The Weimar Republic was born out of Germany's defeat in the First World War and ended with the coming to power of Hitler and his Nazi Party in 1933. In many ways, it is a wonder that Weimar lasted as long as it did. Besieged from the outset by hostile forces, the young republic was threatened by
revolution from the left and coups d'états from the right. Plagued early on by a wave of high-profile political assassinations and a period of devastating hyper-inflation, its later years were dominated by the onset of the Great Depression. And yet, for a period from the mid-1920s it looked as if
the Weimar system would not only survive but even flourish, with the return of economic stability and the gradual reintegration of the country into the international community.
With contributions from an international team of ten experts, this volume in the Short Oxford History of
Germany series offers an ideal introduction to Weimar Germany, challenging the reader to rethink preconceived ideas of the republic and throwing new light on important areas, such as military ideas for reshaping society after the First World War, constitutional and social reform, Jewish life,
gender, and culture.
Anthony McElligott: Introduction
1. Anthony McElligott: Political Culture
2. Wolfgang Elz: Foreign Policy
3. William Mulligan: The Reichswehr and the Weimar Republic
4. Harold James: The Weimar Economy
5. John Bingham: The 'Urban Republic'
6. Kathleen Canning: Women and
the Politics of Gender
7. Young-Sun Hong: The Weimar Welfare System
8. Adelheid von Saldern: 'Neues Wohnen': Housing and Reform
9. Anthony D. Kauders: Weimar Jewry
10. Karl Christian Führer: High Brow and Low Brow Culture
Further Reading
Chronology
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Anthony McElligott is professor of history at the University of Limerick, where he is also the Director of the Centre for Historical Research. He is a founding co-editor of Cultural and Social History: The Journal of the Social History Society. He has published widely on the Weimar Republic
and the Third Reich, notably Contested City: Municipal Politics and the Rise of Nazism in Altona 1917-1937 (1998), The German Urban Experience 1900-1945, Modernity and Crisis (2001), and with Tim Kirk, 'Working Towards The Führer': Essays in Honour of Sir Ian Kershaw (2003). He is currently
completing a major new study of the Weimar republic, Rethinking The Weimar Republic: Authority and Authoritarianism 1916-1936.
Nazi Germany - Edited by Jane Caplan
Imperial Germany 1871-1918 - Edited by James Retallack
Germany 1800 - 1871 - Edited by Jonathan Sperber
