Backing Hitler : consent and coercion in Nazi Germany / Robert Gellately.

9780192802910 (pbk.)
0192802917 (pbk.)
9780198205609
0198205600

Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2001.

English

xvi, 359 p., [24] p. of plates : ill. ; 24 cm.

DD256.5 .G45 2001

943.086

Using primary evidence, the author reveals the social consensus behind the Nazi regime and persecution of racial minorities & social outsiders. Debate still rages over how much ordinary Germans knew about the concentration camps and the Gestapo's activities during Hitler's reign. Now, in this well-documented and provocative volume, historian Robert Gellately argues that the majority of German citizens had quite a clear picture of the extent of Nazi atrocities, and continued to support the Reich to the bitter end. Culling chilling evidence from primary news sources and citing dozens of case studies, Gellately shows how media reports and press stories were an essential dimension of Hitler's popular dictatorship. Indeed, a vast array of material on the concentration camps, the violent campaigns against social outsiders, and the Nazis' radical approaches to law and order was published in the media of the day, and was widely read by a highly literate population of Germans. Hitler, Gellately reveals, did not try to hide the existence of the Gestapo or of concentration camps. Nor did the Nazis try to cow the people into submission. Instead they set out to win converts by building on popular images, cherished ideals, and long-held phobias. And their efforts succeeded, Gellately concludes, for the Gestapo's monstrous success was due, in large part, to ordinary German citizens who singled out suspected enemies in their midst, reporting their suspicions and allegations freely and in a spirit of cooperation and patriotism. Extensively documented, highly readable and illustrated with never-before-published photographs, Backing Hitler convincingly debunks the myth that Nazi atrocities were carried out in secret. From the rise of the Third Reich well into the final, desperate months of the war, the destruction of innocent lives was inextricably linked to the will of the German people. The Nazis never won a majority in free elections, but soon after Hitler took power most Germans turned away from democracy and backed the Nazi regime. Hitler was able to win growing support even as he established the Gestapo and concentration camps. Yet for over fifty years historians have disputed what the German people knew about these camps and in what ways they were involved in the persecution of race enemies, slave workers, and social outsiders. In this ground-breaking study of Nazi terror within Germany, Robert Gellately finally answers these questions. The author exposes once and for all the substantial consent and active participation of large numbers of ordinary Germans in the terror. He shows that rather than hide their racist and repressive campaigns from the German people the Nazis trumpeted them in the national papers and on the streets. He reveals how they drew on popular images, cherished German ideals, and long held phobias to win converts to their cause. Tracing the story from 1933 to its grim conclusion in 1945, he demonstrates how war and the prospect of defeat radicalized Nazism. As the country spiralled towards defeat, Germans for the most part held on stubbornly. For anyone who dared contemplate surrender or resistance, terror became the order of the day.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

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