HISTORY 640: GERMAN NATIONAL SOCIALISM Prof. Jackson San Francisco State University Fall 2005 Thursday 16:10-18:55. HSS 152 Office: Science 224 Hours: Tuesday, Thursday 10:00-11:30 Phone: (415) 338-6184 e-mail address: [email protected] web page: http://bss.sfsu.edu/jacksonc
The enormity of the crimes of the National Socialist regime and the enormous amount of literature on them makes this a challenging topic historiographically. It will be quite possibly the toughest class you will take as an undergraduate. I hope it will also be the most rewarding.
One question that might guide the class is how one should write the history of the Nazi regime. How can one approach a historical topic with "sympathy" when it is so morally repugnant? Can or should the historian write the history of Germany from 1933 to 1945 in the classical Rankean fashion "as it really was," i.e., without moral judgments? We will trace the evolution of postwar historiography and how it has evolved from treating “the German catastrophe” as being squarely within the continuity of German history, to other theories that have cast doubt upon the ease with which some social scientists have treated the German people as having trod a “special path” (Sonderweg). We will also examine the functionalist/intentionalist debate that has dominated study of the Third Reich for the last twenty years, as well as the limitations of those approaches. The powerful moral questions that this topic raises should not be shirked in discussion, but a strong background in the facts should precede such a discussion.
Requirements: reading, participation, two critical book reviews (each worth 10%), a written outline and critical bibliography, an oral presentation (worth 10%) and a research paper, approximately 20 pages in length (worth 70%). One of the two critical book reviews will be on a monograph related to your research; the other will be on another book not related to your research, and not one of the common readings. Please consult with the instructor regarding both reviews.
Graduate students will be required to produce one additional book review on a topic not directly related to your research.
Required reading:
Blackbourn, David and Eley, Geoff, The Peculiarities of German History Christopher Browning, Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution Sebastian Haffner, Defying Hitler John Lukacs, The Hitler of History Charles S. Maier, The Unmasterable Past Jackson Spielvogel, Hitler and Nazi Germany 5th ed. Henry Ashby Turner, Jr., Thirty Days to Power (Addison-Wesley) Additional materials will be photocopied to available electronically.
The following two-volume collection of documents is on reserve in the library; if you wish to purchase it, there is now a four-volume version, available most easily through on-line bookstores. Jeremy Noakes and Geoffrey Pridham, eds. Nazism: A History in Documents and Eyewitness Accounts, 1919-1945, 2 vols. (New York: Shocken, 1988). For further suggestions on historical literature, consult with the instructor and consult Helen Kehr and Janet Langmaid, comps., The Nazi Era, 1919-1945 (London: Mansell, 1982), which is also on reserve. More recently, Paul Madden, comp., Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Epoch (Lanham, 1998) Z8409.6 .M33 1998. For an excellent overview of the historiography of the Third Reich, see Ian Kershaw, The Nazi Dictatorship, 4th ed. (London: Arnold, 2000).
Discussion Topics:
Week 1 (8/25): Introduction Week 2 (9/1): Origins of Nazism Reading: Geoff Eley and David Blackbourn, The Peculiarities of German History, entire Spielvogel, Introduction Optional: George Mosse, The Crisis of German Ideology Ralf Dahrendorf, Society and Democracy in Germany (New York: Norton, 1967), chaps.1-4, 8, 9, 12, 13, 21, 23, 24, 25. Week 3 (9/8): Library session
Week 4 (9/15): Weimar Germany and the Machtergreifung Reading: Henry Ashby Turner, Jr., Hitler’s Thirty Days to Power, entire Sebastian Haffner, Defying Hitler, entire Spielvogel, chaps.2-3 Eberhard Jackel, "Hitler Comes to Power," in Hitler in History (Hanover: University Press of New England, 1984), pp.1-22. Optional: William Sheridan Allen, The Nazi Seizure of Power Noakes & Pridham, 1:7-187.
Week 5 (9/22): Adolf Hitler Reading: John Lukacs, The Hitler of History entire Spielvogel, chap.5 Optional: Robert G.L. Waite, The Psychopathic God: Hitler; Ron Rosenbaum, Explaining Hitler, Ian Kershaw, Hitler: Hubris (1997), Hitler: Nemesis (2000). Preliminary research plans due
Week 6 (9/29): Behemoth: The Shape of the Nazi State Reading: Spielvogel, chap.4 Noakes & Pridham, 1:195-315. Optional: Martin Broszat, The Hitler State; Karl Dietrich Bracher, The Nazi Dictatorship; Franz Neumann, Behemoth First book review due
Week 7 (10/6): Conformity and Confrontation: Nazi Society Reading: Spielvogel, chap.6; Noakes & Pridham, 1:316-470, 568-598. Optional: Detlev J.K. Peukert, Inside Nazi Germany; Robert Gellately, The Gestapo and German Society; David Bankier; The Germans and the Final Solution; Marlis Steinert; Hitler’s War and the Germans; Ian Kershaw; Popular Opinion And Political Dissent In The Third Reich, Bavaria, 1933-1945; Pierre Ayçoberry, The Social History of the Third Reich, 1933-1945
Week 8 (10/13): Foreign Policy Reading: Spielvogel, chap.7 Noakes & Pridham, 2:648-696. Optional: Andreas Hillgruber, Germany and the Two World Wars (1981); Klaus Hildebrand, The Foreign Policy of the Third Reich; Gerhard Weinberg, The Foreign Policy of Hitler’s Germany (2 vols.).
Week 9 (10/20): Wartime and Resistance Reading: Spielvogel, chap. 8 Film: “The Restless Conscience” Noakes & Pridham, 2:697-874.
Week 10 (10/27): The Final Solution I Reading: Browning, Ordinary Men, entire. Spielvogel, chap. 9 Noakes & Pridham, 2:922-1208. Optional: consult with instructor
Week 11 (11/3): The Final Solution II Film: “The Wannsee Conference” Second book review due
Week 12 (11/10): Mastering the Unmasterable: History and the German Nation Reading: Charles S. Maier, The Unmasterable Past: History, Holocaust, and German National Identity (1988) entire. Spielvogel, chap.10 Optional: Ian Buruma, The Wages of Guilt
Weeks 13, 14: Research reports; final paper due December 8th