Nazi Germany
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Nazi Germany, or the Third Reich, refers to Germany in the years 1933–1945, when it was under the control of the National Socialist German Workers Party, or Nazi Party, with the Führer Adolf Hitler as head of state.
Third Reich, used as a near-synonym for Nazi Germany, is the English for the German expression Drittes Reich, literally Third Empire, but the second word is seldom translated. It refers to the government and its agencies rather than the land and its people. The term was first used in 1922 as the title of a book by conservative writer Arthur Moeller van den Bruck. It was adopted by Nazi propaganda, which counted the Holy Roman Empire as the first Reich, the 1871–1918 German Empire the second, and its own regime as the third. This was done in order to suggest a return to former German glory after the failure of the 1919 Weimar Republic. The reasons for the accession of the Nazis to power are complex.
The Nazi Party deliberately attempted to combine traditional symbols of Germany with Nazi Party symbols in an effort to reinforce the perception of their being one and the same. Thus the Nazi Party used the terms "Drittes Reich" and "Tausendjähriges Reich" ("Thousand-Year Reich") to connect the allegedly glorious past to its supposedly glorious future. In speeches, books and articles about the Third Reich post 8 May 1945, the 1000 years is often juxtaposed against the 12 years of the Third Reich's existence. There is evidence that Hitler himself disliked the term "Drittes Reich", because of its suggestion that his new order stood in a subordinate position to its predecessors, but a copy of Moeller's book was found in the Berlin bunker where both Hitler and his Reich came to their violent end.
During their 12-year rule, the Nazis sent massive armies throughout almost all of continental Europe, except Switzerland, Spain, Liechtenstein, Sweden, Portugal, Andorra, the Vatican and land near the Ural Mountains. As part of this, the Nazis endorsed the idea of a Greater Germany, with Berlin renamed Germania as its capital, and integration of all people of supposed pure Germanic origin. This policy manifested itself in the systematic extermination of an estimated 11 million people of racial minorities (Jews, Gypsies, Slavs), political opponents (liberals, communists), and social outcasts (the disabled, homosexuals), as well as opposing inhabitants and tens of millions of others as a direct or indirect result of combat.
Chronology of events
- Weimar Republic (includes the events leading to Hitler's appointment as Chancellor of Germany in 1933)
- Gleichschaltung (for the legal measures taken by the Nazis to establish their dictatorship)
- World War II (with a focus on military events)
- Axis Powers
Pre-War Politics 1933-1939
On January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor by President Paul von Hindenburg after attempts by General Kurt von Schleicher to form a viable government failed, and under heavy pressure from former Chancellor Franz von Papen. Even though the Nazi Party had gained the largest share of the popular vote in the two Reichstag general elections of 1932, they had no majority in parliament.
Consolidation of power
The new government installed a dictatorship in a series of measures in quick succession (see Gleichschaltung for details). On February 27, 1933 the Reichstag was set on fire, and this was followed immediately by the Reichstag Fire Decree, which rescinded habeas corpus and other protective laws.
A step that turned Germany into a dictatorship virtually overnight was the Enabling Act passed in March 1933. The act gave the Chancellor of Germany the same legislative powers as the Reichstag, stated that the Chancellor could approve amendments to the constitution at will, and authorized several far-reaching emergency powers that suspended most civil liberties and turned Germany into a one-party state.
Further consolidation of power was achieved on January 30, 1934, with the Gesetz über den Neuaufbau des Reichs (Act to rebuild the Reich). The act changed the highly decentralized federal Germany of the Weimar era into a centralized state. It disbanded state parliaments, transferring sovereign rights of the states to the Reich central government and put the state administrations under the control of the Reich administration.
Only the army remained independent from Nazi control, and the Nazi quasi-military SA expected top positions in the new power structure. Wanting to preserve good relations with the army, on the night of June 30, 1934 Hitler initiated the Night of the Long Knives, a purge of the leadership ranks of the SA as well as other political enemies, carried out by another, more elitist, Nazi organisation, the SS. Shortly thereafter the army leaders swore their obedience to Hitler.
At the death of president Hindenburg on August 2, 1934, the Nazi-controlled Reichstag merged the offices of Reichspräsident and Reichskanzler and reinstalled Hitler with the new title Führer und Reichskanzler.
