The Fateful Alliance

German Conservatives and Nazis in 1933: The Machtergreifung in a New Light
1. Auflage 2009
ISBN: 978-1-84545-680-1
Verlag: Berghahn Books

Buch, Englisch, 372 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm, Gewicht: 565 g

On 30 January 1933, Alfred Hugenberg's conservative German National People's Party (DNVP) formed a coalition government with the Nazi Party, thus enabling Hitler to accede to the chancellorship. This book analyzes in detail the complicated relationship between Conservatives and Nazis and offers a re-interpretation of the Nazi seizure of power - the decisive months between 30 January and 14 July 1933. The Machtergreifung is characterized here as a period of all-pervasive violence and lawlessness with incessant conflicts between Nazis and German Nationals and Nazi attacks on the conservative Bürgertum, a far cry from the traditional depiction of the takeover as a relatively bloodless, virtually sterile assumption of power by one vast impersonal apparatus wresting control from another. The author scrutinizes the revolutionary character of the Nazi seizure of power, the Nazis' attacks on the conservative Bürgertum and its values, and National Socialism's co-optation of conservative symbols of state power to serve radically new goals, while addressing the issue of why the DNVP was complicit in this and paradoxically participated in eroding the foundations of its very own principles and bases of support.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Beck, Hermann

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Weltgeschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Deutsche Geschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Preface

Introduction

Chapter 1. Pragmatists versus Fundamentalists: The DNVP in the Weimar Republic, 1918-1933

Chapter 2. Uneasy Partners: The Relationship between the DNVP and the Nazis, 30 January-5 March

Chapter 3. Conservatives and the NSDAP during the "National Revolution" of March 1933

Chapter 4. The Nazis and the Conservative Bürgertum: A Clash of Worlds

Chapter 5. Between the Dictates of Conscience and Poltical Expediency: The DNVP and Anti-Semitism

Chapter 6. Rebellion against the Inevitable: The Tribulations of Spring 1933

Chapter 7. Ignominious Demise: Defections, Prohibitions, and Final Dissolution

Epilogue

Appendix

Select Bibliography

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Beck, Hermann
Hermann Beck is Professor of History at the University of Miami, where he teaches German and Modern European History. He has been a member of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton and a Fellow at the Berliner Historische Kommission. The author of The Origins of the Authoritarian Welfare State in Prussia: Conservatives, Bureaucracy, and the Social Question, 1815-1870, he has also contributed articles to American and European journals, including among others, The Journal of Modern History, The Journal of Contemporary History, Central European History, and German History.

Hermann Beck is Professor of History at the University of Miami, where he teaches German and Modern European History. He has been a member of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton and a Fellow at the Berliner Historische Kommission. The author of The Origins of the Authoritarian Welfare State in Prussia: Conservatives, Bureaucracy, and the Social Question, 1815-1870, he has also contributed articles to American and European journals, including among others, The Journal of Modern History, The Journal of Contemporary History, Central European History, and German History.