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Academic Year 2004/2005

Inside Nazi Germany, 1933-1945
HIST 263 SP

This lecture/discussion course seeks to give a firm historical grounding in the processes that led to Hitler¿s rise to power, the nature of the National Socialist regime, and the origins and implementation of policies of aggression and genocide. The basic premise of this course is that National Socialism was from the outset driven by a belligerent and genocidal logic. The course will therefore critically analyze the racial, eugenic and geopolitical ideology of National Socialism and the policies of discrimination, conquest, economic exploitation and extermination that followed from it. At the same time, the role of structural factors in explaining these outcomes will also be explored in great depth. We will analyze how German society was shaped by Nazism, considering conformity and opposition in the lives of ordinary people in both peacetime and war. The course seeks to impart an awareness of the complex of factors that produced a regime of unprecedented destructiveness and horror, and it aims to develop a critical understanding of the ongoing problems of interpretation that accompany its history. As importantly, we will consider the continued relevance of the legacy of National Socialism and the Holocaust to our evaluation of national and international affairs in the twenty-first century.

MAJOR READINGS

Omer Bartov, ed., THE HOLOCAUST: ORIGINS, IMPLEMENTATION, AFTERMATH (London and New York: Routledge, 2000).
Micheal Burleigh and Wolfgang Wippermann, THE RACIAL STATE: GERMANY 1933-1945 (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991).
Sebastian Haffner, THE MEANING OF HITLER, trans. Ewald Osers (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1979).
Ian Kershaw, THE NAZI DICTATORSHIP: PROBLEMS AND PERSPECTIVES OF INTERPRETATION, 4th ed. (London and New York: Edward Arnold, 2000).
Detlev J. K. Peukert, INSIDE NAZI GERMANY: CONFORMITY, OPPOSITION AND RACISIM IN EVERYDAY LIFE, trans. by Richard Deveson (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1982).

EXAMINATIONS AND ASSIGNMENTS

1.) 10% attendance and participation
2.) 30% three short papers
3.) 30% midterm exam
4.) 30% final exam

COURSE FORMAT: Lecture/Discussion

REGISTRATION INFORMATION

Level: UGRD    Credit: 1    Gen Ed Area Dept: SBS HIST    Grading Mode: Graded   

Prerequisites: NONE

SECTION 01

Instructor(s): Grimmer-Solem,Erik    
Times: ..T.R.. 10:30AM-11:50AM;     Location: PAC002;
Reserved Seats:    (Total Limit: 40)
SR. major: 15   Jr. major: 10
SR. non-major: 5   Jr. non-major: 5   SO: 5   FR: 0

Special Attributes:
Links to Web Resources For This Course.

Last Updated on MAR-21-2005

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