The inception of the Gestapo, police acting outside of any civil authority, highlighted the Nazis' intention to use powerful, coercive means to directly control German society. Soon, an army estimated to be of about 100,000 spies and infiltrators operated throughout Germany, reporting to Nazi officials the activities of any critics or dissenters. Most ordinary Germans, happy with the improving economy and better standard of living, remained obedient and quiet, but many political opponents, especially communists and some types of socialists, were reported by omnipresent eavesdropping spies, and put in prison camps where they were severely mistreated, and many tortured and killed. It is estimated that tens of thousands of political victims died or disappeared in the first few years of Nazi rule.
- For political opposition during this period, see German resistance movement.
Social policy
- See also Racial policy of Nazi Germany
The Nazi regime was characterized by political control of every aspect of society in a quest for racial (Aryan, Nordic), social and cultural purity. Modern abstract art and avant-garde art was thrown out of museums, and put on special display as "Degenerate art", where it was ridiculed. However, the crowds attending these displays of "decadent art" frequently eclipsed those attending officially sanctioned displays. In one notable example on March 31, 1937, huge crowds stood in line to view a special display of "degenerate art" in Munich, while a concurrent exhibition of 900 works personally approved by Adolf Hitler attracted a tiny, unenthusiastic gathering.
The Nazi Party pursued its aims through persecution and killing of those considered impure, targeted especially against minority groups such as Jews, Gypsies, Jehovah's Witnesses and homosexuals.
By the Nuremberg Laws passed in 1935, Jews were stripped of their German citizenship and denied government employment. Most Jews employed by Germans lost their jobs at this time, their jobs being taken by unemployed Germans. On November 9, 1938, the Nazi party incited a pogrom against Jewish businesses called Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass, literally "Crystal Night"); the euphemism was used because the numerous broken windows made the streets look as if covered with crystal. By September 1939, more than 200,000 Jews had left Germany, with the Nazi government seizing any property they left behind.
The Nazis also undertook programs targeting "weak" or "unfit" members of their own population, such as the T-4 Euthanasia Program that killed tens of thousands of disabled and sick Germans in an effort to "maintain the purity of the German Master race" (German: Herrenvolk) as described by Nazi propagandists. The techniques of mass killing developed in these efforts would later be used in the Holocaust. Under a law passed in 1933, the Nazi regime carried out the compulsory sterilization of over 400,000 individuals labeled as having hereditary defects, ranging from mental illness to alcoholism.
Recent research has also emphasised the role of the extensive Nazi welfare programmes that supposedly helped maintain public support for the regime until late in the war.
Economic policy
When the Nazis came to power the most pressing issue was an unemployment rate of over 40%. The economic management of the state was first given to respected banker Hjalmar Schacht. Under his guidance, a new economic policy to elevate the nation was drafted. One of the first actions was to destroy the trade unions and impose strict wage controls.
The government then expanded the money supply through massive deficit spending. However at the same time the government imposed a 4.5% interest rate ceiling, creating a massive shortage in borrowable funds. This was resolved by setting up a series of dummy companies that would pay for goods with bonds. The most famous of these was the MEFO company, and these bonds used as currency became known as mefo bills. While it was promised that these bonds could eventually be exchanged for real money, the collapse was put off until after the collapse of the Reich. These complicated maneuvers also helped conceal armament expenditures that violated the Treaty of Versailles.
Normally the effects of price control combined with a large increase in the money supply would produce a large black market, but harsh penalties that saw violators sent to concentration camps or even shot on the spot prevented this development. Repressive measures also kept volatility low, reducing inflationary pressures. New policies also limited imports of consumer goods and focusing on producing exports. International trade was greatly reduced remaining at about a third of 1929 levels throughout the Nazi period. Currency controls were extended, leading to a considerable overvaluation of the Reichsmark. These policies were successful in cutting unemployment dramatically.
Industry was mostly not nationalized, and businesses were still motivated by pursuing profits. However industry was closely regulated with quotas and requirements to use domestic resources. These regulations were set by administrative committees composed of government and business officials. Competition was limited as major companies were organized into cartels through these administrative committees. Selective nationalization was used against businesses that failed to agree to these arrangements. The banks, which had been nationalized by Weimar, were returned to their owners and each administrative committee had a bank as member to finance the schemes.
