Creating Hitler's Germany: The Birth of Extremism

by Tim Heath

Overview

Germany's defeat in the First World War and the Treaty of Versailles that followed were national disasters, with far-reaching consequences not just for the country but for the world itself.

Weaving the stories of three German families from the beginning of Germany’s territorial aspirations of the First World War to the shattered dream of a thousand-year Reich in the Second World War, Tim Heath’s rich narrative explores a multitude of rare and untapped resources to explore the darkest recesses of German social and military history.

Creating Hitler’s Germany presents a nation’s journey not only through everyday life and war, but through its own conscience, pain and inevitable search for some form of absolution from its past. It is real, painful and incredibly human – an essential history to further understand the mind-set of Germany during the most tumultuous years of the nation’s history.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781526732972
Publisher:	Pen and Sword
Publication date:	06/28/2019
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Born in to a military family, Tim Heath’s interest in history led him to research the air war of the Second World War, focussing on the German Luftwaffe and writing extensively for The Armourer Magazine. During the course of his research he has worked closely with the German War Graves Commission at Kassel, Germany, and met with German families and veterans alike.

Table of Contents

Introduction xiii

Chapter 1 Love Before War 1

Chapter 2 Mud, Blood and Machine Guns 11

Chapter 3 Versailles - The Catalyst for Hate 27

Chapter 4 The Wrong Side of Nowhere 35

Chapter 5 Our Friend Hitler 45

Chapter 6 The Swines Rejoice, 1934-1938 57

Chapter 7 1939 - When the Devil Whispered 79

Chapter 8 Blitzkrieg on France 92

Chapter 9 Britain's Fight for Survival 98

Chapter 10 Norway - Heaven and Hell 110

Chapter 11 A Thorn in the Bear's Paw 122

Chapter 12 A Brief Flirtation with Murder 139

Chapter 13 The Annihilation of Races 155

Chapter 14 Death in Sub-Humania 168

Chapter 15 Revenge is Sweet 185

Chapter 16 A Reciprocal Genocide 192

Afterword 210

Note on sources for this volume 213

Acknowledgments 214

Editorial Reviews

05/20/2019

Historian Heath (In Hitler’s Shadow: Post-War Germany and the Girls of the BDM) provides an accessible survey of the rise and fall of Nazi Germany through accounts of ordinary Germans’ experiences. Heath’s entry point is the story of Werner Kohlman and Hilde Schramm, who grew up together in Hamburg before marrying; Werner, who was seriously wounded during WWI, became one of the thousands of German veterans who were devastated by the country’s economic collapse and who felt betrayed by their political leaders, feelings that paved the way for the Nazi ascension. Using previously unpublished diaries (as from Werner’s angry fellow soldiers Otto Rische and Gunther Priestl), personal letters (as from secretary Ingrid Altmann, an early Hitler enthusiast, and Jewish Melitta Jorg, whose family relocated to the U.S. after the war), and reminiscences (as of Dorothea Hirsch, whose parents were brutally beaten during Kristallnacht), Heath stitches together a social history of Nazi Germany. Heath’s writing is sometimes clichéd (“When the bear awakes, and angrily shows its teeth, only the foolhardy will not turn and run”), and readers may find his description of the ending stages of WWII as a “reciprocal genocide of Germans” outlandish. But for those new to the subject, this is a solid, concise introduction to German experience under Hitler. (June)

Publishers Weekly

The compelling, sometimes shocking first-person accounts will draw YAs into this illuminating history."

Booklist - Sara Jorgensen

"These sources make Creating Hitler's Germany essential reading if one is to understand the embryo of Adolf Hitler's Third Reich."

SirReadaLot.org

If we do not learn the lessons of history we will be doomed to repeat the behaviors, national and personal, that have resulted in the tragedies of the past. One outstanding 20th Century example is how Germany was treated at the end of World War I and how she was treated at the end of World War II — that latter treatment having prevented a World War III for the past 75 years. Exceptionally well written, organized and presented, Tim Heath's "Creating Hitler's Germany: The Birth of Extremism" is very highly recommended for community and academic library 20th Century History collections.

Midwest Book Review