Richard j evans THE THIRD REICH 01 the coming of the third reich (v5 0)

Table of Contents ABOUT THE AUTHOR Title Page Copyright Page Dedication Preface Part - THE LEGACY OF THE PAST GERMAN PECULIARITIES GOSPELS OF HATE THE SPIRIT OF 1914 DESCENT INTO CHAOS Part - THE FAILURE OF DEMOCRACY THE WEAKNESSES OF WEIMAR THE GREAT INFLATION CULTURE WARS THE FIT AND THE UNFIT Part - THE RISE OF NAZISM BOHEMIAN REVOLUTIONARIES THE BEER-HALL PUTSCH REBUILDING THE MOVEMENT THE ROOTS OF COMMITMENT Part - TOWARDS THE SEIZURE OF POWER THE GREAT DEPRESSION THE CRISIS OF DEMOCRACY THE VICTORY OF VIOLENCE FATEFUL DECISIONS Part - CREATING THE THIRD REICH THE TERROR BEGINS FIRE IN THE REICHSTAG DEMOCRACY DESTROYED BRINGING GERMANY INTO LINE Part - HITLER’S CULTURAL REVOLUTION DISCORDANT NOTES THE PURGE OF THE ARTS ‘AGAINST THE UN-GERMAN SPIRIT’ A ‘REVOLUTION OF DESTRUCTION’? Notes Bibliography Index Praise for The Coming of the Third Reich “Will long remain the definitive English-language account both gripping and precise An always reliable, often magisterial synthesis of a vast body of scholarship, and a frequently deft blend of narrative and interpretation, Evans’s book is an impressive achievement.” —Benjamin Schwarz, The Atlantic Monthly “Brilliant.” —Richard Cohen, The Washington Post “Richard Evans’s The Coming of the Third Reich gives the clearest and most gripping account I’ve read of German life before and during the rise of the Nazis.” —A S Byatt, The Times Literary Supplement “Richard J Evans’s Coming of the Third Reich is an enormous work of synthesis—knowledgeable and reliable vivid Evans shows how the ingredients for Nazi triumph were assembled and what was needed to make them jell: add war and depression, cook in a turbulent political atmosphere for several years and serve hot.” —Mark Mazower, The New York Times Book Review “Why, Mr Evans asks, did Germany deliver itself over to the Third Reich? Mr Evans’s answer is a brilliant and sweeping work of history He has mastered the vast scholarship on the politics, economics, ideology, and culture of Weimar Germany more important, he has synthesized all this knowledge into a lucid, absorbing dramatic and accessible book.” —Adam Kirsch, The New York Sun “A masterly and most illuminating interpretation of its subject, which makes one look forward eagerly to the volumes to come.” —Roger Morgan, The Times Literary Supplement “The generalist reader, it should be emphasized, is well served The book reads briskly, covers all important areas—social and cultural—and succeeds in its aim of giving voice to the people who lived through the years with which it deals.” —Roger K Miller, The Denver Post “Gripping Evans broadens the historic perspective to demythologize how morbidly fertile the years before World War II were as an incubator for Hitler.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) “A brilliant synthesis of German history, enumerating and elucidating the social, political, and cultural trends that made the rise of Nazism possible A peerless work Of immense importance to general readers—and even some specialists—seeking to understand the origins of the Nazi regime.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review) “Evans provides an erudite, fascinating, and sometimes painfully moving account of one society’s slow collapse into nightmare and evil.” —Timothy Giannuzzi, Calgary Herald “One finally puts down this magnificent volume thirsty, on the one hand, for the next installment in the Nazi saga yet still haunted by the questions Evans poses and so masterfully grapples with.” —Abraham Brumberg, The Nation ABOUT THE AUTHOR Richard J Evans was educated at Oxford, has taught at Columbia and the University of London, and is currently Professor of Modern History at Cambridge His books include Death in Hamburg (winner of the Wolfson Literary Award for History), In Hitler’s Shadow, Rituals of Retribution (winner of the Fraenkel Prize in Contemporary History), In Defense of History, and Lying About Hitler PENGUIN BOOKS Published by the Penguin Group Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A Penguin Group (Canada), 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3B2 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi - 110 017, India Penguin Books (NZ), cnr Airborne and Rosedale Roads, Albany, Auckland 1310, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England First published in the United States of America by The Penguin Press, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc 2004 Published in Penguin Books 2005 10 Copyright © Richard J Evans, 2003 All rights reserved Evans, Richard J The coming of the Third Reich : a history / Richard J Evans p cm Includes bibliographical references and index eISBN : 978-1-101-04058-4 Germany—History—1871-1918 Germany—History—1918-1933 National socialism— History I Title DD221.E94 2004 943.08—dc22 