Surveys of foreign relations include Paul M. Kennedy, The Rise of the Anglo-German Antagonism, 1860–1914 (1980, reprinted 1987); and Fritz Fischer, Germany’s Aims in the First World War (1967, reissued 1977; originally published in German, 1961), a pioneering study of the culpability of German elites in the outbreak of World War I.
Economic developments of the period are surveyed in Fritz Stern, Gold and Iron: Bismarck, Bleichröder, and the Building of the German Empire (1977, reissued 1987). Cultural and social issues are addressed in Fritz Stern, The Politics of Cultural Despair: A Study in the Rise of the Germanic Ideology (1961, reprinted 1974), a study of intellectuals’ disenchantment with modern industrial society and their hopes for a spiritual revolution. The history of German socialism is detailed in Gary P. Steenson, “Not One Man! Not One Penny!”: German Social Democracy, 1863–1914 (1981), a comprehensive treatment of the Social Democratic Party from its origins to the war; and in Jürgen Kocka, Facing Total War: German Society, 1914–1918 (1984; originally published in German, 1973), an examination of the effects of World War I on different social groups. Ute Frevert, Women in German History: From Bourgeois Emancipation to Sexual Liberation (1989, reissued 1993; originally published in German, 1986), is a fine survey of this important area of research. A good introduction to Germany at war is Roger Chickering, Imperial Germany and the Great War, 1914–1918 (1998). Kenneth Barkin James J. Sheehan From 1918 to 1945
Dietrich Orlow, A History of Modern Germany: 1871 to Present, 4th ed. (1999), offers a good survey of Germany’s difficult 20th century. Hans Mommsen, The Rise and Fall of Weimar Democracy, trans. by Elborg Forster and Larry Eugene Jones (1996; originally published in German, 1989), is a fine synthesis of the republic’s tragic history. The definitive study of the hyperinflation in Germany following World War I is Gerald D. Feldman, The Great Disorder: Politics, Economics, and Society in the German Inflation, 1914–1924 (1993, reissued 1997). Peter Gay, Weimar Culture: The Outsider as Insider (1968, reprinted 1988), provides a stimulating introduction to the cultural and intellectual brilliance of Germany during the 1920s. An excellent guide to further reading on Weimar culture is Anton Kaes, Martin Jay, and Edward Dimendberg (eds.), The Weimar Republic Sourcebook (1994). Ian Kershaw, Hitler, 1889–1936: Hubris (1998, reissued 2000), and Hitler, 1936–45: Nemesis (2000), together constitute the definitive biography of the dictator. A comprehensive study of National Socialism emphasizing the totalitarian nature of the regime is available in Karl Dietrich Bracher, The German Dictatorship: The Origins, Structure, and Effects of National Socialism (1970, reissued 1980; originally published in German, 1969). The standard work on Nazi foreign policy is Gerhard L. Weinberg, The Foreign Policy of Hitler’s Germany: Diplomatic Revolution in Europe, 1933–36 (1970, reissued 1994), and The Foreign Policy of Hitler’s Germany: Starting World War II, 1937–1939 (1980, reissued 1994). One of the best single-volume treatments of World War II is Gerhard L.Weinberg, A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II (1994). Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews, rev. ed., 3 vol. (1985), remains the standard and most comprehensive study of the efforts by the Nazis to exterminate the Jewish people; Saul Friedländer, Nazi Germany and the Jews (1997– ), is an important newer study. Michael Berenbaum (ed.), Witness to the Holocaust (1997), contains 94 basic documents on 21 major themes, from the Nazi rise to power to the Nürnberg trials, including consideration of the non-Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust (1996), is a controversial interpretation of culpability for the Holocaust. Karl A. Schleunes James J. Sheehan After 1945
A survey of the history of both German states is V.R. Berghahn, Modern Germany: Society, Economy, and Politics in the Twentieth Century, 2nd ed. (1987, reissued 1993). A more detailed account of West Germany’s development is Dennis L. Bark and David R. Gress, A History of West Germany, 2nd ed., 2 vol. (1993). A good account of the Soviet role in East Germany is Norman M. Naimark, The Russians in Germany: A History of the Soviet Zone of Occupation, 1945–1949 (1995). Another analysis of East Germany is Mary Fulbrook, Anatomy of a Dictatorship: Inside the GDR, 1949–1989 (1995, reissued 1997). The Federal Republic’s eastern policy of the 1970s is analyzed in Timothy Garton Ash, In Europe’s Name: Germany and the Divided Continent (1993). An excellent treatment of the collapse of East Germany is Charles S. Maier, Dissolution: The Crisis of Communism and the End of East Germany (1997, reissued 1999). Also of value are Jarausch’s work on German reunification, cited above among other works on government; and Philip Zelikow and Condoleezza Rice, Germany Unified and Europe Transformed: A Study in Statecraft (1995, reissued 1997), which traces the diplomatic events leading to German reunification. Henry Ashby Turner James J. Sheehan