The Hitler State

Interpretative study of the Hitler state now available in English. An important contribution to the study of totalitarian states.

A comprehensive resource that helps candidates tackle the intricacies of the relationship between Hitler and his lieutenants and the power structure of the Nazi state. This book has been written for Edexcel and with the right level of depth for A2. contains thorough and up-to-date exam preparation, including practice questions, advice on what makes a good answer and help for students on how to interpret the questions and plan essays. is written by an expert author team who have a wide experience of teaching and examining A-level History and focus on exactly what students need to know and how to prepare for the exam.

Summarizes recent research and refers to primary sources, with the intention to counter over-simplified views of the monolithic totalitarian Nazi state. Ch. 9 (pp. 183-202), "The Persecution of the Jews in Germany and Foreign Lands, " sketches the history of antisemitism (particularly in Germany), describing the transition from religious to racial antisemitism and the increase in antisemitism after World War I. Surveys Nazi anti-Jewish policy after 1933 and the Final Solution. In reference to the "historians' debate, " concludes that whereas the functionalist theory may explain other aspects of the Nazi state, "in antisemitic policy documentary evidence leads us back to intentionalism."

Adolf Hitler admired ancient Rome as the "crystallization point of a world empire," a capital with massive public monuments that reflected the supremacy of the State and the political might of the ancient world's "master-race." He also admired the way Mussolini turned the monuments of imperial Rome into validatory symbols of Fascism. Hitler planned a Reich that would be a as durable as the Roman Empire. Its capital, Berlin, would surpass the architectural magnificence of ancient Rome before the advent of Christianity as its official religion. This book examines Hitler's views on Roman imperialism, town planning, and architecture, and shows how Albert Speer, though a self-confessed student of "Doric" architecture, planned and sometimes built structures that were intended to rival such monuments as Nero's Golden House, Hadrian's Pantheon, and the Stadium of Herodes Atticus at Athens. Other architects, such as Ludwig Ruff and Cäsar Pinnau, were to plan structures inspired by the Colosseum and the Baths of Caracalla. The ancient Roman obsession with order, discipline, and the domination of the environment is clearly reflected in the town plans and public buildings conceived by Hitler and his architects. We see that "neoclassical" state architecture in Nazi Germany was intended to signify more than stability and the persistence of tradition. It was only one aspect of the Nazi attempt to re-create a "pagan" totalitarian state based on clearly defined forms of hierarchy that divided society into slaves and slave-owners, those with and those without human rights.

How did Hitler win the allegiance of ordinary Germans? The answer is as shocking as it is persuasive. By engaging in a campaign of theft on an almost unimaginable scale-and by channelling the proceeds into generous social programmes-Hitler bought his people's consent. Drawing on secret files and financial records, Gtz Aly shows that while Jews and people of occupied lands suffered crippling taxation, mass looting, enslavement, and destruction, most Germans enjoyed a much-improved standard of living. Buoyed by the millions of packages soldiers sent from the front, Germans also benefited from the systematic plunder of conquered territory and the transfer of Jewish possessions into their homes and pockets. Any qualms were swept away by waves of government handouts, tax breaks, and preferential legislation. Gripping and significant, Hitler's Beneficiaries makes a radically new contribution to our understanding of Nazi aggression, the Holocaust, and the complicity of a people.