The army, politics, and society in Germany, 1933-45: Studies in the army's relation to Nazism

War, Armed Forces and Society

by Klaus-Jürgen Müller

Hitler's seizure of power in 1933 posed a new threat to an army leadership already faced with a double dilemma. The position of the officer corps, traditionally a social and political elite, had been eroded politically by social change and professionally by the ever-widening scope of industrialized total war. This study analyzes the historical background of the responses to Hitler among the army leadership. In particular it examines the nature of the opposition which developed among the military elite. The book also raises wider questions about opposition and resistance, about the structure of Hitler's regime, about the internal dynamics of German aggression and the continuities between the Third Reich and its predecessors.

122 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1979

Reviews

[Lewis Weinstein]

Not helpful for my purposes, except to point me to two other books dealing with the military and Hitler which I hope will be more helpful ... The Nemesis of Power: The German Army in Politics, 1918 1945 ... The German Army & The Nazi Party 1933/39.

[Liam · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was a bit dry, as I had expected, but surprisingly not to the point of inducing somnolence; for a scholarly work in translation, it actually moved along quite well. Most of the book dealt with Generaloberst Ludwig Beck; specifically with the chronology, extent & motivation of his opposition to Hitler. There isn't much new here, as this work was written some thirty-odd years ago, but given the dearth of English-language material on Beck it was still well worth reading. I'd give it a qualified recommendation. This is the second work I've read from the "War, Armed Forces and Society" series published by Manchester University Press during the 1980s; the other was Troubled days of peace: Mountbatten and South East Asia Command, 1945-46, which was really quite good, although getting hold of a copy took several years and was an enormous pain in the ass. Expensive, too. Happily, Klaus-Jürgen Müller's book is much easier to find and quite inexpensive! I'm not sure what happened with the series; as far as I know only 3 or 4 works were actually published. A shame, really, as the series' General Editor was the well-respected Dr. Ian F.W. Beckett, and the equally renowned Professor Douglas Porch served on the Editorial board...