The rise of the Nazis - Conan Fischer

The question of how and why the Nazis seized power in Germany remains heated, and important discoveries continue to challenge long-standing assumptions. This text takes stock of the debate and concludes that certain orthodoxies require rethinking.;The book begins with an overview of the historical context within which Nazism grew, looking at the foreign relations, politics and society of the Weimar Republic and particularly at the role of the elites in the rise of Nazism. It proceeds to examine the anatomy of Nazism itself - what lent its ideology coherence and credibility? What distinguished the Nazis' programme from their competitors' and how did they project it so effectively? How was Hitler able to put together and fund an organization so quickly and effectively that it could launch a sustained assault on Weimar? Who supported the Nazis and what were their motives? Where, precisely, does Nazism belong in the history of Europe?;Each chapter has a documentary appendix, and the book is designed for `A'level and undergraduate students.