In this survey of the German slump the author argues that it was difficult for Weimar's system to provide solutions to long-term weaknesses caused by structural rigidification and increasingly conservative investment choices, poor labour relations, high taxation, and an inefficient agrarian sector.

This collection of essays covers themes central to German economic history while considering their interaction with other historical phenomena. Among the essays Borchardt considers Germany's late start as an industrial nation, the West-East developmental gradient, key patterns of long-term economic development, and unusual changes in the phenomena of business cycles. The collection also contains the essays which have become the subject of so-called 'Borchardt controversies', in which hypotheses are presented on the economic causes of the collapse of the parliamentary regime by 1929-30, at the very end of the 'crisis before the crisis'. He also explains why there were no alternatives to the economic policies of the slump, and in particular why there was no 'miracle weapon' against Hitler's seizure of power. These are among the most original and stimulating contributions of recent years to the economic history of modern Germany and will be of interest to anyone who ponders deeply the meaning of history.

This book offers a succinct overview of the turbulent economic history of the Weimar Republic.

Originally published in 1988, The Burden of German History 1919-45 examines the vast literature surrounding Weimar years and the National Socialist tragedy, daunting even for the specialist historian or political scientist. The essays included in this volume provide an invaluable guide to research of the time and provides a stimulating review of a wide range of topics in modern German cultural, political, economic and military history. The essays are based on a series of lectures given by German and Irish scholars to a conference on the theme ‘Weimar Germany and National Socialism’, which was held in March 1986 in University College, Dublin, under the auspices of the Goethe Institute, Dublin. This book offers a significant commentary on a period of German history which included the exciting and ambivalent freedom of the Weimar society and the repressive, murderous uniformity of National Socialism.

War and Economy in the Third Reich examines the nature of the German economy in the 1930s and the Second World War. Richard Overy's essays, collected here for the first time with a substantial new introduction, explore the tension between Hitler's vision of an armed economy and the reality of German economic and social life. Often thought-provoking, always informed, War and Economy opens a window on an essential aspect of Hitler's Germany.

The twentieth century has seen Germany transformed from imperial monarchy, through Weimar democracy, National Socialist dictatorship, to finally divide into parliamentary democracy in the West and socialist Volksdemocratie in the East. Pivoting on two World Wars, intense political change has dramatically affected Germany's economic structure and development. This book traces the logic and the peculiarities of German economic development through the Weimar Republic, Third Reich and Federal Republic. Providing a comprehensive analysis of the period, the book also assesses controversial issues, such as the origins of the Great Depression, the primacy of politics or economics in the decision to invade Poland and the future risks to the Weltmeister economy of the Federal Republic oppressed by unemployment, the huge debts of some of its trading partners, and the possibility of worldwide protectionism.

The gripping stories of ordinary Germans who lived through World War II, the Holocaust, and Cold War partition—but also recovery, reunification, and rehabilitation Broken Lives is a gripping account of ordinary Germans who came of age under Hitler and whose lives were scarred and sometimes destroyed by what they saw and did. Drawing on six dozen memoirs by Germans born in the 1920s, Konrad Jarausch chronicles the unforgettable stories of people who not only lived through the Third Reich, World War II, the Holocaust, and Cold War partition, but also participated in Germany's astonishing postwar recovery, reunification, and rehabilitation. Bringing together the voices of men and women, perpetrators and victims, Broken Lives offers new insights about persistent questions. Why did so many Germans support Hitler through years of wartime sacrifice and Nazi inhumanity? How did they finally distance themselves from the Nazi past and come to embrace human rights? The result is a powerful portrait of the experiences of average Germans who journeyed into, through, and out of the abyss of a dark century.