histopry

LECTURE NOTES, GERMANY AND EUROPE, 1871-1945

HI 224
Raffael Scheck

A: Introduction

A.1. Germany and Europe - The Debate on German Peculiarities

A.2. Previous History

A.3. The Road to National Unification

• Germany under Napoleon
  
• Nationalism as a liberal cause
  
• The revolution of 1848
  
• Industrial take-off, 1850-1870
  
• Bismarck
  
• The wars against Denmark and Austria
  
• The Franco-German war

B: The Second Empire until 1914

B.1. The Bismarckian Empire, 1871-1890

• The constitutional order
  
• The Junkers
  
• The South Germans
  
• The Catholics
  
• The liberals
  
• The workers
  
• The national minorities
  
• Living in the Empire
  
• Foreign policy

B.2. World Politics and Domestic Challenges, 1890-1914

• The "New Course"
  
• New factors in foreign policy
  
• The "place in the sun"

B.3. Fleet Building and International Conflicts

• Basic options
  
• Tirpitz's commitment to battleships
  
• The navy laws
  
• Tirpitz's strategic program
  
• The domestic goals of the Tirpitz Plan
  
• The failure of the Tirpitz Plan
  
• Conclusions

B.4. Socialists, Jews, and Women in the Prewar Years

• The Social Democrats
  
• The Jews
  
• The women's movement
  
• Conclusions

C: The First World War, 1914-1918

C.1. German Responsibility for the Outbreak of the War

• The Importance of the War 1914-1918
  
• Germany in 1914
  
• The unfolding of events, 28 June to 4 August 1914
  
• Origins of the war
  
• German war guilt?

C.2. Military Operations and Plans for German Domination of Europe

• Public reaction to war
  
• The initial operations
  
• The prospective of a long war
  
• Trench warfare
  
• German war tactics
  
• War aims

C.3. Society and Politics under the Strains of War

• The failure of compromise
  
• The home front

C.4. From Victory to Defeat and Revolution: 1918

• Political origins of the revolution
  
• Social origins of the revolution
  
• The "incomplete" revolution

D: The Weimar Republic

D.1. The Treaty of Versailles

• Versailles and German expectations
  
• Wilson's Fourteen Points
  
• The peace conference
  
• Evaluation

D.2. Germany's First Democratic Constitution

• Weimar's failure in historical perspective
  
• The chaotic winter months 1918-1919
  
• The elections to the National Assembly
  
• The Constitution

D.3. The Republic Besieged, 1918-1923

• The Spartacist uprising
  
• Revolution in Munich
  
• Right-wing putschism

D.4. CHRONOLOGY, 1920-1929

D.5. Weimar Culture

D.6. The Rise of the Nazis and Communists

• Introduction
  
• The Communists
  
• The DNVP (German National People's Party)
  
• The NSDAP (German National Socialist Worker's Party)

D.7. The Breakdown of the Republic, 1930-1933

• Central questions
  
• The role of women in the Nazi success
  
• Explanations for the failure of the Republic
  
• Concluding remarks

E: The Third Reich

E.1. Establishing a Dictatorship: The Stabilization of Nazi Power

E.2. Building up German Hegemony in Central Europe, 1933-1938

• Overview
  
• The start of Hitler's foreign policy
  
• France's commitment to defense
  
• Hitler's first successes
  
• Anti-Communist policy
  
• Anschluß and the Munich Conference
  
• Conclusions

E.3. The Second World War

• The start of World War II
  
• A war guilt question?
  
• Blitzkrieg
  
• The campaign in Russia
  
• The ideological underpinnings of the Russian campaign
  
• Total and global war, 1941 -1945

E.4. Eugenics and Racial Mass Murder

• Preconditions: Anti-Semitism and vulgar Darwinism
  
• The first phase of racist policies (1933-1938)
  
• Pogrom, resettlement, and expulsion of the Jews (1938-1941)
  
• The first extermination programs (1939-40)
  
• The destruction of European Jewry (1941-44)
  
• The debate on the genesis of the Holocaust
  
• Questions

E.5. The Functioning of the Nazi Regime: State and Society

• The Nazi state: strong dictatorship or polycratic chaos?
  
• Opportunities for resistance
  
• Living in the Third Reich: workers and women
  
• German rule in Europe
  
• Modernism and the Nazis

E.6. National Socialism in International Comparison

• German fascism?
  
• Totalitarianism
  
• Nazism as a German Peculiarity

F: The Aftermath Of the War

• New beginnings
  
• Germany at the "Hour Zero"
  
• The aims of the victors
  
• Coming to terms with the past

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