Author: Nikolaus Wachsmann
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300217293
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 556
Book Description
State prisons played an indispensable part in the terror of the Third Reich, incarcerating many hundreds of thousands of men and women during the Nazi era. This important book illuminates the previously unknown world of Nazi prisons, their victims, and the judicial and penal officials who built and operated this system of brutal legal terror. Nikolaus Wachsmann describes the operation and function of legal terror in the Third Reich and brings Nazi prisons to life through the harrowing stories of individual inmates. Drawing on a vast array of archival materials, he traces the series of changes in prison policies and practice that led eventually to racial terror, brutal violence, slave labor, starvation, and mass killings. Wachsmann demonstrates that "ordinary" legal officials were ready collaborators who helped to turn courts and prisons into key components in the Nazi web of terror. And he concludes with a discussion of the whitewash of the Nazi legal system in postwar West Germany.
Hitler′s Prisons - Legal Terror in Nazi Germany
Author: Nikolaus Wachsmann
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300217293
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 556
Book Description
State prisons played an indispensable part in the terror of the Third Reich, incarcerating many hundreds of thousands of men and women during the Nazi era. This important book illuminates the previously unknown world of Nazi prisons, their victims, and the judicial and penal officials who built and operated this system of brutal legal terror. Nikolaus Wachsmann describes the operation and function of legal terror in the Third Reich and brings Nazi prisons to life through the harrowing stories of individual inmates. Drawing on a vast array of archival materials, he traces the series of changes in prison policies and practice that led eventually to racial terror, brutal violence, slave labor, starvation, and mass killings. Wachsmann demonstrates that "ordinary" legal officials were ready collaborators who helped to turn courts and prisons into key components in the Nazi web of terror. And he concludes with a discussion of the whitewash of the Nazi legal system in postwar West Germany.
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300217293
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 556
Book Description
State prisons played an indispensable part in the terror of the Third Reich, incarcerating many hundreds of thousands of men and women during the Nazi era. This important book illuminates the previously unknown world of Nazi prisons, their victims, and the judicial and penal officials who built and operated this system of brutal legal terror. Nikolaus Wachsmann describes the operation and function of legal terror in the Third Reich and brings Nazi prisons to life through the harrowing stories of individual inmates. Drawing on a vast array of archival materials, he traces the series of changes in prison policies and practice that led eventually to racial terror, brutal violence, slave labor, starvation, and mass killings. Wachsmann demonstrates that "ordinary" legal officials were ready collaborators who helped to turn courts and prisons into key components in the Nazi web of terror. And he concludes with a discussion of the whitewash of the Nazi legal system in postwar West Germany.
Hitler’s Prisons
Author: Nikolaus Wachsmann
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300228295
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 556
Book Description
State prisons played an indispensable part in the terror of the Third Reich, incarcerating many hundreds of thousands of men and women during the Nazi era. This important book illuminates the previously unknown world of Nazi prisons, their victims, and the judicial and penal officials who built and operated this system of brutal legal terror. Nikolaus Wachsmann describes the operation and function of legal terror in the Third Reich and brings Nazi prisons to life through the harrowing stories of individual inmates. Drawing on a vast array of archival materials, he traces the series of changes in prison policies and practice that led eventually to racial terror, brutal violence, slave labor, starvation, and mass killings. Wachsmann demonstrates that “ordinary” legal officials were ready collaborators who helped to turn courts and prisons into key components in the Nazi web of terror. And he concludes with a discussion of the whitewash of the Nazi legal system in postwar West Germany.
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300228295
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 556
Book Description
State prisons played an indispensable part in the terror of the Third Reich, incarcerating many hundreds of thousands of men and women during the Nazi era. This important book illuminates the previously unknown world of Nazi prisons, their victims, and the judicial and penal officials who built and operated this system of brutal legal terror. Nikolaus Wachsmann describes the operation and function of legal terror in the Third Reich and brings Nazi prisons to life through the harrowing stories of individual inmates. Drawing on a vast array of archival materials, he traces the series of changes in prison policies and practice that led eventually to racial terror, brutal violence, slave labor, starvation, and mass killings. Wachsmann demonstrates that “ordinary” legal officials were ready collaborators who helped to turn courts and prisons into key components in the Nazi web of terror. And he concludes with a discussion of the whitewash of the Nazi legal system in postwar West Germany.
