Nazi Germany

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

This course aims to provide students with a deeper understanding of the Nazi period and its significance for modern German and European history. This period is a particularly fascinating one because it raises a host of questions about modern society. Most obviously it forces us to explain how an enlightened, western democracy could give way to a police state that murdered six million Jews and led to the deaths of millions more in World War Two. Was there something inherent in modern German society or in modern society as a whole that made people vulnerable to demagoguery, submissive to authority, and hostile to various 'Others'?