German Social Democracy and the Rise of Nazism | Donna Harsch

416 pp., 6.125 x 9.25

Paperback ISBN: 978-0-8078-5733-5
Published: January 2011
E-book EPUB ISBN: 978-0-8078-6192-9
Published: November 2000
E-book PDF ISBN: 979-8-8908-6607-3
Published: November 2000

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German Social Democracy and the Rise of Nazism explores the failure of Germany's largest political party to stave off the Nazi threat to the Weimar republic. In 1928 members of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) were elected to the chancellorship and thousands of state and municipal offices. But despite the party's apparent strengths, in 1933 Social Democracy succumbed to Nazi power without a fight. Previous scholarship has blamed this reversal of fortune on bureaucratic paralysis, but in this revisionist evaluation, Donna Harsch argues that the party's internal dynamics immobilized the SPD. Harsch looks closely at Social Democratic ideology, structure, and political culture, examining how each impinged upon the party's response to economic disaster, parliamentary crisis, and the Nazis. She considers political and organizational interplay within the SPD as well as interaction between the party, the Socialist trade unions, and the republican defense league. Conceding that lethargy and conservatism hampered the SPD, Harsch focuses on strikingly inventive ideas put forward by various Social Democrats to address the republic's crisis. She shows how the unresolved competition among these proposals blocked innovations that might have thwarted Nazism.

Originally published in 1993.

A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.

About the Author

Donna Harsch is assistant professor of history at Carnegie Mellon University.
For more information about Donna Harsch, visit the Author Page.

Reviews

"The finest chronicle in any language of the twists and turns of the Führer's numerically largest opposition, the German Social Democrats, between 1928 and 1933."--German Studies Review

"[An] absorbing and sympathetic study of the debates within the SPD during the slump."--Times Literary Supplement

"A valuable addition to the extensive literature on Weimar Germany and can be recommended to all readers interested in that fateful era."--Choice

"Better than any previous analysis, [Harsch's] book captures the rhythm of events as Social Democrats experienced them."--American Historical Review

"An important book that is rich in insight and sensitive in its treatment of the difficulties that the leaders of German Social Democracy faced in formulating and implementing an effective response to the challenge of Nazism. Based upon a thorough and careful examination of published and unpublished sources, Harsch's book sheds important new light on the weaknesses of Germany's democratic forces in the last years of the Weimar Republic."--Larry Eugene Jones, Canisius College

"The best work in English on German Social Democracy during the final crisis of the Weimar Republic, and one of the best on this subject in any language. Its special virtue is to present five years of developments in the Social Democratic Party with the texture of politics experienced in the daily paper: complex, various, uncertain, sometimes unexpected and arbitrary, and often exciting."--David W. Morgan, Wesleyan University

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