The Third Reich The Essential Readings

This book presents a unique collection of some of the most influential recent writing on vital aspects of Nazi Germany. It provides readers with an insight into new perspectives on traditional understandings of the Third Reich as well as covering all the central aspects of the period, from the rise of the Nazis and the internal organization of the regime, to Germany's role in the Second World War.The pieces incorporate discussion of social and economic change, the personality of Hitler, the role of women in Nazi Germany, the involvement of German armed forces in the atrocities of the Second World War, the relationship between the German people and the Gestapo and, most controversially, continuing debates about German public opinion and the Holocaust. A key feature is the inclusion of three seminal articles by German historians translated into English here for the first time. The volume begins with a substantial editorial introduction to current issues and each essay is prefaced with a headnote, setting it in its historiographical context.

Christian Leitz is Associate Professor of History and Associate Dean of the Faculty of Arts at the University of Auckland. He has previously taught at the University of the West of England, Bristol and was a Junior Research Fellow at Wolfson College, Oxford. He is the author of Economic Relations between Nazi Germany and Franco's Spain, 1936-1945 (1996) and Nazi Germany and Neutral Policy 1941-45 (forthcoming) and Nazi Foreign Policy, 1933-41 (forthcoming).