This course looks at the rise of modern Germany from the mid-19^th century to the collapse of the Weimar Republic. It explores key events and developments such as the founding of the Kaiserreich and the emergence of modern anti-Semitism and racialism more generally. How was Germany unified in the 19^th century? What produced the hyperinflation of 1923? How “golden” where the 1920s? Why did Weimar really crash during the Great Depression? Is there a link between Imperial Germany and the Third Reich? These and other questions will be explored from a variety of angles in order to trace the deep historical roots of Nazism in modern German history.

• Demonstrate a knowledge of various aspects of German social, political, economic and cultural history in the period 1850-1933.
• Comment on major historiographical debates which have dominated the study of modern German history over the past thirty years.
• Discuss critically the complex origins, chequered history and ambiguous legacy of the Kaiserreich and the first German republic.

The course is taught by means of weekly lectures and seminars as appropriate (26-28 contact hours overall) and by feedback.

You will have the opportunity to prepare one seminar presentation and to contribute actively to discussions. Bear in mind that learning is an active process, requiring not only the acquisition of knowledge but the exchange of ideas, opinions and arguments with others. It is therefore essential that you do all the reading for the seminars: the essential preparatory reading will be provided on Learning Central. To facilitate your preparations, seminars will be accompanied by relevant film screenings.

You will receive continuous feedback throughout the semester There will be a revision session (exam preparation) in the final week of the semester and guidance on how to write a quality essay will be given throughout the semester. Please make use of my weekly office hours – they are reserved for you.

On completion of this module a typical student will be able to:

Personal transferable skills

• Communicate ideas effectively and fluently, both orally and in writing
• Use communications and information technologies for the retrieval and presentation of information
• Work independently, demonstrating initiative, self-organisation and time-management
• Collaborate with others and contribute to the achievement of common goals

Generic intellectual skills

• Gather, organize and deploy evidence, data and information from a variety of sources
• Develop a reasoned argument, synthesize relevant information and exercise critical judgement
• Reflect on his or her own learning and make use of constructive feedback
• Manage his or her own learning self-critically

The generic skills will be manifest in the following activities: literature searches on the internet and CD ROM, compilation of bibliographies for essays, use of PowerPoint, presentation of written work, and mastery of „FootNote‟.

Lectures

Topics:

• Economy and society transformed: the long nineteenth century
• The making of a united Germany
• Wilhelmine Germany and its political culture (1890-1914)
• The rise of antisemitism
• Friedrich Nietzsche and his legacy
• Foreign policy and the First World War
• Defeat, revolution and the birth of the Weimar Republic
• Weimar: the 'crisis of classical modernity'?
• The ‘Roaring Twenties’
• Crisis and collapse 1929-33: Why did Weimar fail?
• How was Hitler possible?
• Modern Germany in context

Seminars

Topics:

• Unification from above?
• The Loyal Subject(Wolfgang Staudte/Heinrich Mann)
• Imperial Germany and the Sonderwegargument
• All Quiet on the Western Front(Lewis Milestone/Erich Maria Remarque, film discussion)
• Class war from above: capital and labour in the Weimar Republic
• When money dies: the nightmare of hyperinflation
• Modernisation and its problems in the Weimar Republic
• Berlin Alexanderplatz(Rainer Werner Fassbinder/Alfred Döblin, film discussion)
• Male fantasies: economy and culture
• Women in Weimar Germany
• The rise of fascism
• From Bismarck to Hitler?
• Revision session

Recommended Text Books

Blackbourn, David (2009), The Long Nineteenth Century: German History 1780 –1918, 2^nd edn., Oxford, Malden/MA, Berlin: Wiley-Blackwell. [DD197.B5]

Abrams, Lynn (2006), Bismarck and the German Empire, 1871-1918, London and New York: Routledge. [DD218.A3.A2]

Weitz, Eric D. (2009), Weimar Germany: Promise and Tragedy, Princeton: Princeton University Press. [DD237.W3]

Layton, Geoff (2010), From Kaiser to Führer: Germany 1900-1945, London: Hodder. [in library soon]

Topic specific seminar reading with guiding questions will be provided on Learning Central.

