The period from defeat in the First World War to defeat in the Second World War saw Germany experience two political extremes: its first attempt at democracy, with the abdication of the Kaiser and the proclamation of a republic on 9 November 1918, and one of the most reprehensible dictatorships of the modern age, following the appointment of Hitler as Chancellor on 30 January 1933. With the unleashing of a second world war, and the purposeful mass murder of around six million human beings in unprecedented industrial genocide, the collapse from democracy into dictatorship has understandably aroused the most virulent historical controversies. The years since 1945 have to an extent been lived in the shadow of the earlier period, but also of course in their own right with their own peculiarities, none more pronounced than the creation of two Germanies, the FRG and GDR, one democracy, one dictatorship, ideological foes in the Cold War. The controversies attaching to the later period are (as yet?) less heated but the questions are no less insistent.

It is extraordinarily difficult for any single historian to do justice to changes so varied, complex and controversial. Instead, in this book an international team of scholars, experts in their fields, have collaborated to produce an innovative work that blends the basic guidance of a conventional textbook with analysis of central issues in political, social, economic and cultural history.