The German economy was transferred to the leadership of Hermann Göring when, on October 18, 1936 the German Reichstag announced the formation of a Four-year plan to shift the German economy towards a war production base. The four-year plan technically expired in 1940, but by this time Hermann Göring had built up a power base in the "Office of the Four-Year Plan" that effectively controlled all German economic and production matters.
Under the leadership of Fritz Todt a massive public works project was started, rivaling the New Deal in both size and scope; its most notable achievement was the network of Autobahnen. Once the war started, the massive organization that Todt founded was used in building bunkers, underground facilities and entrenchments all over Europe. Another part of the new German economy was massive rearmament, with the goal being to expand the 100,000-strong German Army into a force of millions.
In 1942 the growing burdens of the war and the death of Todt saw the economy move to a fully command economy under Albert Speer.
World War II
In 1939 Germany's actions led to the outbreak of World War II in Europe. Poland, France, Denmark, Norway, Belgium and the Netherlands were invaded. Initially, the United Kingdom could do little to come to the rescue of its European allies and Germany subjected Britain to heavy bombing during the Battle of Britain. After invading Greece and North Africa, Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941. It declared war on the United States in December of 1941 after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.
The persecution of minorities continued both in Germany and the occupied areas. From 1941 Jews were required to wear a yellow star in public, and most were transferred to ghettos, where they remained isolated from the rest of the population. In January 1942, at the Wannsee conference under the supervision of Reinhard Heydrich, a plan for the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question" (Endlösung der Judenfrage) in Europe was hatched. From then until the end of the war some six million Jews and many others, including homosexuals, Slavs and political prisoners, were systematically killed and more than 10 million people were put into slavery. This genocide is called the Holocaust in English and the Shoah in Hebrew. (The Nazis used the euphemistic German term Endlösung—"final solution".) Thousands were shipped daily to extermination camps (Vernichtungslager, sometimes called "death factories") and concentration camps (Konzentrationslager, KZ), some of which were originally detention centers but later converted into mass-murder factories, or had death camps added to their facilities, for the purpose of killing of their inmates.
Parallel to the Holocaust the Nazis conducted a ruthless program of conquest, colonization and exploitation over the captured Soviet and Polish territories and their Slavic populations as part of their Generalplan Ost. According to estimates, 20 million Soviet civilians, three million non-Jewish Poles, and seven million Red Army soldiers died under Nazi maltreatment in what the Russians call the Great Patriotic War. The Nazis' plan was to extend German lebensraum ("living space") eastward, but their public pretext for launching the war in Eastern Europe was "to defend Western Civilization against Bolshevism".
By February 1943 the Soviets had defeated the Nazis at Stalingrad and began the push westward, winning the tank battle at Kursk-Orel in July. The Nazi regime was pushed back to the borders of Poland by February 1944 with the outcome of the war no longer in much doubt. The Allies finally opened a second front in June 1944 in Normandy, but the Soviets had already turned the tide of the war in Europe, mostly on their own, with 5-15% of Soviet supplies coming from the west. Soviet troops moving westward met Allied troops moving eastward at the Elbe on April 26, 1945 (Cohen).
On April 30, 1945, as Berlin was being taken by Soviet forces, Hitler committed suicide. On May 4–8, 1945 German armed forces surrendered unconditionally. This was the end of World War II in Europe and, with the creation of the Allied Control Council on June 5, 1945, the four Allied powers "assume[d] supreme authority with respect to Germany" (Declaration Regarding the Defeat of Germany, US Department of State, Treaties and Other International Acts Series, No. 1520).
Aftermath
The winning allies first split Germany into occupation zones. At the Potsdam Conference German borders within the Soviet occupation zone were moved westward, with most territory given to Poland as compensation for the annexation of eastern Polish territory by the Soviet Union. About half of German East Prussia was annexed by the Soviet Union, nowadays called Kaliningrad. The German exodus from Eastern Europe, which was initiated by the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, was after the war completed when virtually all Germans in Central Europe had been "resettled" to west of the Oder-Neisse line, with up to about 17 million ethnic Germans affected. The French, US and British occupation zones later became West Germany, while the Soviet zone became the communist East Germany. West Germany recovered economically by the 1960s, being called the economic miracle (German term Wirtschaftswunder) due to economic aid by the United States of America (Marshall Plan), while the East recovered at a slower pace under Communism until 1990, due to reparations paid to the Soviet Union and the effects of the centrally planned economy.
