This important addition to modern German studies treats the Weimar Republic and the Third Reich as a continuum, exploring its themes through the 1920s and 1930s without artificial breaks. John Hiden looks at key issues in political, social and economic history, and in international relations.

Acknowledgements Abbreviations and Acronyms

Introduction

1. Policy for the sake of the Republic
The conditions of peace
A note on German 'revisionism'
The illusion of East-West choices 1921-23 Stresemann and the primacy of Westpolitik Stresemann and Russia
Trade and Ostpolitik
The role of the Auslandsdeutsche

2. Democratic Prospects
The Weimar constitution

3. The Parties
The German Socialist Party The Centre Party
The German Democratic Party
The German People's Party
The German Nationalist People's Party The German Communist Party
The National Socialist German Workers' Party

4. The Practice of Parliament
Coalition patterns
Interlude - the election of President Hindenburg

Sectional interests in politics
An indecent burial 1930-33

5. Governmental Plurality in the 'Single-Party State'
The debate on polycracy The practice of polycracy Hitler in government

6. Life at the Top; State Economic Policy and Big
Business
Some economic facts of life
Governmental strategies in the Weimar Republic
Briining's economic policy
The view from the board room; big business, the Republic
and the rise of Hitler
' Governmental strategies in the Third Reich
Big business and 'full fascism'
The economy and war preparations
7. Drudgery for Germany; The Path from Worker to
Soldier of Labour
Trade unions and the law
The decline of the unions
The German Labour Front
The conditions of work
Labour in the Third Reich
8. Feeding the Reich; Farmers and Politics
The strains within German agriculture
NSDAP and agriculture before 1933
Darn 's work and ideas
The Reich Food Estate and the Law of Hereditary
Entailment
The burdens of honour
9. The Middle Classes; Angst and Reality
Case study - civil servants
The NSDAP's appeal to the Mittelstand
Expectation and coordination
10. Policing the 'People's Community'
The Gestapo; Limits to policing

lV

Qualifying the 'SS State' The Volksgemeinschaft
Resistance without the people

11. The 'Racial War' and its Legacy The genesis of the 'Final Solution' The challenge of explaining genocide Living with genocide

12. The Quest for German Hegemony in Europe
Policy before power
The vain pursuit of Britain
The imperatives of foreign trade Hitler's obsession with Russia Strategy and foreign policy
The limits to 'opportunism'

Bibliographical Essay
Index