including Thomas Mann and the young Christopher Isherwood. Translated and collected here for the first time, these pieces record the violent social and political paroxysms that constantly threatened to undo the fragile democracy that was the Weimar Republic. Roth, like no other German writer of his time, ventured beyond Berlin's official veneer to the heart of the city, chronicling the lives of its forgotten inhabitants: the war cripples, the Jewish immigrants from the Pale, the criminals, the bathhouse denizens, and the nameless dead who filled the morgues. Warning early on of the dangers posed by the Nazis, Roth evoked a landscape of moral bankruptcy and debauched beauty; a memorable portrait of a city and a time of commingled hope and chaos. What I Saw, like no other existing work, records the violent social and political paroxysms that compromised and ultimately destroyed the precarious democracy that was the Weimar Republic.
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