Suchergebnisse

The German party system -- Glossary of German terms -- The serpent's egg -- Hitler and the chaos of postwar Germany -- On the fringe, 1925-28 -- Into the mainstream -- Making Germany great again -- The Nazis hit a wall -- The impossible happens -- Seizing power -- Consolidation of power -- The people's community -- A racial revolution -- Courting disaster -- Early success -- Hitler turns west -- The crusade against Judeo-Bolshevism -- Holocaust and total war -- Apocalypse.

One of our most enduring national myths surrounds the men and women who fought in the so-called "Good War." The Greatest Generation, we're told by Tom Brokaw and others, fought heroically, then returned to America happy, healthy and well-adjusted. They quickly and cheerfully went on with the business of rebuilding their lives. In this shocking and hauntingly beautiful book, historian Thomas Childers shatters that myth. He interweaves the intimate story of three families--including his own--with a decades' worth of research to paint an entirely new picture of the war's aftermath. Drawing on government documents, interviews, oral histories and diaries, he reveals that 10,000 veterans a month were being diagnosed with psycho-neurotic disorder (now known as PTSD). Alcoholism, homelessness, and unemployment were rampant, leading to a skyrocketing divorce rate. Many veterans bounced back, but their struggle has been lost in a wave of nostalgia that threatens to undermine a new generation of returning soldiers. Novelistic in its telling and impeccably researched, Childers's book is a stark reminder that the price of war is unimaginably high. The consequences are human, not just political, and the toll can stretch across generations.

One of our great national myths surrounds the men and women who fought in World War II. The Greatest Generation, we're told, fought heroically, then returned to America happy, healthy and well-adjusted. They quickly and cheerfully went on with rebuilding their lives. Here, historian Thomas Childers shatters that myth. He interweaves the intimate story of three families--including his own--with a decade's worth of research to paint an entirely new picture of the war's aftermath. Drawing on government documents, interviews, oral histories and diaries, he reveals that 10,000 veterans a month were being diagnosed with psycho-neurotic disorder (now known as PTSD). Alcoholism, homelessness, and unemployment were rampant, leading to a skyrocketing divorce rate. Many veterans bounced back, but their struggle has been lost in a wave of nostalgia that threatens to undermine a new generation of returning soldiers. This book is a stark reminder that the price of war is unimaginably high.--From publisher description

Contemplatingwith dread the slide toward war between Japan and the United States in the autumn of 1941, Joseph Grew, the American ambassador to Tokyo, noted gloomily in his diary: "Facilis descensus averni est"—the descent into Hell is easy. Events in Europe and China had already given eloquent testimony to that grim axiom, confirming all too clearly that among the first casualties of war are peacetime notions of morality. Grew's foreboding was more than justified. Before the Second World War would come to a close in the summer of 1945, it had become the most destructive conflict in human history, with fifty-five million dead, millions more broken, either physically or psychologically, thirty million refugees, and still millions more who had simply vanished. Continents had been ravaged, great cities laid waste, and a tidal wave of destruction left behind a landscape of unparalleled human suffering. A war that began with the major powers pledging to refrain from "the bombardment from the air of civilian populations or unfortified cities"—Hitler piously committed Germany to conduct the war "in a chivalrous and humane manner"—ended with a mushroom cloud over Nagasaki.

As we enter a new decade, it is virtually impossible to pick up a historical journal, browse through a book store, or attend a scholarly conference without confronting the growing presence of "language" or "discourse" in historical inquiry. Explications of, disputes within, and challenges to various literary and linguistic theories, especially poststructuralist approaches, ring out from virtually every corner of scholarly endeavor. Yet, while our counterparts in French, English and, increasingly, American history have taken up poststructuralist theories and methods in dealing with the past, those of us writing German history have remained for the most part caught on a conceptual roundabout, uncertain whether to follow familiar, proven routes or fight through the resistant professional traffic and to take the "linguistic turn" into uncharted territory.

Ziel der Arbeit ist es, die Unterstützung des deutschen Nationalsozialismus durch die neue Mittelklasse quantitativ und qualitativ zu erfassen. Auf der Basis von Wahlanalysen kommt der Autor zu dem Schluß, daß Angestellte und Beamte aus unterschiedlichen Motivationen heraus in Krisenzeiten die Nationalsozialisten unterstützten, aber keinesfalls ein so konstantes Wählerpotential bildeten wie der alte Mittelstand. Zur Stützung dieser These werden die Entwicklung der wirtschaftlichen Lage dieser Berufsgruppen in der Weimarer Republik und die Propaganda des Nationalsozialismus im Hinblick auf Angestellte und Beamte untersucht. (BG)