A fresh treatment of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, revealing the close ties between Mussolini and Hitler and their regimes From 1934 until 1944 Mussolini met Hitler numerous times, and the two developed a relationship that deeply affected both countries. While Germany is generally regarded as the senior power, Christian Goeschel demonstrates just how much history has underrepresented Mussolini's influence on his German ally. In this highly readable book, Goeschel, a scholar of twentieth-century Germany and Italy, revisits all of Mussolini and Hitler's key meetings and asks how these meetings constructed a powerful image of a strong Fascist-Nazi relationship that still resonates with the general public. His portrait of Mussolini draws on sources ranging beyond political history to reveal a leader who, at times, shaped Hitler's decisions and was not the gullible buffoon he's often portrayed as. The first comprehensive study of the Mussolini-Hitler relationship, this book is a must-read for scholars and anyone interested in the history of European fascism, World War II, or political leadership.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Introduction--
• 1. The Weimar Background--
• 2. Suicide under the Swastika, 1933-1939--
• 3. Suicides of German Jews, 1933-1945--
• 4. War-time suicides, 1939-1944--
• 5. Downfall-- Conclusion.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

The Third Reich met its end in the spring of 1945 in an unparalleled wave of suicides. Hitler, Goebbels, Bormann, Himmler and later Goering all killed themselves. These deaths represent only the tip of an iceberg of a massive wave of suicides that also touched upon ordinary lives. As this suicide epidemic has no historical precedent or parallel, it can tell us much about the Third Reich's peculiar self-destructiveness and the depths of Nazi fanaticism. Christian Goeschel looks at the suicides of both Nazis and ordinary people in Germany between 1918 and 1945, from the end of World War I until the end of World War II, including the mass suicides of German Jews during the Holocaust. He shows how suicides among different population groups, including supporters, opponents, and victims of the regime, responded to the social, cultural, economic and, political context of the time. He also analyses changes and continuities in individual and societal responses to suicide over time, especially with regard to the Weimar Republic and the post-1945 era.Richly grounded in gripping and previously unpublished source material such as suicide notes and police investigations, the book offers a new perspective on the central social and political crises of the era, from revolution, economic collapse, and the rise of the Nazis, to Germany's total defeat in 1945.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

Weeks after Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933, the Nazi regime established the first concentration camps in Germany. Initially used for real and suspected political enemies, the camps increasingly came under SS control and became sites for the repression of social outsiders and German Jews. Terror was central to the Nazi regime from the beginning, and the camps gradually moved toward the center of repression, torture, and mass murder during World War II and the Holocaust. This collection brings together revealing primary documents on the crucial origins of the Nazi concentration camp system in the prewar years between 1933 and 1939, which have been overlooked thus far. Many of the documents are unpublished and have been translated into English for the first time. These documents provide insight into the camps from multiple perspectives, including those of prisoners, Nazi officials, and foreign observers, and shed light on the complex relationship between terror, state, and society in the Third Reich.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)