Recommended Further Reading

• Berger, Stefan, Social Democracy and the Working Class in Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Germany, (2000). [HD8450.B3]
• Berger, Stefan, Germany: Inventing the Nation, (2004). [copies available – HF]
• Blackbourn, David and Geoff Eley, The Peculiarities of German History: Bourgeois Society and Politics in Nineteenth Century Germany, (1984). [DD 203.B5]
• Blackbourn, David, The Long Nineteenth Century, 2^nd edn. (2009). [DD197.B5]
• Bookbinder, Paul, Weimar Germany: The Republic of the Reasonable, (1996). [DD237.B6]
• Brenner, Michael, The Renaissance of Jewish Culture in Weimar Germany, (1996). [DS135.G33.B7]
• Bridenthal, Renate, et al., eds., When Biology became Desitiny: Women in Weimar and Nazi Germany, (1984). [HQ1623.W475.W4]
• Clark, Christopher, Wilhelm II: A Life in Power, (2009). [in library soon]
• Eley, Geoff, ed., Society, Culture, and the State in Germany 1870-1930, (1997). [DD228.3.S6]
• Eley, Geoff, From Unification to Nazism: Reinterpreting the German Past, (1986). [DD220.E5]
• McElligott, Anthony, ed., Weimar Germany, Short Oxford History of Gemany, (2010), [in library soon]
• Evans, Richard J., The Coming of the Third Reich (2004) [D757.E9]
• Ferguson, Adam, When Money Dies: The Nightmare of Hyperinflation, (2010). [in library soon]
• Fischer, Conan, ed., The Rise of National Socialism and the Working Classes in Weimar Germany, (1996). [HD8450.R4]
• Frevert, Ute, Women in German History: From Bourgeois Emancipation to Sexual Liberation, (1990). [HQ1627.F7]
• Gerwarth, Robert,The Bismarck Myth: Weimar Germany and the Legacy of the Iron Chancellor, (2005). [DD221.G3]
• Hiden, John, Republican and Fascist Germany: Themes and Variations in the History of Weimar and the Third Reich, 1918-1945, (1996). [copies available – HF]
• Kershaw, Ian, ed., Weimar: Why did German Democracy Fail? (1990). [DD237.W3]
• Kocka, Jürgen, Industrial Culture and Bourgeois Society: Business, Labour and Bureaucracy in Modern Germany, (1999). [HC285.K6]
• Martel, Gordon, ed., Modern Germany Reconsidered, 1870-1945, (1992). [DD220.M6]
• Mommsen, Hans, The Rise and Fall of Weimar Democracy, (1996). [DD237.M6]
• Mommsen, Wolfgang J., Imperial Germany 1967-1918: Politics, Culture, and Society in an Authoritarian State, (1995). [DD220.M6]
• Peukert, Detlev, The Weimar Republic, (1991). [DD237.P3]
• Pulzer, Peter, Germany, 1870-1945: Politics, State Formation, and War, (1997). [DD221.P8]
• Retallack, James, ed., Imperial Germany 1871-1918, Short Oxford History of Germany, (2008). [in library soon]
• Retallack, James,The German right, 1860-1920 : political limits of the authoritarian imagination, (2006). [DD221.R3]
• Seligmann, Matthew and Roderick McLean, Germany from Reich to Republic, 1871-1918: Politics, Hierarchy and Elites, (2000). [DD221.S3]
• Steinberg, Jonathan, Bismarck: A Life, (2011). [DD218.S8]
• Theweleit, Klaus, Male fantasies, vol. 1, Women, Floods, Bodies, History, (1987); vol. 2, Male bodies: Psychoanalysing the White Terror, (1989). [HQ28.T4]
• Wehler, Hans-Ulrich, The German Empire 1871-1918, (1985). [DD220.W3]