1. Biographies of Bismarck
2. The Rise of the Socialist Labor Movement
3. Germany and the Outbreak of the First World War
4. The Rise of German Feminism
5. Art and Politics in the Weimar Republic
6. The Failure of Democracy in the Weimar Republic
7. Nazi Institutions of Government
8. The Mentality of Nazi Leaders
9. The Holocaust and the German People
10. The Success of Democracy in the Federal Republic
11. History and Literature
12. The Collapse of the German Democratic Republic

• Otto von Bismarck, Gedanken und Erinnerungen (1898, published in English in 1899 as Bismarck: The Man and the Statesman, 2 vols.): memoirs written with great dramatic flair but a casual attitude toward the facts.
• Erich Eyck, Bismarck and the German Empire (1950): a prominent German liberal compelled to flee the Nazi dictatorship indicts Bismarck for destroying any chance for the emergence of parliamentary democracy.
• A.J.P. Taylor, Bismarck: The Man and the Statesman (1955): a well written though sometimes eccentric portrait by a British historian who seeks to minimize Bismarck's control over events or ability to predict the future.
  
• Theodore Hamerow, ed., Otto von Bismarck and Imperial Germany: A Historical Assessment (Lexington, MA, 1994): a wide-ranging survey with brief excerpts from many biographies published since the 1920s. .
• Fritz Stern, Gold and Iron: Bismarck, Bleichröder, and the Building of the German Empire (New York, 1977): a reevaluation of Bismarck's career based on the discovery of his extensive correspondence with his Jewish banker and financial advisor, Gerson Bleichröder.
• Lothar Gall, Bismarck: The White Revolutionary (first published in German in 1980): the best recent biography by a German historian, who is somewhat more sympathetic to his subject than are most English-speaking biographers.
• Otto Pflanze, Bismarck and the Development of Germany, 3 vols. (Princeton, 1990): the most thorough and well balanced account, by an American historian who seeks the middle ground (feel free to concentrate on whichever volume interests you most).

Back to top

• David Crew, Town in the Ruhr: A Social History of Bochum, 1860-1914 (New York, 1979): an insightful local study of the class hierarchy in a center of heavy industry.
• Vernon Lidtke, The Alternative Culture: Socialist Labor in Imperial Germany (1985): studies the clubs, publications, songs, and festivals of the socialist "counter-culture."
• Mary Nolan, Social Democracy and Society: Working-Class Radicalism in Düsseldorf, 1890-1920 (Cambridge, 1981): a careful attempt to define social conditions on the local level that encouraged support for the radical left wing of the SPD.
• Jean Quataert, Reluctant Feminists in German Social Democracy, 1885-1917 (Princeton, 1979): a fascinating analysis of the dilemmas facing women activists in the SPD.
• Carl Schorske, German Social Democracy, 1905-1917: The Development of the Great Schism (first published in 1955): a classic work on the debates within the party that eventually led to a rupture in 1917 between the patriotic Majority Social Democrats and the anti-war Independent Social Democrats.
• Gary Steenson, "Not One Man! Not One Penny!" German Social Democracy, 1863-1914 (Pittsburgh, 1981): a comprehensive analysis of changes in the SPD as a result of bureaucratization and the rise of trade unionism.

Back to top

• Fritz Fischer, War of Illusions: German Policies from 1911 to 1914 (first published in German in 1969): the most detailed formulation of Fischer's emphatic indictment of German war-mongering.
• Andreas Hillgruber, Germany and the Two World Wars (Harvard University Press; first published in German in 1967): a patriotic German historian and critic of Fischer emphasizes the basically defensive nature of the policies of Germany's civilian leadership in 1914 and the crucial differences between Imperial Germany and the Third Reich in this succinct essay. But contrast Fischer's rebuttal in From Kaiserreich to Third Reich, which argues for the basic continuity of German history from 1866 to 1945.
• Volker Berghahn, Germany and the Approach of War in 1914, 2^nd ed. (New York, 1993): takes the middle ground, in perhaps the most balanced account.
• Immanuel Geiss (ed.), July 1914: The Outbreak of the First World War. Selected Documents (New York, 1974): a good sample of the primary sources on decision-making in Berlin, Vienna, St. Petersburg, Paris, and London. Geiss supports Fischer in his introduction, but ask yourself whether the documents really prove his case.
• H.W. Koch, ed., The Origins of the First World War: Great Power Rivalry and German War Aims, 2nd edn (London, 1984): anthology on the emotional debate among German historians between supporters of Hillgruber and Fischer.