2003063205 The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated http://us.penguingroup.com For Matthew and Nicholas Preface 12 The beer-hall putsch: armed Nazi stormtroopers wait outside Munich city hall, November 1923, for the takeover that never came 13 Hitler relaxing, but not drinking, with his friends in a Munich beer-cellar in 1929 Gregor Strasser is on the far left 14 Hitler leads a street march at an early Nazi Party rally in Weimar, 1926, while stormtroopers clear the way A hatless Rudolf Hess can be seen to his left, with Heinrich Himmler directly behind 15 The face of fanaticism: stormtroopers listen to a speech at an open-air rally, 1930 16 The Communist threat: criminality, poverty and extreme left-wing commitment often went together, to the alarm of middle-class voters, as in this slum district of Hamburg during an election campaign in 1932 17 The futility of Brüning’s ban on uniforms (December 1930): the brownshirts wear white shirts instead, and the effect is the same 18 A pacifist poster warns in 1930 that ‘anyone who votes for the right votes for war’, and Nazism can mean only death and destruction ‘German,’ it asks rhetorically, ‘shall he grab you again?’ 19 The violence of the visual image: where the Nazis lead in 1928, other parties follow in later elections (a) ‘Smash the world-foe, International High Finance’ - Nazi election poster, 1928 (b) ‘An end to this system!’ - Communist election poster, 1932 (c) ‘Clear the way for List 1!’ - the Social Democratic worker elbows aside the Nazi and the Communist, 1930 (d) ‘Against civil war and inflation’ - the People’s Party knocks down its rivals to right and left, an example of wishful thinking from 1932 20 The choice before the electorate in September 1930: the parties target women, benefit claimants, young people and other specific social groups 21 ‘Harbinger of the Third Reich’ A Social Democratic poster warns against the violence of the Nazis, January 1931 After scrawling ‘Germany, awake!’ and daubing swastikas on the walls, the figure of Death, dressed in a brownshirt uniform and holding a pistol, kills an opponent and marches on 22 (top) Drowning out the opposition: Nazis use loudhailers to shout ‘Hail, Hitler!’ during the election campaign of March 1933 23 (below) The respectable face of Nazism: Hitler, in formal attire, meets leading businessmen shortly after his appointment as Reich Chancellor in January 1933 24 The reality on the streets: Communists and Social Democrats arrested by stormtroopers acting as ‘auxiliary police’ await their fate in a torture cellar of the brownshirts in the spring of 1933 25 The first concentration camps, 1933: Social Democrats are registered on their arrival at the Oranienburg camp 26 ‘The noble Communist in the concentration camp’ Nazi propaganda gave wide publicity to the camps but tried to give them a positive image According to this cartoon from 14 May 1933, ‘arrest’ was followed by a ‘clean-up’, a ‘cut (hair and beard)’ - the German word is the same as that for circumcision - an ‘airing’ and a ‘photograph’ In Berlin’s ‘Romanesque Café’ and the ‘Café Megalomania’, well-known haunts of modernist artists and radical writers, the supposedly Jewish regulars lament their friend’s transformation six weeks later: ‘What the poor man must have gone through!’ 27 Hitler’s cultural revolution: out of a mass of squabbling pygmies, ‘Germany’s sculptor’ creates a new giant German ready to take on the world 28 The exiles: the Nazi satirical journal The Nettle portrays the flight of Germany’s most eminent writers and intellectuals as a triumph for the German nation: while Thomas Mann works the hurdygurdy, others, mostly Jewish, slink away from Germany to his tune Among those caricatured are Albert Einstein, Lion Feuchtwanger and Karl Marx ‘What is gone, won’t return.’ 29 ‘Against the un-German spirit’: Nazi students burn Jewish and leftist books outside Berlin University on 10 May 1933 30 ‘Germans! Defend yourselves! Do not buy from Jews!’ Stormtroopers paste stickers onto a Jewish shop window during the boycott of I April 1933, while shoppers look on 31 Continuity in the National Socialist Revolution: a postcard from 1933 draws a direct line from Frederick the Great of Prussia through Bismarck to Hitler ... Copyright © Richard J Evans, 2003 All rights reserved Evans, Richard J The coming of the Third Reich : a history / Richard J Evans p cm Includes bibliographical references and index eISBN : 978-1- 101- 04058-4... produced major works on the collapse of the Weimar Republic and the Nazi seizure of power.34 In the 1970s and 1980s the focus shifted to the history of the years 1933 to 1939 (the subject of the second... history of the Third Reich It tells the story of the origins of the Third Reich in the nineteenth-century Bismarckian Empire, the First World War and the bitter postwar years of the Weimar Republic