After the war, surviving Nazi leaders were put on trial by the Allied tribunal at Nuremberg for crimes against humanity. A minority were sentenced to death and executed, but most were released by the mid 1950s on account of health and old age. In the 60s, 70s and 80s some new efforts were made in West-Germany to take those who were directly responsible for crimes against humanity to court (e.g. Auschwitz trials). However, many of the not so prominent leaders continued to live well into the 1970s and 1980s.
In all non-fascist European countries legal purges were established to punish the members of the former Nazi and Fascist parties. Also there, however, some of the former leaders found ways to accommodate themselves under the new circumstances. An uncontrolled punishment hit the children of Nazis and those fathered by German soldiers in occupied territories, including the "Lebensborn" children.
- See Nuremberg Trials
Organization of the Third Reich
The leaders of Nazi Germany created a large number of different organizations for the purpose of helping them in staying in power. They rearmed and strengthened the military, set up an extensive state security apparatus and created their own personal party army, the Waffen SS.
Through staffing of most government positions with Nazi Party members, by 1935 the German national government and the Nazi Party had become virtually one and the same. By 1938, through the policy of Gleichschaltung, local and state governments lost all legislative power and answered administratively to Nazi party leaders, known as Gauleiters.
The organization of the Nazi state, as of 1944, was as follows:
Head of State and Chief Executive
- Führer und Reichskanzler (Adolf Hitler)
Cabinet and national authorities
- Office of the Reich Chancellery (Hans Lammers)
- Office of the Party Chancellery (Martin Bormann)
- Office of the Presidential Chancellery (Otto Meissner)
- Privy Cabinet Council (Konstantin von Neurath)
- Chancellery of the Führer (Philip Bouhler)
Reich Offices
- Office of the Four-Year Plan (Hermann Göring)
- Office of the Reich Master Forester (Hermann Göring)
- Office of the Inspector for Highways
- Office of the President of the Reich Bank
- Reich Youth Office
- Reich Treasury Office
- General Inspector of the Reich Capital
- Office of the Councillor for the Capital of the Movement (Munich, Bavaria)
Reich Ministries
- Reich Foreign Ministry (Joachim von Ribbentrop)
- Reich Interior Ministry (Wilhelm Frick, Heinrich Himmler)
- Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda (Joseph Goebbels)
- Reich Ministry of Aviation (Hermann Göring)
- Reich Ministry of Finance (Lutz Schwerin von Krosigk)
- Reich Ministry of Justice (Franz Schlegelberger)
- Reich Economics Ministry (Walther Funk)
- Reich Ministry for Nutrition and Agriculture (Walther Darre)
- Reich Labor Ministry (Franz Seldte)
- Reich Ministry for Science, Education, and Public Instruction (Bernhard Rust)
- Reich Ministry for Ecclesiastical Affairs (Hanns Kerrl)
- Reich Transportation Ministry (Julius Dorpmüller)
- Reich Postal Ministry (Wilhelm Ohnesorge)
- Reich Ministry for Weapons, Munitions, and Armament (Fritz Todt, Albert Speer)
- Reich Ministers without Portfolio (Konstantin von Neurath, Hans Frank, Hjalmar Schacht, Arthur Seyss-Inquart)
Occupation authorities
- Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories (Alfred Rosenberg)
- General Government of Poland (Hans Frank)
- Reich Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (Konstantin von Neurath)
- Deputy Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia (Reinhard Heydrich)
- Office of the Military Governor of France
Legislative Branch
- Reichstag
- Speaker of the Reichstag (Hermann Göring)
- Reichsrat (disbanded February 14, 1934)
Military
Wehrmacht — Armed Forces
- OKW — Armed Forces High Command
- Chief of the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces - Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel
- Chief of the Operations Staff - Colonel General Alfred Jodl
