The Nazis, Germany inter-war period - book recommendations

[Spion]

Anyone got any good recommendations for a history of the inter-war period in Germany and the rise of the Nazis?

I want:
A good level of academic rigour.
But a good read all the same.
Not a detailed study of the left, or just the right for that matter, but a good overview of society and politics, with a bias towards examining the social forces at play without depersonalised dryness if possible.

Any ideas?

 

[Ralph Masters]

Hanfstaengl, Ernst 'Putzi'. Hitler: The Missing Years. London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1957. Arcade Publishing, reprint 1994 ISBN 1-55970-278-8

 

[Dan U]

i've read these two, there is a third about the Nazi's at war but not read it yet.
very interesting books

This title unfolds perhaps the single most important story of the 20th century: how a stable and modern country in less than a single lifetime led Europe into moral, physical and cultural ruin and despair. A terrible story not least because there were so many other ways in which Germany's history could have been played out. With authority, skill and compassion, Evans recreates a country torn apart by overwhelming economic, political and social blows: World War I, Versailles, hyperinflation and the Great Depression. One by one these blows ruined or pushed aside almost everything admirable about Germany, leaving the way clear for a truly horrifying ideology to take command.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Coming-Third-Reich-Richard-Evans/dp/071399648X

The Third Reich in Power examines how it was possible for a group of ideological obsessive to remould a society famous for its sophistication and complexity into a one-party state directed at war and race hate. Richard J. Evans shows how the Nazis won over the hearts and minds of German citizens, twisted science, religion and culture, and transformed the economy, education, law and order to achieve total dominance in German politics and society. Drawing on an extraordinary range of research, blending narrative, description and analysis he creates a picture of a dictatorship consumed by visceral hatreds and ambitions and driven by war

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Third-Reich-Power-1933-1939-Hearts/dp/0141009764

 

[Spion]

Hanfstaengl, Ernst 'Putzi'. Hitler: The Missing Years. London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1957. Arcade Publishing, reprint 1994 ISBN 1-55970-278-8

Too memoire-y

 

[Spion]

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Coming-Third-Reich-Richard-Evans/dp/071399648X

Looks like what I'm after. Cheers. Just ordered a 2nd hand copy off Amazon

 

[Sir Belchalot]

This one's not bad:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Social-Hist...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1257245979&sr=1-1

 

[Lo Siento.]

have you asked yourself if you really need to read about the Nazis? Have you tried giving one of the other, neglected eras a try. The poor abandoned orphan that is Carlos V for example? Or maybe the Dutch War of Independence? Any number of historical epochs are looking for just a smidgeon of your time.

 

[Dirty Martini]

i've read these two, there is a third about the Nazi's at war but not read it yet.
very interesting books

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Coming-Third-Reich-Richard-Evans/dp/071399648X

I'd definitely recommend this one.

Also A Social History of the Third Reich by Richard Grunberger. Very good on the minute aspects of life in Germany from 1933 (chapters on joke-telling and that kind of thing)

e2a: I see it's already been recommended above

 

[Dirty Martini]

I do bang on about Joseph Roth, but this is brilliant and very much what you're looking for too


What I Saw: Reports from Berlin 1920-33

 

[Dirty Martini]

Actually, you'll get a lot from Roth's novels written and set in that period: Right and Left, The Spider's Web ... The latter is a very early look at National Socialism in fiction.

 

[Spion]

have you asked yourself if you really need to read about the Nazis? Have you tried giving one of the other, neglected eras a try. The poor abandoned orphan that is Carlos V for example? Or maybe the Dutch War of Independence? Any number of historical epochs are looking for just a smidgeon of your time.

*chuckle*

 

[Spion]

This one's not bad:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Social-Hist...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1257245979&sr=1-1

Looks good. But I don't want a 'just Nazis' book. I'm interested in the inter-war period in wider terms

 

[ViolentPanda]

I'd definitely recommend this one.

Also A Social History of the Third Reich by Richard Grunberger. Very good on the minute aspects of life in Germany from 1933 (chapters on joke-telling and that kind of thing)

e2a: I see it's already been recommended above

Grunberger's "Germany 1918-1945" is also a good read, as is Evelyn Anderson's "Hammer or Anvil: The Story of the German Working Class Movement" and Tim Mason's "Social Policy in the Third Reich: The Working Class and the "National Community".