KL
Author: Nikolaus Wachsmann
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 1429943726
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 637
Book Description
The “deeply researched, groundbreaking” first comprehensive history of the Nazi concentration camps (Adam Kirsch, The New Yorker). In a landmark work of history, Nikolaus Wachsmann offers an unprecedented, integrated account of the Nazi concentration camps from their inception in 1933 through their demise, seventy years ago, in the spring of 1945. The Third Reich has been studied in more depth than virtually any other period in history, and yet until now there has been no history of the camp system that tells the full story of its broad development and the everyday experiences of its inhabitants, both perpetrators and victims, and all those living in what Primo Levi called “the gray zone.” In KL, Wachsmann fills this glaring gap in our understanding. He not only synthesizes a new generation of scholarly work, much of it untranslated and unknown outside of Germany, but also presents startling revelations, based on many years of archival research, about the functioning and scope of the camp system. Closely examining life and death inside the camps, and adopting a wider lens to show how the camp system was shaped by changing political, legal, social, economic, and military forces, Wachsmann produces a unified picture of the Nazi regime and its camps that we have never seen before. A boldly ambitious work of deep importance, KL is destined to be a classic in the history of the twentieth century. Praise for KL A Wall Street Journal Best Book of 2015 A Kirkus Reviews Best History Book of 2015 Finalist for the National Jewish Book Award in the Holocaust category “[A] monumental study . . . a work of prodigious scholarship . . . with agonizing human texture and extraordinary detail . . . Wachsmann makes the unimaginable palpable. That is his great achievement.” —Roger Cohen, The New York Times Book Review “Wachsmann’s meticulously detailed history is essential for many reasons, not the least of which is his careful documentation of Nazi Germany’s descent from greater to even greater madness. To the persistent question, “How did it happen?,” Wachsmann supplies voluminous answers.” —Earl Pike, The Plain Dealer (Cleveland)
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 1429943726
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 637
Book Description
The “deeply researched, groundbreaking” first comprehensive history of the Nazi concentration camps (Adam Kirsch, The New Yorker). In a landmark work of history, Nikolaus Wachsmann offers an unprecedented, integrated account of the Nazi concentration camps from their inception in 1933 through their demise, seventy years ago, in the spring of 1945. The Third Reich has been studied in more depth than virtually any other period in history, and yet until now there has been no history of the camp system that tells the full story of its broad development and the everyday experiences of its inhabitants, both perpetrators and victims, and all those living in what Primo Levi called “the gray zone.” In KL, Wachsmann fills this glaring gap in our understanding. He not only synthesizes a new generation of scholarly work, much of it untranslated and unknown outside of Germany, but also presents startling revelations, based on many years of archival research, about the functioning and scope of the camp system. Closely examining life and death inside the camps, and adopting a wider lens to show how the camp system was shaped by changing political, legal, social, economic, and military forces, Wachsmann produces a unified picture of the Nazi regime and its camps that we have never seen before. A boldly ambitious work of deep importance, KL is destined to be a classic in the history of the twentieth century. Praise for KL A Wall Street Journal Best Book of 2015 A Kirkus Reviews Best History Book of 2015 Finalist for the National Jewish Book Award in the Holocaust category “[A] monumental study . . . a work of prodigious scholarship . . . with agonizing human texture and extraordinary detail . . . Wachsmann makes the unimaginable palpable. That is his great achievement.” —Roger Cohen, The New York Times Book Review “Wachsmann’s meticulously detailed history is essential for many reasons, not the least of which is his careful documentation of Nazi Germany’s descent from greater to even greater madness. To the persistent question, “How did it happen?,” Wachsmann supplies voluminous answers.” —Earl Pike, The Plain Dealer (Cleveland)
Hitler's Compromises
Author: Nathan Stoltzfus
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300220995
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 430
Book Description
History has focused on Hitler’s use of charisma and terror, asserting that the dictator made few concessions to maintain power. Nathan Stoltzfus, the award-winning author of Resistance of Heart: Intermarriage and the Rosenstrasse Protest in Germany, challenges this notion, assessing the surprisingly frequent tactical compromises Hitler made in order to preempt hostility and win the German people’s complete fealty. As part of his strategy to secure a “1,000-year Reich,” Hitler sought to convince the German people to believe in Nazism so they would perpetuate it permanently and actively shun those who were out of step with society. When widespread public dissent occurred at home—which most often happened when policies conflicted with popular traditions or encroached on private life—Hitler made careful calculations and acted strategically to maintain his popular image. Extending from the 1920s to the regime’s collapse, this revealing history makes a powerful and original argument that will inspire a major rethinking of Hitler’s rule.
