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Academic Year 2005/2006

Nazi Germany and the Holocaust
HIST 376 FA
Crosslistings:
GERM 296

This seminar course seeks to give a firm historical grounding in the processes that led to Hitler's rise to power, the National Socialist regime, and the origins and implementation of the Holocaust based on the latest historical research. The basic premise of this course is that National Socialism, while enabled by the failure of the Paris Peace, Weimar instability and worldwide economic depression, was from the outset driven by a belligerent and genocidal logic. The course therefore focuses on the racial and geopolitical ideology of National Socialism and the policies of conquest, domination, and extermination that followed from it, culminating in aggressive war and genocide. It also seeks to impart a critical understanding of the ongoing problems of interpretation that accompany Nazi Germany and the Holocaust and therefore an awareness of the main outlines of current debate regarding assessment of the various factors involved in these complex historical problems.

MAJOR READINGS

Omer Bartov, ed., THE HOLOCAUST: ORIGINS, IMPLEMENTATION, AFTERMATH (London and New York: Routledge, 2000).
Michael Burleigh, THE THIRD REICH: A NEW HISTORY (New York: Hill and Wang, 2000).
Ian Kershaw, THE NAZI DICTATORSHIP: PROBLEMS AND PERSPECTIVES OF INTERPRETATION, 4th ed. (London and New York: Edward Arnold, 2000).
J. Noakes and G. Pridham eds., NAZISM, 1919-1945, vol. 2: State, Economy and Society, 1933-1939 (Exeter: University of Exeter; Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Pres s, 1983-1998).
Detlev J. K. Peukert, INSIDE NAZI GERMANY: CONFORMITY, OPPOSITION AND RACISM IN EVERYDAY LIFE, Translated by Richard Deveson (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1982).

EXAMINATIONS AND ASSIGNMENTS

Your grade in this seminar will be calculated on the basis of four elements:

1.) 20% attendance, participation and quizzes
2.) 20% class presentation and written analytical summary
3.) 30% midterm essay
4.) 30% final essay

Attendance, participation, and periodic quizzes will make up 20% of your final grade. You are allowed two free absences; thereafter you begin to dip into this 20%. Once during the semester you will be asked to introduce a text to be discuss ed in class. This should take 10-15 minutes and be supported by a 750-word analytical summary that will be submitted to me on the day of your presentation. This presentation and summary will count 20% toward your final grade. Both the midterm and final grade will take the form of a take-home essay question that must be completed in five to seven double-space, typescript pages. The midterm and final essays will each make up 30% of your final grade (60% together).

COURSE FORMAT: Discussion

REGISTRATION INFORMATION

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

Prerequisites: NONE Links to Web Resources For This Course.

Last Updated on MAR-30-2006

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