This dictionary gives an enormous amount of basic information on the Third Reich era by listing, and often depicting, German terms connected to Nazism and the Germany of World War II. It includes ranks, badges, insignia, regalia, medals, flags and banners, weapons, uniforms, equipment, vehicles, fortifications, airplanes, battleships, main Nazi concepts and organizations, slogans, sayings, code names, nicknames, slang words, places of importance, events and battles, treaties and alliances, industry and economics, justice, art, religion, education, political parties, newspapers, laws, institutions, and short biographies of Nazi leaders. To make the rise of Nazism comprehensible, aspects of the Weimar Republic have also been considered. In all there are 1,650 entries and 234 illustrations.

"This dictionary gives an enormous amount of basic information on the Third Reich era by listing, and often depicting, German terms connected to Nazism and the Germany of World War II. To make the rise of Nazism comprehensible, aspects of the Weimar Republic have also been considered"--

The armies of the Third Reich were a formidable foe for the Allied forces – largely thanks to the effectiveness of their equipment and weaponry. In this first-class book, renowned firearms expert John Walter examines the full range of guns used from the commercially successful Walter PP and PPK, to the double-action, personal defence pistols Mauser HSc and Sauer M38. Walter also considers the value of weapons that were captured and then used, by the Wehrmacht and the police. Thoroughly researched and illustrated with fascinating examples, this comprehensive reference book covers all significant aspects of design and employment, including data for each weapon on length, weight, barrel, magazine and muzzle velocity. This is an indispensable resource on a compelling subject.

A fully illustrated study of the notorious Nuremberg rallies and the part they played in the Nazis’ quest to establish the 1000 Year Third Reich. Between 1923 and 1938 the Nazis held ten ‘Reich National Party Conventions’ in the city of Nuremberg. Each rally was bigger than the last, with the number of visitors growing to over half a million, this growth reflecting the spread of National Socialism across Germany. This book reveals how the rallies were organised, what the daily schedules were, who spoke at them and who attended. It also explores the development of the Rally Grounds under Albert Speer, the importance of the rallies in Joseph Goebbels’ propaganda campaign and the story of Leni Riefenstahl’s filming of the rallies, in particular the Triumph of the Will in 1934. Using over 140 dramatic and informative images, both of the rallies and Nuremberg today, author Andrew Rawson provides new insight into the most spectacular propaganda exercises since the games of Ancient Rome.

In modern times, the recruitment of children into a political organization and ideology reached its boldest embodiment in the Hitler Youth, founded in 1933 soon after the Nazi Party assumed power in Germany. Determining that by age ten children’s minds could be turned from play to politics, the regime inducted nearly all German juveniles between the ages of ten and eighteen into its state-run organization. The result was a potent tool for bending young minds and hearts to the will of Adolf Hitler. Baldur von Schirach headed a strict chain of command whose goal was to shift the adolescents’ sense of obedience from home and school to the racially defined Volk and the Third Reich. Luring boys and girls into Hitler Youth ranks by offering them status, uniforms, and weekend hikes, the Nazis turned campgrounds into premilitary training sites, air guns into machine guns, sing-alongs into marching drills, instruction into indoctrination, and children into Nazis. A few resisted for personal or political reasons, but the overwhelming majority enlisted. Drawing on original reports, letters, diaries, and memoirs, Michael H. Kater traces the history of the Hitler Youth, examining the means, degree, and impact of conversion, and the subsequent fate of young recruits. Millions of Hitler Youth joined the armed forces; thousands gleefully participated in the subjugation of foreign peoples and the obliteration of “racial aliens.” Although young, they committed crimes against humanity for which they cannot escape judgment. Their story stands as a harsh reminder of the moral bankruptcy of regimes that make children complicit in crimes of the state.

The Sturm Abteilung der NSDAP (SA, assault battalion of the Nazi party) created in August 1920 were squads of strong arms intended to protect the Nazis meetings, to provoke disturbance, to break up other parties meetings, and to attack and assault political opponents as part of a deliberate campaign of intimidation. After 1925 the name Braunhemden (Brownshirts) was also given to its members because of the colour of their uniforms. Under the leadership of Hitlers close political associate, Ernst Rhm, the SA grew to become a huge and radical paramilitary force. This book answers several questions concerning the SA. How did the SA become a national movement? What was the relationship between Rhm and Hitler? What role did the SA play in providing Hitler with the keys to power? After the seizure of power by the Nazis on January 30, 1933, what was the function of the Brownshirts? Why did the brutal and scandalous Ernst Rhm stand in Hitlers way? What became of the SA after the bloody purge of June 1934, the notorious Night of the Long Knives?

No documentation of National Socialism can be undertaken without the explicit recognition that the "German Renaissance" promised by the Nazis culminated in unprecedented horror—World War II and the genocide of European Jewry. With The Third Reich Sourcebook, editors Anson Rabinbach and Sander L. Gilman present a comprehensive collection of newly translated documents drawn from wide-ranging primary sources, documenting both the official and unofficial cultures of National Socialist Germany from its inception to its defeat and collapse in 1945. Framed with introductions and annotations by the editors, the documents presented here include official government and party pronouncements, texts produced within Nazi structures, such as the official Jewish Cultural League, as well as documents detailing the impact of the horrors of National Socialism on those who fell prey to the regime, especially Jews and the handicapped. With thirty chapters on ideology, politics, law, society, cultural policy, the fine arts, high and popular culture, science and medicine, sexuality, education, and other topics, The Third Reich Sourcebook is the ultimate collection of primary sources on Nazi Germany.