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300220995
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 430
Book Description
History has focused on Hitler’s use of charisma and terror, asserting that the dictator made few concessions to maintain power. Nathan Stoltzfus, the award-winning author of Resistance of Heart: Intermarriage and the Rosenstrasse Protest in Germany, challenges this notion, assessing the surprisingly frequent tactical compromises Hitler made in order to preempt hostility and win the German people’s complete fealty. As part of his strategy to secure a “1,000-year Reich,” Hitler sought to convince the German people to believe in Nazism so they would perpetuate it permanently and actively shun those who were out of step with society. When widespread public dissent occurred at home—which most often happened when policies conflicted with popular traditions or encroached on private life—Hitler made careful calculations and acted strategically to maintain his popular image. Extending from the 1920s to the regime’s collapse, this revealing history makes a powerful and original argument that will inspire a major rethinking of Hitler’s rule.
The Gestapo
Author: Carsten Dams
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 019966921X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 251
Book Description
The true story of the Gestapo - the Nazis' secret police force and the most feared instrument of political terror in the Third Reich.
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 019966921X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 251
Book Description
The true story of the Gestapo - the Nazis' secret police force and the most feared instrument of political terror in the Third Reich.
Family Punishment in Nazi Germany
Author: R. Loeffel
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137021837
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 269
Book Description
In the Third Reich, political dissidents were not the only ones liable to be punished for their crimes. Their parents, siblings and relatives also risked reprisals. This concept - known as Sippenhaft – was based in ideas of blood and purity. This definitive study surveys the threats, fears and infliction of this part of the Nazi system of terror.
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137021837
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 269
Book Description
In the Third Reich, political dissidents were not the only ones liable to be punished for their crimes. Their parents, siblings and relatives also risked reprisals. This concept - known as Sippenhaft – was based in ideas of blood and purity. This definitive study surveys the threats, fears and infliction of this part of the Nazi system of terror.
Hitler's Ostkrieg and the Indian Wars
Author: Edward B. Westermann
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN: 0806157135
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 337
Book Description
As he prepared to wage his war of annihilation on the Eastern Front, Adolf Hitler repeatedly drew parallels between the Nazi quest for Lebensraum, or living space, in Eastern Europe and the United States’s westward expansion under the banner of Manifest Destiny. The peoples of Eastern Europe were, he said, his “redskins,” and for his colonial fantasy of a “German East” he claimed a historical precedent in the United States’s displacement and killing of the native population. Edward B. Westermann examines the validity, and value, of this claim in Hitler's Ostkrieg and the Indian Wars. The book takes an empirical approach that highlights areas of similarity and continuity, but also explores key distinctions and differences between these two national projects. The westward march of American empire and the Nazi conquest of the East offer clear parallels, not least that both cases fused a sense of national purpose with racial stereotypes that aided in the exclusion, expropriation, and killing of peoples. Westermann evaluates the philosophies of Manifest Destiny and Lebensraum that justified both conquests, the national and administrative policies that framed Nazi and U.S. governmental involvement in these efforts, the military strategies that supported each nation’s political goals, and the role of massacre and atrocity in both processes. Important differences emerge: a goal of annihilation versus one of assimilation and acculturation; a planned military campaign versus a confused strategy of pacification and punishment; large-scale atrocity as routine versus massacre as exception. Comparative history at its best, Westermann’s assessment of these two national projects provides crucial insights into not only their rhetoric and pronouncements but also the application of policy and ideology “on the ground.” His sophisticated and nuanced revelations of the similarities and dissimilarities between these two cases will inform further study of genocide, as well as our understanding of the Nazi conquest of the East and the American conquest of the West.
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN: 0806157135
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 337
Book Description
As he prepared to wage his war of annihilation on the Eastern Front, Adolf Hitler repeatedly drew parallels between the Nazi quest for Lebensraum, or living space, in Eastern Europe and the United States’s westward expansion under the banner of Manifest Destiny. The peoples of Eastern Europe were, he said, his “redskins,” and for his colonial fantasy of a “German East” he claimed a historical precedent in the United States’s displacement and killing of the native population. Edward B. Westermann examines the validity, and value, of this claim in Hitler's Ostkrieg and the Indian Wars. The book takes an empirical approach that highlights areas of similarity and continuity, but also explores key distinctions and differences between these two national projects. The westward march of American empire and the Nazi conquest of the East offer clear parallels, not least that both cases fused a sense of national purpose with racial stereotypes that aided in the exclusion, expropriation, and killing of peoples. Westermann evaluates the philosophies of Manifest Destiny and Lebensraum that justified both conquests, the national and administrative policies that framed Nazi and U.S. governmental involvement in these efforts, the military strategies that supported each nation’s political goals, and the role of massacre and atrocity in both processes. Important differences emerge: a goal of annihilation versus one of assimilation and acculturation; a planned military campaign versus a confused strategy of pacification and punishment; large-scale atrocity as routine versus massacre as exception. Comparative history at its best, Westermann’s assessment of these two national projects provides crucial insights into not only their rhetoric and pronouncements but also the application of policy and ideology “on the ground.” His sophisticated and nuanced revelations of the similarities and dissimilarities between these two cases will inform further study of genocide, as well as our understanding of the Nazi conquest of the East and the American conquest of the West.
