The Nazi State and German Society: A Brief History with Documents

PART I: INTRODUCTION: UNDERSTANDING NAZI GERMANY
PART II: THE DOCUMENTS
THE WEIMAR REPUBLIC AND THE RISE OF THE NAZI PARTY
Adolf Hitler, On His Hopes for Germany in 1914 from
Mein Kampf, 1925
Magnus Hirschfeld, Sexual Catastrophes, 1926
Elsa Herrmann, This is the New Woman, 1929
Adolf Hitler, Anti-Semitic Speech, April 22, 1922
Adolf Hitler, On the Use of Mass Meetings from Mein Kampf, 1925
Elsbeth Zander, Tasks Facing the German Woman, January 23, 1926
Adolf Hitler, Adolph Hitler's Manifesto, September 10, 1930
Albert Speer, On Joining the Nazi Movement in 1931, 1969
Melita Maschmann, A German Teenager's Response to the Nazi
Takeover in January 1933, 1963
New York Times, Germany Ventures, January 31, 1933
Poster Critiquing Hitler, 1932
LIFE IN NAZI GERMANY
Reports on the Sources of Working-class Support for
the Nazis and the Limits to Opposition, 1935-39
Joseph Goebbels, 'The Tasks of the Ministry for Propaganda,'
March 15, 1933
William Shirer, Description of the Nazi Party Rally in Nuremberg,
September 4-5, 1934
Concordat between the Holy See and the German Reich, July 2 , 1933
Protestant Church Leaders, Declaration of Independence from
the Nazi State, October 21, 1934
Adolf Hitler, Opening Address at the House of German Art in
Munich, July 19, 1937
'Degenerate Music' Brochure, 1939
New York Times, Report on a Visit to a Reich Prison Camp,
July 26, 1933
Gabriele Herz, Description of an Early Concentration Camp for
Women, 1937
Reports on Working-class Attitudes Toward the Murder of SA leader Ernest Röhm
Adolf Hitler, Speech to the National Socialist Women's Organization,
September 8, 1934
'Healthy Parents, Healthy Children!' Poster, 1934
Jutta Rüdiger, On the League of German Girls, 1939
Peter Gay, A Jewish Teenager Remembers the 1936 Berlin
Olympics, 1998
Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring,
July 14, 1933
SS Security Service, Report Assessing Public Response to the Film I Accuse, January 15, 1942
Heinrich Himmler, On the Question of Homosexuality,
February 18, 1937
Heinrich Himmler, Fight against the Gypsy Nuisance,
December 8, 1938
Otto D. Tolischus and Frederick T. Birchall,
Reports Introduction of Anti-Semitic Laws
Marta Appel, Jewish Life after the Nazi Seizure of Power in
1933, 1940 -41
Inge Deutschkron, Growing up Jewish in 1930s Germany, 1978
David Buffum, Report on Kristallnacht, November 1938
GERMANY GOES TO WAR
Adolf Hitler, Speech before the Reichstag, September 1, 1939
Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of the National
Character of the German People, On the Re-Germanization of
Lost German Blood, December 1940
Melita Maschmann, A German Colonizer of Poland in 1939 or
1940 , 1963
Karl Fuchs, A German Soldier's Letters from France, 1940
Field Marshal Walter von Reichenau, Conduct of Troops in
Eastern Territories, October 10, 1941
Karl Fuchs, A German Soldier's Letters from the Eastern
Front, 1941
'Total War' Cover Illustration, 1943
Käthe Ricken, Life Under the Bombs, 1943
THE PERSECUTION OF THE JEWS AND THE 'FINAL SOLUTION'
Victor Klemperer, Reflections on the Meanings of the Yellow Star
for Jews in Germany in 1941, 1947
Jewish Cultural Association of Württemberg, On Deportation,
November 17, 1941
Ria Bröring, A German Woman's Account of Jewish Deportations,
April 23, 1942
Description of a Mass Execution of Jews in Ukraine in 1942,1945
Heinrich Himmler, Speech to SS Officers in Posen, October 4, 1943
Chaim Kaplan, In the Warsaw Ghetto, 1939-42
Hirsh Glick, Jewish Partisan Song, 1943
Ruth Kluger, A Young Girl's 'Lucky Accident' at Auschwitz in 1944, 1992
Hanna Lévy-Hass, The Bergen-Belsen Concentration
Camp, 1944-45
THE LIMITS TO RESISTANCE
National Socialist Reich Youth Leadership, Report on 'Swing'
Dancing as a Form of Resistance, 1942
Jokes about the Nazi Regime, 1940 -43
The White Rose, Resistance to the Nazi State, 1942
Fabian von Schlabrendorff, Account of the Military Conspiracy to
Assassinate Hitler, 1944
Soviet Slave Workers in Germany, Anti-Nazi Leaflet, November 27, 1944
THE LAST DAYS OF THE NAZI REGIME
Melita Maschmann, The Mobilization of Youth in the Winter 1945, 1963
Anna Schwartz, Account of the Entry of Soviet Army Troops into Danzig on March 27, 1945, 1952
Gene Currivan, Report on a Visit to a Nazi Concentration Camp Liberated by the U.S. Army, April 18, 1945
Adolf Hitler, My Political Testament, April 29, 1945

ROBERT G. MOELLER (Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley) is professor of history at the University of California, Irvine, USA. His work focuses on the history of Germany in the twentieth century, with an emphasis on social history and women's history. His books include War Stories: The Search for a Usable Past in the Federal Republic of Germany (2001), Protecting Motherhood: Women and the Family in the Politics of Postwar West Germany (1993), and German Peasants and Agrarian Politics, 1914-1924: The Rhineland and Westphalia, 1914-1924 (1986). Moeller is faculty advisor for the UCI History Project, a professional development initiative for middle and high school teachers in Orange County, California.

The effects of Nazi rule on Aryans, Jews, and other 'undesirables' are explored, along with a discussion of why so few people organized against the regime
Over 50 documents from a broad range of perspectives — including speeches, memoirs, letters, diaries, and propaganda posters  - bring this history to life and illustrate the effect of Nazi rule on German society
Document headnotes, a chronology, questions for consideration, and a selected bibliography provide pedagogical support