A history of the anti-Jewish policies of Nazi Germany, focusing on the victims' attitudes, reactions, and fate. Describes discrimination against Jews (and "Mischlinge") in the economic, social, cultural, and legal spheres, and the gradual process of segregation, isolation, and compulsory emigration. Gives examples of specific cases of persecution, and of the Jews' reactions. Discusses the extent to which the German elites - Churches, universities, leaders in the economic, political, and cultural spheres - shared in the Nazi antisemitic ideology and condoned Nazi policies. Among the traditional elites and the general populace, there were varying degrees of compliance with anti-Jewish attitudes, but they shied away from violence. Describes the development of German racial antisemitism from the 19th century, which emphasized the mythic dimensions of race and the sacredness of Aryan blood. This fused with a religious vision of a German (or Aryan) Christianity, and led to what can be called "redemptive antisemitism". Emphasizes Hitler's role and the function of his ideology in the genesis and implementation of the anti-Jewish measures. In his worldview, the Jew was dehistoricized and transposed into an abstract principle of evil. In the confrontation between an immutable evil (Jews) and an immutable good (Aryans), the outcome could only be envisioned in religious terms: perdition or redemption. For Hitler, the struggle against the Jews was the basis of his understanding of history, politics, and political action. Yet, his ideological fanaticism was tempered by pragmatic calculation. It is the relationship between the uncommon and the ordinary, the fusion of the widely-shared murderous potentialities in the world and the peculiar frenzy of the Nazi apocalyptic drive against the mortal enemy, the Jew, that give universal significance and historical distinctiveness to the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question".

A groundbreaking book that gathers key wartime intelligence reports During the Second World War, three prominent members of the Frankfurt School—Franz Neumann, Herbert Marcuse, and Otto Kirchheimer—worked as intelligence analysts for the Office of Strategic Services, the wartime forerunner of the CIA. This book brings together their most important intelligence reports on Nazi Germany, most of them published here for the first time. These reports provide a fresh perspective on Hitler's regime and the Second World War, and a fascinating window on Frankfurt School critical theory. They develop a detailed analysis of Nazism as a social and economic system and the role of anti-Semitism in Nazism, as well as a coherent plan for the reconstruction of postwar Germany as a democratic political system with a socialist economy. These reports played a significant role in the development of postwar Allied policy, including denazification and the preparation of the Nuremberg Trials. They also reveal how wartime intelligence analysis shaped the intellectual agendas of these three important German-Jewish scholars who fled Nazi persecution prior to the war. Secret Reports on Nazi Germany features a foreword by Raymond Geuss as well as a comprehensive general introduction by Raffaele Laudani that puts these writings in historical and intellectual context.

Imperial Germany focuses on the domestic political developments of the period, putting them into context through a balanced guide to the economic and social background, culture and foreign policy. This important study explores the tensions caused within an empire which was formed through war, against the prevailing liberal spirit of the age and poses many questions among them: * Was the desire to unify Germany the cause of the aggressive foreign policy leading to the First World War? * To what extent was Bismarck's Second Reich the forerunner of Hitler's Third? * Did Bismarck's authoritarian rule permanently hinder the political development of Germany? Recent debates raised by German scholarship are made accessible to English speaking readers, and the book summarises the important controversies and competing interpretations of imperial German history.

This book illustrates the rise of modern Judaism through the social and intellectual history of the Jews in Germany. It covers three centuries, up until the violent suppression of the last spark of visible Jewish spiritual-intellectual life in Germany during the Second World War. As a background understanding of this intellectual development, the political, economic, and social events of this three-century-long development are repeatedly drawn upon. This book shows the significance of German Jewry in Jewish history.

Few figures of interwar Germany were as influential as Leopold Schwarzschild, the brilliant editor of the liberal magazine 'Das Tage-Buch'. In the uncertain years of the Weimar Republic, Schwarzschild became famous for his perceptive political analyses and critique of the economic policies of successive governments in the twilight of Germany's first experiment with democracy. When he was forced to emigrate in 1933, following Hitler's rise to power, he pursued his analysis of developments in Germany from Paris, where he resumed publication of his journal under the new name 'Das Neue Tage-Buch', while also mounting a furious attack on the European powers taken by surprise by the Nazi ascendancy. 'One thing is already beyond question today...', he wrote in the spring of 1933, '...part of the new era is an unremitting descent into some kind of military conflagration'. Winston Churchill, a great admirer of Schwarzschild, made one of his later books required reading for the War Cabinet, yet his campaigning journalism has never before appeared in English. In bringing his writings to an English-speaking readership, Chronicle of a Downfall will restore Leopold Schwarzschild to his rightful place as one of the most poignant chroniclers of the fall of German democracy and the descent of Europe into World War II.

The unification of Germany and the decline of superpower conflict in Europe has heightened interest in the "new" Germany. From Bundesrepublik to Deutschland: German Politics after Unification examines how political scientists have historically treated Germany and explores the issues and approaches needed to accommodate the increased importance of the country within Europe. Structured by issue areas, this volume includes sections on political economy; women in politics; inner-German relations and the reintegration of the western and eastern regions of the country; political behavior; Germany and the European Community; security issues; and the role of Germany in the field of comparative politics. Each chapter examines the development of relevant literature and is followed by an essay that charts new areas for, and approaches to, research.