HISTORY OF THE THIRD REICH

LECTURE 1:

AN INTRODUCTION TO NAZI CRIMINALITY (1933-1945)
& A BRIEF HISTORY OF GERMANY (98 CE - 1918)

Five major preconditions would probably be essential in producing a movement similar to National Socialism:

1. The existence of a hybrid society, half-feudal and half-industrial with long-standing militaristic and authoritarian traditions.

2. The nationalization of the masses as an instrument of social control and international aggression.

3. The respectability of biological-racial beliefs.

4. The traumatic effect of extreme stress caused by military defeat and economic ruin.

5. The convergence of sociopathic personalities and xenophobic movements.

Klaus P. Fischer, Nazi Germany: A New History, (New York: Continuum, 1995.) p. 19

Key Terms

SS Schutzstaffel ("special staff" or "guards detachment")

Reichsfuhrer-SS (RFSS) Heinrich Himmler (1900 – 1945)

SS-Ahnenerbe (ancestral heritage research & study institute)

Natzweiler-Struthof

Germania: The Origins and Situation of the Germans (99 CE)
by Cornelius Tacitus (55 - 117 CE)

Battle of Teutoburg Forest (Teutoburgwald) (9 CE)

Quinctilius Varus

Arminius ( = Herman Hermann Herrmann) Herman the German

Volk Volksgemeinschaft Volkgenossen

Alfred Rosenberg Myth of the 20th Century

Blood and Soil Blut und Boden

The "Five Revolts" of Germany Against Western Civilization (From Teutoburg to the Third Reich)

Charlemagne baptizes the last of the resisting wild Saxon Pagan tribes (772 CE ) [second revolt]

First Reich: The Holy Roman Empire (962 – 1806)

Friedrich Barbarossa

Teutonic Knights

Lebensraum

Martin Luther (1483 - 1546) [third revolt]

Thirty Year War ( 1618 - 1648)

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Peace of Westphalia (1648)

The Rise of Prussia - 1700s - Fredrick II (The Great) - The Military State

Wars of Independence (1806 – 1813) - Napoleon defeats Prussia and Austria [fourth revolt]

Metternich Period 1815 - 1848 (Austria Dominates)

Johann Gottlieb Fichte

Ernst Moritz Arndt

Fredrick Ludwick "Father" Jahn Deutsche Volkstum

Rebirth of Prussia - Prussia vs. Austria

Second Reich 1871 - 1918 (Prussia Dominates)

Otto von Bismark (1815 – 1898)

Franco-Prussian War 1870 – 1871

Kaiser Wilhelm I reigns 1871 – 1888

Kaiser Wilhelm II reigns 1888 – 1918

Adolf Hitler born in Austria, April 30, 1889

World War One (The Great War) 1914-1918

Recommended Readings:

Peter Viereck, The Roots of The Nazi Mind

Fritz Nova, Alfred Rosenberg: Nazi Theorist of the Holocaust

Michael Burleigh, Death and Deliverance: ‘Euthanasia’ in Germany 1900-1945

Michael Burleigh, The Third Riech: A New History

Christopher Hale, Himmler’s Crusade: The Nazi Expedition to Find the Origins of the Aryan Race

Peter S. Wells, The Battle That Stopped Rome

Simon Schama, Landscape and Memory

Malcolm Pasley (editor), Germany: A Companion to German Studies (2nd Edition)

Claudia Koonz, The Nazi Conscience

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