History of Nazi Germany

This course explores all aspects of the history of Nazi Germany from Adolf Hitler's rise to power in the early 1930s to his death at the end of the Second World War in 1945. Students examine the Nazi experience from as many vantage points as possible. The class explores the following: the Nazi seizure of power, the Hitler cult, the role of women in Nazi Germany, antisemitism, the Holocaust, Hitler's foreign policy, the appeasement policy of the Western democracies, the Second World War, and daily life in the Third Reich. Because many of the issues touched on in the course have their roots deeper in the German past, the class also spends some time examining the unification of Germany in the late 19th century, the impact on Germany of World War One, and the history of the doomed Weimar Republic (1919-33). The class also watches several films, including a documentary on the Holocaust and the infamous Nazi propaganda film Triumph of the Will.