Abstract

On 30 January 1933, Alfred Hugenberg's conservative German National People's Party (DNVP) formed a coalition government with the Nazi Party, thus enabling Hitler to accede to the chancellorship. This book analyzes in detail the complicated relationship between Conservatives and Nazis and offers a re-interpretation of the Nazi seizure of power - the decisive months between 30 January and 14 July 1933. The Machtergreifung is characterized here as a period of all-pervasive violence and lawlessness with incessant conflicts between Nazis and German Nationals and Nazi attacks on the conservative Bürgertum, a far cry from the traditional depiction of the takeover as a relatively bloodless, virtually sterile assumption of power by one vast impersonal apparatus wresting control from another. The author scrutinizes the revolutionary character of the Nazi seizure of power, the Nazis' attacks on the conservative Bürgertum and its values, and National Socialism's co-optation of conservative symbols of state power to serve radically new goals, while addressing the issue of why the DNVP was complicit in this and paradoxically participated in eroding the foundations of its very own principles and bases of support.

Hermann Beck is Professor of History at the University of Miami, where he teaches German and Modern European History. He has been a member of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton and a Fellow at the Berliner Historische Kommission. The author of The Origins of the Authoritarian Welfare State in Prussia: Conservatives, Bureaucracy, and the Social Question, 1815-1870, he has also contributed articles to American and European journals, including among others, The Journal of Modern History, The Journal of Contemporary History, Central European History, and German History.

“The strength of the study lies undoubtedly in the empirical research that is simply impressive and considerably widens our historical knowledge of the year 1933.”  ·  Journal of Modern History

“Beck’s extraordinarily well-researched and trenchantly argued monograph restores a welcome sense of contingency to the first months of the Nazi ‘seizure of power’ “  ·  European History Quarterly

“...a compelling study...Beck’s engaging analysis offers valuable and perceptive insights into the course and character of the Nazi seizure of power and deserves to be read widely.”  ·  American Historical Review

“He uses the Machtergreifung to give new insight not only in the chaos of 1933, but also into the more general constellation of power relationships in Weimar Germany. A valuable contribution to the current literature on both the Nazis and the conservatives. Highly recommended.”  ·  Choice

“…[an] excellent treatment of the German National People’s Party (CNVP) in the tumultuous spring and summer of 1933…Beck’s signal contribution is the unblinking and well-researched fashion in which he sheds valuable new light on the oft-told story of the rise of the Nazi dictatorship.”  ·  German Studies Review

“Already the authoritative voice on German Conservatism in the nineteenth century, Beck proves himself anew with his meticulously researched, tightly-argued, and skillfully written book on the complex interaction between National Socialism and Conservatism during the Third Reich.”  ·  James F. Tent, University of Alabama at Birmingham

“…illuminating original research and insightful analysis.”  ·  Henry Ashby Turner, Yale University

“A well-written, readable and solidly researched account.”  ·  Jeremy Noakes

“Hermann Beck has given us by far the best account that we have of the German political right and the triumph of Hitler, an original, carefully researched and revisionist study which will revise certain standard interpretations. Provides a new perspective on the relationship between the DNVP and the Jews, and particularly on the Nazis’ intense animosity against the DNVP and the bourgeoisie.”  ·  Stanley G. Payne, Hilldale-Jaume Vicens Vives Professor Emeritus of History, University of Wisconsin-Madison