- Chief of the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces - Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel
Heer — Army
- OKH — Army High Command
- Army Commanders-in-Chief
Kriegsmarine — Navy
- OKM — Navy High Command
- Navy Commanders-in-Chief
Luftwaffe — Airforce
- OKL — Airforce High Command
- Reichsluftschutzbund (Air Force Auxiliary)
- Air Force Commanders-in-Chief
Abwehr — Military Intelligence
- Rear Admiral Konrad Patzig {1932-1935)
- Vice Admiral Wilhelm Canaris (1935-1944)
Paramilitary organisations
- Sturmabteilung (SA)
- Schutzstaffel (SS)
- Deutscher Volkssturm
- Nationalsozialistisches Kraftfahrerkorps (NSKK)
- Nationalsozialistisches Fliegerkorps (NSFK)
National police
Reich Central Security Office (RSHA — Reichssicherheitshauptamt) Ernst Kaltenbrunner
- Regular Police (Ordnungspolizei (Orpo))
- Schutzpolizei (Safety Police)
- Gendarmerie (Rural Police)
- Gemeindepolizei (Local Police)
- Security Police (Sicherheitspolizei (Sipo))
- Geheime Staatspolizei (Gestapo)
- Reich Kriminalpolizei (Kripo)
- Sicherheitsdienst (SD)
Political organizations
- Nazi Party — National Socialist German Workers Party (abbreviated NSDAP)
- Youth organisations
- Hitler-Jugend — Hitler-youth (for boys and young men)Baldur von Schirach
- Bund Deutscher Mädel (for girls and young women)
- Deutsches Jungvolk (for very young boys and girls ages 6-8)
Service organizations
- Deutsche Reichsbahn (State Railway)
- Reichspost (State Postal Service)
- Deutsches Rotes Kreuz (German Red Cross)
Religious organisations
Academic organizations
- National Socialist German University Teachers League
- National Socialist German Students League
Prominent persons in Nazi Germany
For a listing of Hitler's cabinet see : Hitler's Cabinet, January 1933 - April 1945
Nazi Party and Nazi government leaders and officials
- Artur Axmann — Reich Youth Leader (successor of Baldur von Schirach in 1940)
- Ernst Wilhelm Bohle — Secretary of State, Head of the NSDAP Foreign Organisation
- Martin Bormann — Head of the Party Chancellery (Parteikanzlei) and Private Secretary to Adolf Hitler
- Karl Brandt — Reich Commissioner of Health and Sanitation
- Alois Brunner — SS Lieutenant Colonel and Adolf Eichmann’s most important assistant
- Otto Dietrich — Secretary of State, Reich Chief of the Press
- Karl Fiehler — Nazi Lord Mayor of Munich and Head of the unity organization for local politics
- Hans Frank — Minister, Head of the German Law Academy
- Roland Freisler — State Secretary at the Reich Ministry of Justice and President of the Volksgerichtshof
- Wilhelm Frick — Minister of the Interior
- Hans Fritzsche — senior official of the Reich Ministry for Propaganda
- Walter Funk — Minister of Industries
- Joseph Goebbels — Minister of Propaganda
- Hermann Göring — Reichsmarschall and Minister-President of Prussia. Air Minister.
- Franz Guertner — Minister of Justice
- Karl Hanke — Secretary of State, Propaganda Ministry
- Rudolf Hess — the Führer's Deputy
- Konstantin Hierl — Head of the Reich Labour Service
- Heinrich Himmler — Reich Leader SS
- Adolf Hitler — Imperial Chancellor, the Führer
- Hanns Kerrl — Reich Minister of Ecclesiastical Affairs (1933–1941)
- Karl Otto Koch — SS Colonel and commandant of the concentration camps at Buchenwald and Majdanek
- Hans Lammers — Head of the Reich Chancellery
- Herbert Lange — SS Major, chief inspector of the Posen State Police Headquarters
- Robert Ley — Leader of the German Labour Front
- Viktor Lutze — Chief of Staff of the SA (1934–1943)
- Otto Meissner — Head of the Reich President’s Office
- Alfred Meyer — State Secretary at the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories
- Erich Priebke — SS Captain, participated in the massacres at the Ardeatine caves near Rome
- Ernst Röhm, Chief of Staff of the SA (1931–1934)
- Alfred Rosenberg — ideologist of National Socialism, Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories
- Bernhard Rust — Minister of Education
- Carl Schmitt — expert on constitutional law and political philosopher, who affected Nazism with his anti-Semite and antidemocratic theses
