Der Weg ins Dritte Reich

by Various

German

221 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1983

About the author

Various is the correct author for any book with multiple unknown authors, and is acceptable for books with multiple known authors, especially if not all are known or the list is very long (over 50).

If an editor is known, however, Various is not necessary. List the name of the editor as the primary author (with role "editor"). Contributing authors' names follow it.

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Reviews

[Greg · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting collection of by German academics about topics that contributed to the destruction of Weimar Germany and the creation of the Third Reich that would interest those with an intense interest in this period of history. All of the authors lived through the Third Reich, one having spent seven years in Dachau.

It was troubling to see how many aspects of Weimar remind me so much of the world today. I couldn’t help but draw general parallels to the current state of American politics. There was a phrase in vogue during the first few decades of the Federal Republic of Germany: Bonn is not Weimar. I think now one could say that Washington and many U.S. state capitals today have a lot of similarities with Weimar. To take one example, in a democracy all parties should recognize the opposition (or minority) and value it. That was lost during Weimar and is lost today in American politics at the federal, state and local levels.

Three other stark parallels stand out. One is the concentration of wealth in the political elite and how they try to harness grassroots reactionary interests but ultimately become controlled by them. A second is the use of demonization as a popular political strategy. In Weimar it was communists, social democrats, ethnic minorities, Jews, intellectuals, and organized religion. Today in the U.S. it is immigrants, anti-intellectualism (as is most stark in the rise of anti-science constituencies), black Americans, Hispanics, women, and those who need public services for their daily lives. A third is the similarity of the Weimar Social Democratic Party and today’s American Democratic Party. Neither had a reliable political consistency or a conceptual understanding of how to act as either a party of opposition or as a majority.