Back to top

• Richard J. Evans: The Feminist Movement in Germany, 1894-1933 (London, 1976): this pioneering history indicts liberal feminists for being too deeply attached to their bourgeois class privileges to develop an effective movement for women's equality.
• Ann Taylor Allen, Feminism and Motherhood in Germany, 1800-1914 (New Brunswick, NJ, 1991): a sympathetic defense of German feminists, which argues for growing cooperation between socialists and nonsocialists in opposition to patriarchal institutions and practices.
• Atina Grossmann, Reforming Sex: The German Movement for Birth Control and Abortion Reform, 1920-1950 (New York, 1995): focuses on the 1920s and the women who aggressively challenged traditional stereotypes about women's "nature"..
• Nancy Reagin, A German Women's Movement: Class and Gender in Hanover, 1880-1933 (Chapel Hill, NC, 1995): a local study that tends to support the pessimistic view of Evans.
• Julia Sneeringer, Winning Women's Votes: Propaganda and Politics in Weimar Germany (Chapel Hill, NC, 2002): the first detailed study of the extent to which Germany's political parties altered their platforms and electoral propaganda in response to the introduction of women's suffrage in November 1918.

Back to top

#5. ART AND POLITICS IN THE WEIMAR REPUBLIC: To what extent did the collapse of the German monarchy encourage innovative experiments among German artists and writers? How did the artistic avant-garde respond to and seek to influence political developments?

• Peter Gay, Weimar Culture: The Outsider as Insider (New York, 1966): still the most insightful interpretation of the relationship between art, literature, and politics in the 1920s.
• Anton Kaes, Martin Jay, and Edward Dimendberg (eds), The Weimar Republic Sourcebook (Berkeley, 1994): a fascinating collection of translated primary sources on culture and politics.
• Siegried Kracauer, From Caligari to Hitler: A Psychological History of the German Film (Princeton, 1947): a brilliant but controversial study of how the cinema promoted authoritarian tendencies.
• John Willett, Art and Politics in the Weimar Period: The New Sobriety 1917-1933 (New York, 1978): especially valuable for the relationship between German and Soviet avant-garde movements in the 1920s.

Back to top

• Edward W. Bennett, German Rearmament and the West (Princeton, 1979): argues in chaps. 1, 4, & 6 that Weimar democracy was subverted by generals eager for an expensive, unpopular program of rearmament. For a defense of the general who played the most active role in politics, contrast Peter Hayes, "A 'Question Mark with Epaulettes'? Kurt von Schleicher and Weimar Politics," Journal of Modern History, 52 (1980), pp. 35-65.
• Larry Eugene Jones, German Liberalism and the Dissolution of the Weimar Party System (Chapel Hill, NC, 1988): the definitive study of the dismal failure of Germany's liberal parties to provide the middle classes with a plausible alternative to the Nazis.
• Ian Kershaw (ed.), Weimar: Why Did German Democracy Fail? (New York, 1990): deals with the debate among economic historians over whether an overly generous welfare state should be blamed for making lavish promises to the German people that could not be kept.
• Harold James, The German Slump: Politics and Economics 1924-1936 (Oxford, 1986): the most comprehensive study of the economic problems discussed by Nicholls.
• William Patch, Heinrich Brüning and the Dissolution of the Weimar Republic (Cambridge, 1998): a detailed study of the policies of the Brüning cabinet of 1930-32, the last government with a real chance to prevent the Nazi seizure of power.
• Henry A. Turner, German Big Business and the Rise of Hitler (New York and Oxford, 1985): the definitive study of the relationship between the Nazis and the captains of industry.
• Readers of German should consult the complete set of the cabinet minutes of all the coalition governments of the Weimar Republic, available in Burling as the Akten der Reichskanzlei der Weimarer Republik. You can examine these excellent sources for yourself for whichever political crisis interests you most.

#7. NAZI INSTITUTIONS OF GOVERNMENT. How exactly did the Nazis conquer all political power within six months of Hitler's appointment as chancellor, and what new institutions of government did they create? Was the Third Reich "totalitarian" or "polycratic" in structure?

• William S. Allen, The Nazi Seizure of Power (revised edn, 1984): a fascinating local study of a small town about the size of Grinnell, where the Nazis succeeded by 1932 in winning an absolute majority of the vote.
• Martin Broszat, The Hitler State: The Foundation and Development of the Internal Structure of the Third Reich (London and New York, 1981): the classic analysis of government institutions under the Nazi regime.
• Michael Burleigh and Wolfgang Wippermann, The Racial State: Germany 1933-1945 (Cambridge, 1991): shows the influence of racist ideology on all aspects of government policy.
• Robert Gellately, Backing Hitler: Consent and Coercion in Nazi Germany (Oxford, 2001): a grim but powerfully argued effort to demonstrate a high degree of cooperation between the German people and the regime (also appropriate for topic #9).

