This book, first published in 1981, is a study of the social and political sources of amoral political rule in modern times. Only a moral indifference unparalleled in history made the Holocaust possible, and understanding this requires an understanding of the social forces that produced a national amorality among Germany's elites.

1. Introduction 2. Why Moral Indifference? 3. On the Cultural and Social Sources of Moral Indifference in a Nation That Failed 4. Value Dissensus in 'German' Society 5. One-Dimensional National Elites: Impressions from the Pages of History 6. State and Society in Wilhelminian Germany: The Birth of Mass Politics 7. Weimar and After: The Politics of Ideological Militancy 8. The Nazi New Order: Institutionalized Disorder 9. Toward a Social Theory of Moral Indifference