The Politics Of The Nazi Past In Germany And Austria

This book argues that Germans and Austrians have dealt with the Nazi past very differently and these differences have had important consequences for political culture and partisan politics in the two countries. Drawing on different literatures in political science, Art builds a framework for understanding how public deliberation transforms the political environment in which it occurs. The book analyzes how public debates about the 'lessons of history' created a culture of contrition in Germany that prevented a resurgent far right from consolidating itself in German politics after unification. By contrast, public debates in Austria nourished a culture of victimization that provided a hospitable environment for the rise of right-wing populism. The argument is supported by evidence from nearly two hundred semi-structured interviews and an analysis of the German and Austrian print media over a twenty-year period.

"The history of National Socialism in Austria has not been widely examined. It was not until 1981 that an English language history was available on the "forgotten Nazis" in Austria, yet the country was well known to have been a breeding ground of Nazism. Editor F. Parkinson assembled a group of historians and political scientists to undertake a scholarly inquiry into all ramifications of Nazism in Austria before and after the Anschluss. They investigated the activities and attitudes of those in power as well as those in all other segments of the population, whether in Vienna or in the provinces, whether organized in political parties or professing certain creeds. Contributors outline Austria's political decline during the last half of the nineteenth century, Austrian inability to restore the monarchist system during the first republic, the slide of conservatives and socialists to National Socialism, reactions to National Socialism between 1938 and 1945, and the reconstruction of republicanism since 1945, with its emphasis on political conservatism. Solicited to mark the anniversary of the Anschluss, the essays in this volume will be of interest to specialists in Austrian history, students of the Holocaust and Nazi period, and historians of modern Central and Eastern Europe." (Amazon).

(Cont.) Nazi past produced a nationalist backlash among political parties, the media, and civil society. This reaction created the ideal environment for Jorg Haider to engineer the FPO's electoral breakthrough and consolidation. My findings suggests that to explain the success and failure of right-wing populist parties in general, we need to focus on the strategies that other political parties, the media, and groups in civil society use to deal with them.

To understand the 20th century, we must know the 19th. It was then that an ancient prejudice was forged into a modern political weapon. How and why this happened is shown in this classic study by Peter Pulzer, first published in 1964 and now reprinted with a new Introduction by the author.

This text is based on current research findings and is written for students and general readers who want a deeper understanding of this period in German history. It provides a balanced approach in examining Hitler's role in the history of the Third Reich and includes coverage of the economic, social, and political forces that made the rise and growth of Nazism possible; the institutional, cultural, and social life of the Third Reich; the Second World War; and the Holocaust.

The defeat of Hitler in 1945 left Germany a tabula rasa. Normal personal, civic and political life had to be reconstructed on entirely new foundations. The overriding question of German guilt naturally gave rise to other questions. How could the German catastrophe have come about in 1933? How did the successor states - the Federal Republic of Germany, the German Democratic Republic and Austria - view their joint past? In what ways did they rebuild their political, ecocomic and social structures?

Comparative case studies of how memories of World War II have been constructed and revised in France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Poland, Italy, and the USSR (Russia).

Understand the rise of a dangerous ideology. There is renewed interest in the Nazi Party that ruled Germany as a fascist state from 1933 to 1945 under the leadership of Adolf Hitler. However, the events that led to the rise of Nazism--and the near victory of the Axis Powers in World War II--date back to the economics and politics of 1860s Europe. From facts about the iron-fisted rulers who forged a new German empire to clear analysis of the Third Reich's psychological, political, and military underpinnings, learn all there is to know about the rise and fall of Hitler's Nazi Germany, including: The unification of Germany and the formation of the first empire under Prussian chancellor Otto von Bismarck How the Versailles Treaty's disarmament of Germany after World War I failed to ensure peace Adolf Hitler's evolution from an imprisoned revolutionary to Nazi dictator The Nazi reign over Germany and occupied countries--including the military strategies of World War II The German military officers who plotted to assassinate Hitler The justifications behind the Nuremberg trials