During the twelve years from 1933 until 1945, the concentration camp operated as a terror society. In this pioneering book, the renowned German sociologist Wolfgang Sofsky looks at the concentration camp from the inside as a laboratory of cruelty and a system of absolute power built on extreme violence, starvation, "terror labor," and the business-like extermination of human beings.Based on historical documents and the reports of survivors, the book details how the resistance of pr...

From the last decades of the nineteenth century through the late 1930s, the West Bohemian spa towns of Carlsbad, Franzensbad, and Marienbad were fashionable destinations for visitors wishing to "take a cure"—to drink the waters, bathe in the mud, be treated by the latest X-ray, light, or gas therapies, or simply enjoy the respite afforded by elegant parks and comfortable lodgings. These were sociable and urbane places, settings for celebrity sightings, match-making, and stylish promenading...

From the last decades of the nineteenth century through the late 1930s, the West Bohemian spa towns of Carlsbad, Franzensbad, and Marienbad were fashionable destinations for visitors wishing to "take a cure"—to drink the waters, bathe in the mud, be treated by the latest X-ray, light, or gas therapies, or simply enjoy the respite afforded by elegant parks and comfortable lodgings. These were sociable and urbane places, settings for celebrity sightings, match-making, and stylish promenading...

Growing Up Female in Nazi Germany explores the world of the Bund Deutscher Mädel (BDM), the female section within the Hitler Youth that included almost all German girls aged 10 to 14. The BDM is often enveloped in myths; German girls were brought up to be the compliant handmaidens of National Socialism, their mental horizon restricted to the "three Ks" of Kinder, Küche, Kirche (children, kitchen, and church).Dagmar Reese, however, depicts another picture of life in the BDM...

*An Observer Book of the Year*'One of the most gripping accounts... of the Nazis' rise to power. It contains many lessons for the world now.' - John Kampfner, bestselling author of *Why The Germans Do It Better**'***Outstanding... This is history at its very best.' - Julia Boyd, bestselling author of Travellers in the Third ReichGermany, 1918: a country in flux. The First World War is over, the natio...

“A remarkable—and singularly chilling—glimpse of human behavior. . .This meticulously researched book...represents a major contribution to the literature of the Holocaust."—NewsweekChristopher R. Browning’s shocking account of how a unit of average middle-aged Germans became the cold-blooded murderers of tens of thousands of Jews—now with a new afterword and additional photographs.Ordinary Men is the true story of Reserve Police Ba...

"The best single volume available on the torturous life and savage reign of Adolf Hitler." — TimeA bestseller in its original German edition and subsequently translated into more than a dozen languages, Joachim Fest's Hitler has become a classic portrait of a man, a nation, and an era.Fest tells and interprets the extraordinary story of a man's and nation's rise from impotence to absolute power, as Germany and Hitler, from shared premises, e...

A look at Adolf Hitler's residences and their role in constructing and promoting the dictator's private persona both within Germany and abroad.Adolf Hitler's makeover from rabble-rouser to statesman coincided with a series of dramatic home renovations he undertook during the mid-1930s. This provocative book exposes the dictator's preoccupation with his private persona, which was shaped by the aesthetic and ideological management of his domestic architecture. Hitler'...

A "very readable" history of Jewish conversions to Christianity over two centuries that "tracks the many fascinating twists and turns to this story" ( Library Journal).When the Nazis came to power and created a racial state in the 1930s, they considered it an urgent priority to identify Jews who had converted to Christianity over the preceding centuries. With the help of church officials, a vast system of conversion and intermarriage records was created in ...

"Written in a clear and elegant style, The Ghosts of Berlin is . . . a superb guide to this process of urban self-definition, both past and present." — The Wall Street JournalIn the twenty years since its original publication, The Ghosts of Berlin has become a classic, an unparalleled guide to understanding the presence of history in our built environment, especially in a space as historically contested—and emotionally fraught—as Berlin. B...

"The Beautiful Beast" documents in meticulous detail the extraordinary and frightening biography of Irma Grese. Born in a tiny farming community fifty miles north of Berlin, she became the ultimate feminine representative of the Hitlerian vision of the warrior-youth;indeed, with her blonde hair and strikingly blue eyes, Grese embodied all the physical characteristics of the idealized Nazi youth! Once Irma Grese was old enough to secure a training spot in the newly-created corps of female S...

"Drawn from letters, diaries and memoirs, this impressive study presents a rounded, detailed picture of the daily life" for frontline Nazi soldiers (Publishers Weekly).Stephen G. Fritz explores the day-to-day reality of the average German infantryman—or Landser—during World War II. Through letters, diaries, memoirs, and oral histories, most of which describe life on the Russian front, Fritz presents a richly textured portrait of the Landser that illustrate...