- Albert Speer — First Architect, Minister for Armament from 1942
- Konstantin von Neurath — Head of the Secret Cabinet
- Joachim von Ribbentrop — Foreign Minister (1938–1945)
- Fritz Sauckel — General Plenipotentiary for the Employment of Labour (1942–1945)
- Baldur von Schirach — Leader of Nazi Youth Organisations
- Franz Seldte — Reich Minister of Labor (1933–1945)
- Arthur Seyß-Inquart — Reichsstatthalter in Austria, Commissioner for the Occupied Netherlands
- Josef Terboven — Reichskommissar of Norway (1940–1945)
- Julius Streicher — publisher of the Nazi propaganda newspaper Der Stürmer
- Fritz Todt — Inspector General for German Roadways, Reich Minister for Armaments and Munitions (1940-1942)
- Hjalmar Schacht — Minister, President of the Reichsbank (1933-1939)
- Gertrud Scholtz-Klink — Reich Leader of Women (1934-1945)
- Hans von Tschammer und Osten — Secretary of State and Reich Sports Leader (1933-1943)
SS personnel
- See: List of SS Personnel
Military
- Karl Dönitz-Commander of the German U-Boat force, later the German Navy
- Erwin Rommel
- Wilhelm Keitel
- Claus von Stauffenberg
- Wilhelm Canaris
- Alfred Jodl
- Erich Raeder
- Robert Ritter von Greim
- Albert Kesselring
Other
- Gottfried Benn
- Eva Braun
- Wernher von Braun
- Houston Stewart Chamberlain
- Anton Drexler
- Gottfried Feder
- Friedrich Flick
- Theodor Fritsch
- Arthur de Gobineau
- Hans Friedrich Karl Günther (not to be confused with Hans Günther)
- Karl Harrer
- Willibald Hentschel
- Alfred Hoche
- Armin D. Lehmann
- Lanz von Liebenfels
- Guido von List
- Karl Lueger
- Alfred Ploetz
- Ferdinand Porsche
- John Rabe
- Geli Raubal
- Leni Riefenstahl
- Oskar Schindler
- Rudolf von Sebottendorf
- Richard Sorge
- Johannes Stark
- Walter Thiel
- Richard Wagner
- Winifred Wagner
- Konrad Zuse
Noted victims
- Dietrich Bonhoeffer
- Georg Elser
- Anne Frank
- Janusz Korczak
- Erich Mühsam
- Carl von Ossietzky
- White Rose (Sophie and Hans Scholl and others)
- Bruno Schulz
- Ernst Thälmann
Noted refugees
- Albert Bassermann
- Johannes R. Becher
- Rudolf Belling
- Walter Benjamin
- Bertolt Brecht
- Marlene Dietrich
- Albert Einstein
- Lion Feuchtwanger
- Sigmund Freud
- Erich Fromm
- Kurt Gödel
- Walter Gropius
- Friedrich Hayek
- Heinrich Eduard Jacob
- Theodor Kramer
- Fritz Lang
- Thomas Mann
- Ludwig von Mises
- Solomon Perel
- Erich Maria Remarque
- Anna Seghers
Noted survivors
- Bruno Bettelheim
- Viktor Frankl
- Eugen Kogon
- Primo Levi
- Martin Niemöller
- Kurt Schumacher
- Franz von Papen
- Roman Polanski
- Elie Wiesel
- Arnulf Øverland
See also
- Anschluss
- Awards and Decorations of Nazi Germany
- Consequences of German Nazism
- Glossary of the Third Reich
- History of Germany
- Nazi architecture
- Nazi Plunder
- Nazism
- Songs of the Third Reich
- Union of Poles in Germany
- Weimar Republic
External links
- Axis History Factbook — Third Reich
- The Reich Government
- Positive Christianity in the Third Reich
- Hitler's Third Reich in the News - daily edited review of Third Reich related news and articles.
Reference
- The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William L. Shirer. ISBN 0671728687
- The Encyclopedia of the Third Reich by Christian Zenter and Friedemann Bedurftig. (1985 by Sudwest Verlag GmbH & co. KG, Munich)
- The Coming of the Third Reich by Richard J. Evans. ISBN 0141009756
- A Social History of the Third Reich by Richard Grunberger. ISBN 0140136754
- Cohen, Nobel, Neuschell,Osheim,Roberts,Strauss (2002). Western Civilization The Continuing Experiment (3rd ed.). pp. 961-962. U.S.A: Houghton Mifflin Company. ISBN 0-618-10208-6.
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- German big business and the rise of Hitler by Henry Ashby Turner , New York : Oxford University Press, 1985 ISBN 019503492.
- German National Socialism, 1919-1945 by Martin Broszat; translated from the German by Kurt Rosenbaum and Inge Pauli Boehm, Santa Barbara, Calif., Clio Press 1966.
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