 

[Ralph Masters]

Too memoire-y

have you read it?

Putzi was with Hitler from 1923 through to the late 30's, his personal pianist no less, a fascinating view through the eyes of a Harvard scholar

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Anyone got any good recommendations for a history of the inter-war period in Germany and the rise of the Nazis?

I want:
A good level of academic rigour.
But a good read all the same.
Not a detailed study of the left, or just the right for that matter, but a good overview of society and politics, with a bias towards examining the social forces at play without depersonalised dryness if possible.

Any ideas?

http://sunnysidekitchen.blogspot.com/2008/07/history-of-germain-freikorps.html

 

[Gavin Bl]

Its along time since I read his stuff, but I recall Tim Mason being good on Nazism, I think its what he is primarily remembered for. (died young I think)

 

[ViolentPanda]

Its along time since I read his stuff, but I recall Tim Mason being good on Nazism, I think its what he is primarily remembered for. (died young I think)

I almost mentioned him, but I thought his stuff might be a bit too "niche".

 

[Santino]

have you asked yourself if you really need to read about the Nazis? Have you tried giving one of the other, neglected eras a try. The poor abandoned orphan that is Carlos V for example? Or maybe the Dutch War of Independence? Any number of historical epochs are looking for just a smidgeon of your time.

Have you asked yourself if you really need to post on the internet? Have you tried giving on of the other, neglected human activities a try? The poor abandoned orphan that is spelunking, for example? Or maybe pipe-smoking? Any number of phenomena described by verbs are looking for just a smidgen of your time.

 

[Spion]

Could the pair of you spell 'smidgen' properly, FFS!

 

[Santino]

Could the pair of you spell 'smidgen' properly, FFS!

I don't know what you mean.

 

[davesgcr]

Viktor Klemperers diary "I Shall bear Witness" - Jewish origin academic charts the rise of Nazism in Dresden.

Outstanding record of "domestic" circumstances ....

 

[butchersapron]

Anyone got any good recommendations for a history of the inter-war period in Germany and the rise of the Nazis?

I want:
A good level of academic rigour.
But a good read all the same.
Not a detailed study of the left, or just the right for that matter, but a good overview of society and politics, with a bias towards examining the social forces at play without depersonalised dryness if possible.

Any ideas?

Yes. Tim Mason as mentioned above is still the most important english language writer on this period. His two collections Nazism, Fascism, and the Working Class and Social Policy in the Third Reich: The Working Class and the ' National Community', 1918-1939 are absolutely indispensible. I've uploaded a number of his most imporant texts here:

Labour in the Third Reich 1933-1939
National Socialism and the Working Class, 1925-May, 1933
Germany, "Domestic Crisis" and War in 1939

Sergio Bologna's Nazism and the Working Class 1933-93 should be read with these. if you can do german you should also try Karl Heinz Roth's The Other Workers Movement.

Detlev Peukert (another great social historian who died very young) has two fantastic books The Weimar Republic and Inside Nazi Germnay: Conformity, opposition and racism in everyday life. Both highly recommended. Richard Bessel has Germany after WW1, and edited a really useful collection of modern scholarship presenting the new debates/issues etc and highlighting how far things had moved since the immediate post-WW2 years.

Wider studies are Richard Grunberger's A Social History of the Third Reich (looking pretty outdated now tbh), The David F Crew edited Nazism and German Society 1933-45. Richard Evans edited The German Working Class 1888-1933 which has some really useful stuff about 1919-33 as does State, Social Policy and Social Chnage in germnay 1880-1994,edited by Eve Rosenhaft. Thomas Childers The Nazi Voter: The social foundations of fascism in germany, 1919-33 is essential. Arthur Rosenbergs A History of the German Republic is still worth reading. A controversial collection of up-to-date academic texts is The Rise of national Socialism and the Working Classes in Weimar Germany, edited by Conan Fischer.

I've avoided the overtly left or political texts, or ones dealing with the 1919-23 period, but have some recommendations for that period if you're interested.