Weimar Germany
The Weimar Republic was born out of Germany's defeat in the First World War and ended with the coming to power of Hitler and his Nazi Party in 1933. In many ways, it is a wonder that Weimar lasted as long as it did. Besieged from the outset by hostile forces, the young republic was threatened by revolution from the left and coups d'états from the right. Plagued early on by a wave of high-profile political assassinations and a period of devastating hyper-inflation, its later years were dominated by the onset of the Great Depression. And yet, for a period from the mid-1920s it looked as if the Weimar system would not only survive but even flourish, with the return of economic stability and the gradual reintegration of the country into the international community. With contributions from an international team of ten experts, this volume in the Short Oxford History of Germany series offers an ideal introduction to Weimar Germany, challenging the reader to rethink preconceived ideas of the republic and throwing new light on important areas, such as military ideas for reshaping society after the First World War, constitutional and social reform, Jewish life, gender, and culture.
"1118900462"
Weimar Germany
The Weimar Republic was born out of Germany's defeat in the First World War and ended with the coming to power of Hitler and his Nazi Party in 1933. In many ways, it is a wonder that Weimar lasted as long as it did. Besieged from the outset by hostile forces, the young republic was threatened by revolution from the left and coups d'états from the right. Plagued early on by a wave of high-profile political assassinations and a period of devastating hyper-inflation, its later years were dominated by the onset of the Great Depression. And yet, for a period from the mid-1920s it looked as if the Weimar system would not only survive but even flourish, with the return of economic stability and the gradual reintegration of the country into the international community. With contributions from an international team of ten experts, this volume in the Short Oxford History of Germany series offers an ideal introduction to Weimar Germany, challenging the reader to rethink preconceived ideas of the republic and throwing new light on important areas, such as military ideas for reshaping society after the First World War, constitutional and social reform, Jewish life, gender, and culture.
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Weimar Germany

Weimar Germany

by Anthony McElligott
Weimar Germany

Weimar Germany

by Anthony McElligott

eBook

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Overview

The Weimar Republic was born out of Germany's defeat in the First World War and ended with the coming to power of Hitler and his Nazi Party in 1933. In many ways, it is a wonder that Weimar lasted as long as it did. Besieged from the outset by hostile forces, the young republic was threatened by revolution from the left and coups d'états from the right. Plagued early on by a wave of high-profile political assassinations and a period of devastating hyper-inflation, its later years were dominated by the onset of the Great Depression. And yet, for a period from the mid-1920s it looked as if the Weimar system would not only survive but even flourish, with the return of economic stability and the gradual reintegration of the country into the international community. With contributions from an international team of ten experts, this volume in the Short Oxford History of Germany series offers an ideal introduction to Weimar Germany, challenging the reader to rethink preconceived ideas of the republic and throwing new light on important areas, such as military ideas for reshaping society after the First World War, constitutional and social reform, Jewish life, gender, and culture.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780191500480
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Publication date: 03/19/2009
Series: Short Oxford History of Germany
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
File size: 2 MB

About the Author

Anthony McElligott is professor of history at the University of Limerick, where he is also the Director of the Centre for Historical Research. He is a founding co-editor of Cultural and Social History: The Journal of the Social History Society. He has published widely on the Weimar Republic and the Third Reich, notably Contested City: Municipal Politics and the Rise of Nazism in Altona 1917-1937 (1998), The German Urban Experience 1900-1945, Modernity and Crisis (2001), and with Tim Kirk, 'Working Towards The Führer': Essays in Honour of Sir Ian Kershaw (2003). He is currently completing a major new study of the Weimar republic, Rethinking The Weimar Republic: Authority and Authoritarianism 1916-1936.

Table of Contents

Glossary of terms and abbreviations xi

List of contributors xiv

Introduction Anthony McElligott 1

The 'doomed' republic 4

Weimar and the limits of 'crisis years of classical modernity' 6

Weimar and the ambiguities of 'classical modernity' 8

Conclusion 22

1 Political culture Anthony McElligott 26

The republic as contingency 27

The republic between Volksstaat and plebiscitary state 29

Revolution and reaction 32

The Volksstaat 35

Towards the plebiscitary state 38

Plebiscitary dictatorship 40

2 Foreign policy Wolfgang Elz 50

The Versailles Treaty 54

The Stresemann era 61

German-French rapprochement 67

The end of rapprochement 71

Aggressive revisionism 74

3 The Reichswehr and the Weimar Republic William Mulligan 78

The army and the new regime, 1918-1920 78

Seeckt's prescription, 1920-1923 86

The state and the militarization of society, 1923-1930 92

The consequences of Weimar's military vision 96

Conclusion 100

4 The Weimar economy Harold James 102

Economic performance 102

Economic policy 107

Economic constraints 121

Conclusion 124

5 The 'urban republic' John Bingham 127

A republic of cities 127

The problem of urban modernity 129

Reform pressures 130

The Stadtetag 133

The cities' 'new order' 134

'Reform born out of catastrophe' 141

6 Women and the politics of gender Kathleen Canning 146

Women, war, and transformations of gender, 1914-1918 146

Women and gender in the founding of the republic 151

Gender and the party-political arena 154

Labour, consumption, and sexual politics in the era of rationalization 158

Sexual crisis and the crisis of the republic 167

7 The Weimar welfare system Young-Sun Hong175

Introduction 175

Historiographical parameters 178

Unemployment relief 181

Veterans, dependants, survivors, and the other new poor 184

The National Social Welfare Law 189

Welfare, corporatism, and the Weimar state 192

Social hygiene, social discipline, and the question of continuities between Weimar welfare and Nazi racism 194

Youth welfare 198

The law that wasn't: correctional custody and the ambiguities of social citizenship 201

Conclusion 203

8 'Neues Wohnen': Housing and reform Adelheid von Saldern 207

Introduction 207

Visible evidence of social reform 208

The concepts of the reformers and the profiles of the housing estates 209

The obligation to the modern lifestyle 212

The nuclear family and the well-maintained neighbourhood 216

The traditional gender order in modern guise 217

Modern taste as hygienic obligation 220

Complex ways of appropriation 221

The 'new feeling of life' in society 224

Transnational communication 226

Conclusion 228

9 Weimar Jewry Anthony D. Kauders 234

Who were the Jews? 237

The origins of Weimar Jewry 240

Liberalism ante mortem? Jewish politics 244

In a liberal key: religious-cultural debate 250

10 High brow and low brow culture Karl Christian Fuhrer 260

The public promotion of art and culture 261

Art as leisure 269

Arts and the public 276

Further Reading 282

Chancellors of the Weimar Republic, 1919-1933 299

Chronology 300

Map 307

Index 309

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