Back to top

• Ian Kershaw, Hitler, 2 vols. (Princeton, 1998-2000): by far the best biography, supercedes older studies.
• Ralf Georg Reuth, Goebbels (San Diego, 1993): an illuminating account, based on the voluminous diaries of Hitler's brilliant minister of propaganda.
• Gitta Sereny, Albert Speer: His Battle with Truth (New York, 1995): the most insightful analysis of the extent to which Speer's memoirs involve deception and especially self-deception.
• Henry A. Turner, ed., Hitler: Memoirs of a Confidant (New Haven, 1985): a fascinating portrait of Hitler at the height of his struggle for power in 1929-33, by Otto Wagener, his chief economic adviser at the time.
• Richard Breitman, The Archictect of Genocid: Himmler and the Final Solution (New York, 1991).
• R.J. Overy, Goering: The "Iron Man" (London and New York, 1984).
• Joachim Fest, The Face of the Third Reich: Portraits of the Nazi Leadership (New York, 1970): a good collection of seventeen character sketches.

Back to top

#9. THE HOLOCAUST AND THE GERMAN PEOPLE. To what extent did ordinary Germans support the criminal policies of their leadership? Compare Omer Bartov's findings about the influence of Nazi propaganda on young army conscripts with at least two of the following:

• Christopher Browning, Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland (New York, 1992).
• Christopher Browning, The Path to Genocide: Essays on Launching the Final Solution (Cambridge, 1992).
• Henry Friedlander, The Origins of Nazi Genocide: From Euthanasia to the Final Solution (Chapel Hill, NC, 1995): a thoroughly documented account of the role of the medical profession.
• Sarah Gordon, Hitler, Germans, and the "Jewish Question" (Princeton,1984): includes original analysis of court records of Germans placed on trial for helping Jews.
• Ian Kershaw, Popular Opinion and Political Dissent in the Third Reich: Bavaria 1933-1945 (Oxford, 1983): perhaps the best regional study of the attitude of ordinary Germans toward the regime (also appropriate for topic #7).
• Omer Bartov, ed., The Holocaust: Origins, Implementation, Aftermath, London and New York, 2000.

Back to top

• David Conradt, The German Polity, 3^rd ed. (New York, 1986): this widely read textbook by a political scientist includes interesting data on public opinion and voting behavior.
• Ralf Dahrendorf, Society and Democracy in Germany (New York, 1967): a distinguished German sociologist argues that Germany's educational system, family structure, system of criminal justice, and labor relations continued in the 1950s and '60s to promote authoritarian values in many ways.
• Andrei Markovits, The Politics of the West German Trade Unions: Strategies of Class and Interest Representation in Growth and Crisis (1986): perhaps the best study of whether Germans have truly discovered a rational modern alternative to their old history of sharp conflict between the classes.
• Carl Chistoph Schweitzer et al. (eds.), Politics and Government in Germany 1944-1994: Basic Documents (Providence, RI, 1995): collection includes the current programs of all major political parties, central provisions of the constitution, and samples of the rhetoric of leading politicians.
• Peter Merkl, ed., The Federal Republic of Germany at Fifty: The End of a Century of Turmoil (New York, 1999).

Back to top

• Thomas Mann, Buddenbrooks (1900): a chronicle of four generations in the life of a patrician family in Lübeck that explores the evolving political attitudes of the German bourgeoisie.
• Heinrich Mann, Der Untertan (1918): a sometimes hilarious satire in which the protagonist, a factory owner who worships the nobility and royal familiy, exhibits the classic "authoritarian personality."
• The history plays of Bertolt Brecht -- analyze two or three of the following: Trommeln in der Nacht (on the Spartacist revolt in Berlin in January 1919), Der aufhaltsame Aufstieg Arturo Uis (depicting the rise of Hitler in the form of a story about gangsters in Chicago), Furcht und Elend des Dritten Reiches (vignettes on life under totalitarianism), and Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder (on the horrors of war).
• Günter Grass, Die Blechtrommel (1959): a fascinating, bizarre chronicle of the rise and fall of the Third Reich from the perspective of a little boy who refuses to grow up, the most brilliant literary exploration of the question of continuity in modern German history.

Back to top

#12. THE COLLAPSE OF THE GERMAN DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC. What explains the sudden decision by the Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party to allow the Berlin Wall to fall and in effect to capitulate to the West without a struggle? Analyze at least two or three of the following:

• Charles Maier, Dissolution: The Crisis of Communism and the End of East Germany (Princeton, 1997): perhaps the most sophisticated analysis to date, by a historian with a strong background in economic history.
• Corey Ross, The East German Dictatorship: Problems and Perspectives in the Interpretation of the GDR (London, 2002): the most up-to-date account of divergent opinions among scholars of the topic.
• Mary Fulbrook, Anatomy of a Dictatorship: Inside the GDR, 1949-1989 (Oxford, 1995).
• Konrad Jaraush, The Rush to German Unity (Oxford, 1994).
• Readers of German can examine two fascinating collections of documents on the inner workings of the East German regime, which appeard almost immediately after the fall of the Wall: Peter Przyblyski, Tatort Politbüro. Die Akte Honecker (rowohlt, 1991); and Armin Mitter and Stefan Wolle, eds., "Ich liebe euch doch alle! Befehle und Lageberichte des MfS, Januar-November 1989 (Berlin, 1990).

Back to Top