The Nazi Seizure of Power; The Experience of a Single German Town 1930-1935
Chicago, IL: Quadrangle Books, 1965. Seventh Printing [Stated]. Trade paperback. xiv, 345, [90 pages. Footnotes. Map. Notes. Appendices. Index. The cover has some wear and soiling. Some highlighting noted. Examines how the democratic framework of the German town of Thalburg (Northeim) was systematically dismantled from within between 1922 and 1945. The study illustrates how local Nazi activists integrated into everyday civic institutions, exploiting economic depression and fear of communism to turn citizens into complicit participants in totalitarian control. William Sheridan Allen (October 5, 1932 – March 14, 2013) was an American historian. Allen studied history at the universities of Michigan, Connecticut, and Minnesota, and in Germany at the Free University of Berlin and the University of Göttingen. The Nazi Seizure of Power (1965) was his first book. He also wrote The Infancy of Nazism. He retired in 2001 as professor of history at the State University of New York at Buffalo. Allen wrote two books on Adolf Hitler refuting the assertion that he came to power through violence. Allen claimed, Hitler's Nazi movement "seized power" in an act akin to democratic tactics. His most famous book, The Nazi Seizure of Power: The Experience of a Single German Town 1930–1935, was written to explain how one city (Northeim, Germany) fell into the Nazi trap. Fed by Nazi propaganda, many people of Northeim, especially in the middle classes, in the midst of the Great Depression saw the Nazis as a way to get their country back to greatness that Hitler and the Nazis promised they would do. The book was widely reviewed and extremely influential. William Sheridan Allen's research provides an intimate, comprehensive study of the mechanics of revolution and an analysis of the Nazi Party's subversion of democracy. Beginning at the end of the Weimar Republic, Allen examines the entire period of the Nazi Revolution within a single locality. Tackling one of the 20th century's greatest dilemmas, Allen demonstrates how this dictatorship subtly surmounted democracy and how the Nazi seizure of power encroached from below. Relying upon legal records and interviews with primary sources, Allen dissects Northeim, Germany with microscopic precision to depict the transformation of a sleepy town to a Nazi stronghold. In this cogent analysis, Allen argues that Hitler rose to power primarily through democratic tactics that incited localized support rather than through violent means. Allen's detailed, analysis has indisputably become a classic. Revised on the basis of newly discovered Nazi documents, The Nazi Seizure of Power: The Experience of a Single German Town, 1922-1945 continues to significantly contribute to the understanding of this prominent political and moral dispute of the 1900s. Condition: Good.
Keywords: Nazi, National Socialism, Thalburg, Northeim, Authoritarian, Elections, Terror, Local Politics
[Book #91930]
Price: $45.00