List of Abbreviations Introduction: The Nazi Seizure of Power in Historical and Historiographical Perspective Hermann Beck and Larry Eugene Jones Chapter 1. Taming the Nazi Beast: Kurt von Schleicher and the End of the Weimar Republic Larry Eugene Jones Chapter 2. Ausnahmezustand, Staatsnotstandsplan, and Ermächtigungsgesetz: Reappraising Carl Schmitt’s Political Constitutionalism and the Demise of Weimar Joseph W. Bendersky Chapter 3. Ludwig Kaas and the End of the German Center Party Martin Menke Chapter 4. The Nazi Seizure of Power in Bavaria and the Demise of the Bavarian People’s Party Winfried Becker Chapter 5. German Big Business and the Nazi Revolution, 1933–34 Peter Hayes Chapter 6. Violence against ‘Ostjuden’ in the Spring of 1933 and the Reaction of German Authorities Hermann Beck Chapter 7. The SA in the Gleichschaltung: The Context of Power and Violence Bruce B. Campbell Chapter 8. Nationalist Socialism against National Socialism?: Perceptions of Nazism and Anti-Nazi Strategies in the Circle of the Neue Blätter für den Sozialismus, 1930–34 Stefan Vogt Chapter 9. Nationalism, Socialism, and Organized Labor’s Response to the Dissolution of the Weimar Republic William L. Patch, Jr. Chapter 10. From Collegiality to the Führerprinzip: The 1933 Introduction of the Episcopacy in the Hamburg Landeskirche Rainer Hering Chapter 11. Friedrich von Bodelschwingh and the Protestant Appeasement of the Nazi Regime, 1933–34 Edward Snyder Chapter 12. In Search of Allies: Catholic Conservatives, the Alliance of Catholic Germans, and the Nazi Regime, 1933–34 Larry Eugene Jones and Kevin P. Spicer Chapter 13. German Youth between Euphoria and Resistance: Political Coercion and the Coordination of German Youth André Postert Chapter 14. “German Youth, Your Leader!”: How National Socialism Entered Elementary Schools in 1933 Katharine Kennedy Conclusion: Reaffirming the Value of Political History Hermann Beck and Larry Eugene Jones Index
Though often depicted as a rapid political transformation, the Nazi seizure of power was in fact a process that extended from the appointment of the Papen cabinet in the early summer of 1932 through the Röhm blood purge two years later. Across fourteen rigorous and carefully researched chapters, From Weimar to Hitler offers a compelling collective investigation of this critical period in modern German history. Each case study presents new empirical research on the crisis of Weimar democracy, the establishment of the Nazi dictatorship, and Hitler’s consolidation of power. Together, they provide multiple perspectives on the extent to which the triumph of Nazism was historically predetermined or the product of human miscalculation and intent.
Larry Eugene Jones is Professor of Modern European History at Canisius College in Buffalo, New York. He is the author of German Liberalism and the Dissolution of the Weimar Party System, 1918-1933 (1988), and Hitler versus Hindenburg (2015).
