Review

A magnum opus by the University of Bonn professor whose earlier work has contributed significantly to the academic understanding of the Nazi period, this was highly acclaimed when published in Germany (1969) and is hailed by Peter Gay in his introduction as "the book on the Nazi period for a very long time to come." It is a comprehensive treatment of the origins, the organization, and the machinery of the Nazi dictatorship, less an original interpretation than a masterly synthesis of the documentary evidence to date and the earlier researches of Bracher himself and other historians. He analyzes the strengths and argues the limitations of the major schools of thought on National Socialism - the "vertical" all-German-history-is-tainted position and the "horizontal" interpretation of fascism as a uniquely twentieth-century international phenomenon. On the question of how a dictatorial regime of such dimensions could come to power so quickly and with so little or no resistance in a country of Germany's traditions and cultural heritage, Bracher himself emphasizes the shortcomings of German policy from the early nineteenth century on and the fatal roots and crisis-ridden history of the Weimar Republic, but his study is of more value for its concrete explication of the Nazi totalitarian polity. The historical survey begins with the precursors in Germany and Austria of the Nazi movement, proceeds systematically through the rise and fall of the Third Reich, and ends with the manifestations of fight-wing extremism in the postwar German republics. Bracher is uneasy about the stability of German democracy, and concludes that the heritage of National Socialism - both negative (the danger of a relapse) and positive (the chance to learn from the past) - lives on. A major study of the Nazi regime, though without the popular readership appeal of the Shirer book. (Kirkus Reviews) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Description

Written by the author of "Age of Ideologies", this is a book about the dictatorship of Adolf Hitler.