By Benjamin Carter Hett

In February 1933, Adolf Hitler had just a tenuous grab on energy. Chancellor of Germany for simply 4 weeks, he led a delicate coalition govt. The Nazis had misplaced seats within the Reichstag within the fresh election, and claimed simply 3 of 13 cupboard posts. Then on February twenty seventh, arson despatched the Reichstag, the house and image of German democracy, up in flames. instantly blaming the Communists, Hitler's new executive licensed a decree that tore the center out of the democratic structure of the Weimar Republic and cancelled the rule of thumb of legislations. 5 thousand humans have been instantly arrested. The Reichstag hearth marked the real starting of the 3rd Reich, which governed for 12 extra years. the talk surrounding the fire's origins has continued for 80.

In Burning the Reichstag, Benjamin Hett deals a gripping account of Hitler's upward push to dictatorship-one that demanding situations orthodoxy and recovers the genuine value of the half the fireplace performed. on the scene the police arrested 23-year-old Marinus van der Lubbe, a Dutch Communist stonemason. although he was once first and foremost pushed aside out of the country as a Nazi software, post-war historians because the Fifties have principally judged him exclusively guilty--a lone arsonist exploited via Hitler. Hett's booklet reopens the case, delivering brilliant pictures of key figures, together with Rudolf Diels, Hermann Goering, Joseph Goebbels, and the historian Fritz Tobias, whose account of the hearth has, before, been the normal. utilizing a couple of new assets and files, Hett units the Reichstag fireplace in a much broader context, revealing how and why it has remained one of many final mysteries of the Nazi interval, and essentially the most arguable and contested occasions within the twentieth century.

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Extra resources for Burning the Reichstag: An Investigation into the Third Reich's Enduring Mystery

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54'0943'47dc21 CIP 01 00 99 98 97 5 4 3 2 1 Page v Per Francesca Page vii CONTENTS Preface xi One. Thinking about German Nationhood, 18711918 3 Thinking the Nation 3 Thinking Germany 5 Collective Memory 8 German National Memory, 1871 13 Württemberg, 1871 15 Part One Germany and Württemberg: An Uncomfortable Coexistence in Sedan Day Two. The Nation in the Locality 27 The Abdication of the State 30 Württemberg: Who Celebrated the Holiday, Where, and What Did It Mean? 34 The Celebration: Bequeathing Local and National Memories 40 The Pedagogical Holiday: National Wine in Local Bottles 46 Three.

Page 5 Thinking Germany I should like to consider this question by looking first at interpretations of the construction of national belonging in Germany. My aim here is neither to review the historiography of German nationalism nor to discuss the origins and disastrous consequences of the German national idea. Rather, I should like to discuss the implicit and explicit assumptions about the making of German national belonging advanced by three leading interpretations of modern German history: the modernization approach; its particular German offshoot, the Sonderweg interpretation; and post-Sonderweg historiography.

The nation as a local metaphor: Württemberg, imperial Germany, and national memory, 18711918 / by Alon Confino.  Includes bibliographical references and index.  paper).  National characteristics, German.  Title. 54'0943'47dc21 CIP 01 00 99 98 97 5 4 3 2 1 Page v Per Francesca Page vii CONTENTS Preface xi One. Thinking about German Nationhood, 18711918 3 Thinking the Nation 3 Thinking Germany 5 Collective Memory 8 German National Memory, 1871 13 Württemberg, 1871 15 Part One Germany and Württemberg: An Uncomfortable Coexistence in Sedan Day Two.

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