Beheaded by Hitler
Author: Colin Pateman
Publisher: Fonthill Media
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 353
Book Description
From 1933 during the Nazi era when Hitler refashioned the German judicial system in line with his oppressive regime, many crimes became capital offences which led to a drastic increase in the number of executions. In 1936, the Reich Minister of Justice, Franz Gurtner, acting upon Hitler’s direction, ordered that the fallbeil, a variation on the guillotine, replace the hand axe as the official method for all civil executions throughout Germany. To meet this new demand for ‘justice’, many prisons were designated as execution sites and equipped with a ‘Tegel Fallbeil’, named after the inmates of the Tegal prison in Berlin who first built these atrocious contraptions. Beheaded by Hitler: Cruelty of the Nazis, Judicial Terror and Civilian Executions 1933-1945 provides the reader with a chilling insight into the judicial terror that took place and the harrowing stories of execution by fallbeil of civilians who were convicted of domestic resistance to the Nazi regime, treason and other offences after so called ‘trials’ by the Volksgerichtshof or People’s Court. This exceptionally well researched book also explains the Nazi judicial system, the prisons selected for central execution sites and the Nazi officials and executioners that carried out Hitler’s cleansing. Illustrations: 55 black-and-white photographs
Publisher: Fonthill Media
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 353
Book Description
From 1933 during the Nazi era when Hitler refashioned the German judicial system in line with his oppressive regime, many crimes became capital offences which led to a drastic increase in the number of executions. In 1936, the Reich Minister of Justice, Franz Gurtner, acting upon Hitler’s direction, ordered that the fallbeil, a variation on the guillotine, replace the hand axe as the official method for all civil executions throughout Germany. To meet this new demand for ‘justice’, many prisons were designated as execution sites and equipped with a ‘Tegel Fallbeil’, named after the inmates of the Tegal prison in Berlin who first built these atrocious contraptions. Beheaded by Hitler: Cruelty of the Nazis, Judicial Terror and Civilian Executions 1933-1945 provides the reader with a chilling insight into the judicial terror that took place and the harrowing stories of execution by fallbeil of civilians who were convicted of domestic resistance to the Nazi regime, treason and other offences after so called ‘trials’ by the Volksgerichtshof or People’s Court. This exceptionally well researched book also explains the Nazi judicial system, the prisons selected for central execution sites and the Nazi officials and executioners that carried out Hitler’s cleansing. Illustrations: 55 black-and-white photographs
Hitler's American Model
Author: James Q. Whitman
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400884632
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 223
Book Description
How American race law provided a blueprint for Nazi Germany Nazism triumphed in Germany during the high era of Jim Crow laws in the United States. Did the American regime of racial oppression in any way inspire the Nazis? The unsettling answer is yes. In Hitler's American Model, James Whitman presents a detailed investigation of the American impact on the notorious Nuremberg Laws, the centerpiece anti-Jewish legislation of the Nazi regime. Contrary to those who have insisted that there was no meaningful connection between American and German racial repression, Whitman demonstrates that the Nazis took a real, sustained, significant, and revealing interest in American race policies. As Whitman shows, the Nuremberg Laws were crafted in an atmosphere of considerable attention to the precedents American race laws had to offer. German praise for American practices, already found in Hitler's Mein Kampf, was continuous throughout the early 1930s, and the most radical Nazi lawyers were eager advocates of the use of American models. But while Jim Crow segregation was one aspect of American law that appealed to Nazi radicals, it was not the most consequential one. Rather, both American citizenship and antimiscegenation laws proved directly relevant to the two principal Nuremberg Laws—the Citizenship Law and the Blood Law. Whitman looks at the ultimate, ugly irony that when Nazis rejected American practices, it was sometimes not because they found them too enlightened, but too harsh. Indelibly linking American race laws to the shaping of Nazi policies in Germany, Hitler's American Model upends understandings of America's influence on racist practices in the wider world.
