HIST 266 - Nazi Germany

Credits: (3)
Popular references to National Socialism conjure images of goose-stepping automatons and raving, murderous madmen. This introduction to Nazi Germany challenges popular conceptions of Nazis as monsters by exploring the multi-causal sources of the National Socialist dictatorship. We will trace the rise and fall of the Nazi Party in Germany from 1933-1945. Our exploration of Nazi Germany will focus on the roles individuals played in sustaining and resisting the regime and its genocidal project. We will examine the complex motivations that drove people’s (in)action during the Nazi era. The class will cover topics such as Nazi ideology and aesthetics, daily life in the Third Reich, women and families under Nazi rule, Nazi foreign policy and the Second World War, complicity and resistance, the Holocaust, and the Nuremberg Trials. We will examine secondary historical accounts of the Third Reich in addition to a variety of primary sources (including diaries, memoirs, films, etc.).