 Help support MIT OpenCourseWare by shopping at Amazon.com! MIT OpenCourseWare offers direct links to Amazon.com to purchase the books cited in this course. Click on the Amazon logo to the left of any citation and purchase the book from Amazon.com, and MIT OpenCourseWare will receive up to 10% of all purchases you make. Your support will enable MIT to continue offering open access to MIT courses. |
View readings by class session
Note: Wherever possible, the book citations below reflect the specific editions used in the course.
Books for Purchase
Fallada, Hans. Little Man, What Now? Chicago, IL: Academy Chicago Publishers, 2009. ISBN: 9781933633640. (Kleiner Mann, was nun?)
Allen, William S. The Nazi Seizure of Power. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin, 1989. ISBN: 0140228780.
Levi, Primo. Survival in Auschwitz. New York, NY: Summit Books, 1986. ISBN: 9780671605414.
Browning, Christopher. Ordinary Men. Reinbek bei Hamburg, Germany: Rowohlt, 1993. ISBN: 3498005693.
Fabri, Friedrich. "Bedarf Deutschland des Colonien?/Does Germany Need Colonies?" In Studies in German Thought and History. Edited and translated by E. C. M. Breuning, and M. E. Chamberlain. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1998, pp. 2-177, 179, and 181. ISBN: 9780773483712.
Jünger, Ernst. Storms of Steel. Translated by B. Creighton. New York, NY: Howard Fertig, 1975, pp. 300-319. ISBN: 0865273103. (excerpt)
Remarque, Erich Maria. Chapter 4 in All Quiet on the Western Front. New York, NY: Ballantine Books, 1987. ISBN: 9780449213940. (excerpt)
Fest, Joachim. The Face of the Third Reicht. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 1999. ISBN: 9780306809156. (excerpt)
Nenno, Nancy. "Femininity, the Primitive, and Modern Urban Space: Josephine Baker in Berlin." In Women in the Metropolis. Gender and Modernity in Weimar Culture. Edited by Katharina Van Ankum. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1997, pp. 145-161. ISBN: 9780520204652.
Kershaw, Ian. The "Hitler Myth". New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2001. ISBN: 9780192802064.
Koonz, Claudia. Mothers in the Fatherlandt. New York, NY: St. Martin's Griffin, 1988. ISBN: 9780312022563. (excerpt)
Peukert, Detlev. "The Genesis of the Final Solution from the Spirit of Science." In Nazism and German Society. Edited by David Crew. New York, NY: Routledge, 1994. ISBN: 9780415082402.
Spielvogel, Jackson J. Hitler and Nazi Germany: a History. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2000. ISBN: 9780139759963.
Readings by Class Session
Readings Table
| Week 1 |
| 1 |
Introduction to Class and Requirements: What is "Fascism"?, What is "Nazism"? |
|
| Week 2 |
| 2 |
- Imperial Germany and the First World War
- Discussion
- Fabri, Friedrich. Short excerpt from Does Germany Need Colonies?
|
|
| 3 |
Total War and Total (?) Defeat |
|
| Week 3 |
| 4 |
- Revolution and the Weimar Constitution
- Discussion
- Remarque, Jünger. "Letters from the Front and Home Front"
|
|
| 5 |
- The Treaty of Versailles
- Economic Shock
- Paramilitary Politics
|
|
| Week 4 |
| 6 |
Recovery, and Weimar Culture I: Art and the Avant-Garde (Visual Presentation) |
- Fest. The Face of the Third Reich. pp. 1-14 (Hitler), 15-26.
- Kershaw. Hitler Myth. pp. 14-24.
|
| 7 |
-
Weimar Culture II: The New Woman
-
Discussion
Berghaus, Gunter. "Girlkultur: Feminism, Americanism, and Popular Entertainment in Weimar Germany." Journal of Design History (1988).
Nenno, Nancy. "Feminity, the Primitive, and Modern Urban Space: Josephine Baker in Berlin."
|
|
| Week 5 |
| 8 |
Film: The Blue Angel (Die Blaue Engel) (1930, 107 min.) |
|
| 9 |
Countercurrents: Anti-Semitism, Völkisch nationalism (and the Origins of the Nazi Party) |
Fest. The Face of the Third Reich. pp. 15-26. (Hitler) |
| Week 6 |
| 10 |
Discussion
Fallada, Hans. Little Man, What Now?1933. |
|
| Week 7 |
| 11 |
The Great Depression and the Polarization of Politics |
|
| 12 |
Discussion
Allen, William S. The Nazi Seizure of Power. |
|
| Week 8 |
| 13 |
The Nazi Seizure of Power and Gleichschaltung |
Fest. The Face of the Third Reich. pp. 27-38. (Hitler) |
| 14 |
- National Socialist Propaganda and Aesthetics: The New Mass Media
- Film: Excerpts from Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will and Olympia
- Discussion
The films of Leni Riefenstahl
Fest, Joachim. The Face of the Third Reich. (Goebbels)
|
|
| Week 9 |
| 15 |
Discussion
Allen. Nazi Seizure of Power. |
|
| 16 |
The Racial State |
- Nuremberg Laws (September 1935)
- Peukert, Detlev. "The Genesis of the 'Final Solution' from the Spirit of Science."
|
| Week 10 |
| 17 |
The Rise of the SS State, and Everyday Life under Nazism |
|
| 18 |
Outbreak of the Second World War |
Fest. pp. 62-67. (Hitler) |
| Week 11 |
| 19 |
The Course of the War, and the Eastern Front |
Begin reading Browning. Ordinary Men. |
| 20 |
- Origins of the "Final Solution" and the Machinery of Mass Murder
- Film Excerpt from Die Ewige Jüde
- Discussion
Report of Einsatzgruppe C (1941)
Minutes of the Wannsee Conference (1942)
|
|
| Week 12 |
| 21 |
- Discussion
Browning. Ordinary Men.
- Fest, Joachim. The Face of the Third Reich. (Höss)
|
|
| 22 |
Meeting with Instructor: Review of "Der Brand" (Strategic Bombing) |
Read Primo Levi. Survival in Auschwitz. |
| Week 13 |
| 23 |
- The Defeat of Germany and Götterdammerung
- Discussion
Allen. The Nazi Seizure of Power.
Fest, Joachim. The Face of the Third Reich.
|
|
| 24 |
"Zero Hour" and Denazification |
|
| Week 14 |
| 25 |
- Film: Germany Year Zero. (1947, 78 minutes)
- or Somewhere in Berlin (Irgendwo in Berlin) (1946, DEFA), 79 minutes.
|
|
| 26 |
- Discussion of Film
- The Legacy of Nazism in History, Memory and Myth
|
|
| Week 15 |
|
Final Exam |
|