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400884632
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 223
Book Description
How American race law provided a blueprint for Nazi Germany Nazism triumphed in Germany during the high era of Jim Crow laws in the United States. Did the American regime of racial oppression in any way inspire the Nazis? The unsettling answer is yes. In Hitler's American Model, James Whitman presents a detailed investigation of the American impact on the notorious Nuremberg Laws, the centerpiece anti-Jewish legislation of the Nazi regime. Contrary to those who have insisted that there was no meaningful connection between American and German racial repression, Whitman demonstrates that the Nazis took a real, sustained, significant, and revealing interest in American race policies. As Whitman shows, the Nuremberg Laws were crafted in an atmosphere of considerable attention to the precedents American race laws had to offer. German praise for American practices, already found in Hitler's Mein Kampf, was continuous throughout the early 1930s, and the most radical Nazi lawyers were eager advocates of the use of American models. But while Jim Crow segregation was one aspect of American law that appealed to Nazi radicals, it was not the most consequential one. Rather, both American citizenship and antimiscegenation laws proved directly relevant to the two principal Nuremberg Laws—the Citizenship Law and the Blood Law. Whitman looks at the ultimate, ugly irony that when Nazis rejected American practices, it was sometimes not because they found them too enlightened, but too harsh. Indelibly linking American race laws to the shaping of Nazi policies in Germany, Hitler's American Model upends understandings of America's influence on racist practices in the wider world.
Crossing Hitler
Author: Benjamin Carter Hett
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199708592
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 371
Book Description
During a 1931 trial of four Nazi stormtroopers, known as the Eden Dance Palace trial, Hans Litten grilled Hitler in a brilliant and merciless three-hour cross-examination, forcing him into multiple contradictions and evasions and finally reducing him to helpless and humiliating rage (the transcription of Hitler's full testimony is included.) At the time, Hitler was still trying to prove his embrace of legal methods, and distancing himself from his stormtroopers. The courageous Litten revealed his true intentions, and in the process, posed a real threat to Nazi ambition. When the Nazis seized power two years after the trial, friends and family urged Litten to flee the country. He stayed and was sent to the concentration camps, where he worked on translations of medieval German poetry, shared the money and food he was sent by his wealthy family, and taught working-class inmates about art and literature. When Jewish prisoners at Dachau were locked in their barracks for weeks at a time, Litten kept them sane by reciting great works from memory. After five years of torture and hard labor-and a daring escape that failed-Litten gave up hope of survival. His story was ultimately tragic but, as Benjamin Hett writes in this gripping narrative, it is also redemptive. "It is a story of human nobility in the face of barbarism." The first full-length biography of Litten, the book also explores the turbulent years of the Weimar Republic and the terror of Nazi rule in Germany after 1933. [in sidebar] Winner of the 2007 Fraenkel Prize for outstanding work of contemporary history, in manuscript. To be published throughout the world.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199708592
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 371
Book Description
During a 1931 trial of four Nazi stormtroopers, known as the Eden Dance Palace trial, Hans Litten grilled Hitler in a brilliant and merciless three-hour cross-examination, forcing him into multiple contradictions and evasions and finally reducing him to helpless and humiliating rage (the transcription of Hitler's full testimony is included.) At the time, Hitler was still trying to prove his embrace of legal methods, and distancing himself from his stormtroopers. The courageous Litten revealed his true intentions, and in the process, posed a real threat to Nazi ambition. When the Nazis seized power two years after the trial, friends and family urged Litten to flee the country. He stayed and was sent to the concentration camps, where he worked on translations of medieval German poetry, shared the money and food he was sent by his wealthy family, and taught working-class inmates about art and literature. When Jewish prisoners at Dachau were locked in their barracks for weeks at a time, Litten kept them sane by reciting great works from memory. After five years of torture and hard labor-and a daring escape that failed-Litten gave up hope of survival. His story was ultimately tragic but, as Benjamin Hett writes in this gripping narrative, it is also redemptive. "It is a story of human nobility in the face of barbarism." The first full-length biography of Litten, the book also explores the turbulent years of the Weimar Republic and the terror of Nazi rule in Germany after 1933. [in sidebar] Winner of the 2007 Fraenkel Prize for outstanding work of contemporary history, in manuscript. To be published throughout the world.