HIST1280 - Origins of Nazism: From Democracy to Race War and Genocide

Where did the Nazis come from? Was the Weimar Republic bound to fail? Did the Treaty of Versailles or the Great Depression catapult the Nazis into power? What was the role of racism, of antisemitism? How did the regime consolidate itself? What was the role of ordinary people? How do we explain the Holocaust and what kind of a war was the Second World War?
Grappling with these and more questions, the first half of the course focuses on Germany’s first democracy, the Weimar Republic and its vibrant political culture. In the second half, we study the Nazi regime, how it consolidated its power and remade society based on the concepts of race and struggle. Discussions of race and race-making are crucial throughout the course. In the name of “racial purity,” the Nazi state moved ruthlessly against Germany’s Jewish population, cleansed German society of all “undesirable” elements, and waged a brutal war of extermination that aimed to racially reorder all of Europe. Thinking about Nazi racism and genocide, their origins and trajectories, in both its particular specifics and in a larger historical context is the main goal of this course.