PDF file: History - Advanced Higher - Germany - Education Scotland

From the early 1970s numerous studies appeared which looked at the Party at a
regional level most notably Jeremy Noakes (The Nazi Party in Lower Saxony, 1921-
1933, 1971). The 1970s and 1980s witnessed the publication of numerous books on
the organisational structure of the Party, for example on the SA by Bessel (Political
Violence and the Rise of Nazism. The Storm Troopers in Eastern Germany 1925-34,
1984) and Fischer (Stormtroopers. A Social, Economic and Ideological Analysis,
1929-35, 1983); on the SS by Koehl (The Black Corps. The Structure and Power
Struggles of the Nazi SS, 1983); on students by Giles (Students and National
Socialism in Germany, 1985); and on youth by Stachura (Nazi Youth in the Weimar
Republic, 1975). This period also witnessed a reassessment of the social basis of
National Socialism and a re-examination and reassessment of the prevailing view that
Hitler and his movement was supported by rural and small town Protestant Germans
in northern, central and eastern Germany. Childers (The Nazi Vote. The Social
Foundations of Fascism in Germany, 1919-1933, 1983) argued that the social base of
support for the Party was neither so static nor so narrow than had previously been
supposed. Hamilton’s (Who Voted for Hitler?, 1982) analysis of voting patterns in
selected German cities has shown that a significant number of upper and upper middle
class voters voted for the Nazis. Even amongst the working classes, the Nazis, as
various works by Fischer have shown (for example The Rise of the Nazis, 1995),
made crucial inroads into obtaining their support at a time of high unemployment.
The relationship of big business to National Socialism was inevitably the subject of
much research in East Germany. Put simply East German historians argued that
German fascism under the Nazi take-over was an extreme form of monopoly
capitalism. By way of contrast the American historian Henry Ashby Turner (for
example in German Big Business and the Rise of Hitler, 1985) refuted the ‘well
established’ view that the Nazis received a great deal of financial support from big
business. Another historian Feldman, in various German language studies published
in the 1970s and the 1980s, took issue with Turner and argued that money alone from
big business did not pave the way for the Nazi take-over in 1933. Feldman argued
that as the 1920s progressed big business moved away from supporting or having any
sympathy in favour of the Weimar Republic in favour of supporting an authoritarian
form of government.
Weimar foreign policy has been closely scrutinised by historians. Since 1945
German criticisms of the vindictive nature of the Versailles Settlement have
somewhat abated and a greater understanding of the difficulties confronting the
peacemakers in 1919 has gained greater credence. Schulz (Revolution and Peace
Treaties, 1917-1920, 1974) argued that the Great War heavily influenced the terms
agreed upon at Versailles. In a lengthy study Mayer (Politics and Diplomacy of
Peacemaking. Containment and Counter-Revolution at Versailles 1918-1919, 1967)
looked not just at the so-called ‘German question’ but also at how the domestic
political circumstances of each of the powers represented at Versailles affected their
country’s specific decision-making in 1919. Mayer even went on to argue that the
desire to ‘contain’ Bolshevik Russia at the end of the War was the crucial feature of
international politics at this time rather than any desire to punish Germany. There is
certainly a greater willingness on the part of historians to accept that at Versailles
Germany was treated more leniently than has been acknowledged in the past.
History: Germany: Versailles to the Outbreak of World War II - 1918-1939 (AH) 43