An Unofficial 'The Rest Is History' Reading List

410. The Nazis in Power: The Night of Broken Glass (Part 7)

January 18, 2024

Description

By November 1938 the scene in Germany was at its darkest yet, as the full scale of Hitler’s intentions for the Jewish population of the German Reich was becoming evermore apparent. As the threat...
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Books Referenced

Mein Kampf

Author: Adolf Hitler

Context:

Referenced in a Yorkshire Post editorial from 1938, stating that the treatment of German Jews could have been anticipated by reading this book, which is 'plastered with anti-Semitic abuse'

Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy

Author: Adam Tooze

Context:

Referenced as a historian whose work discusses the theme of Nazis using anti-Semitism to distract from economic struggles (providing 'guns as well as butter')

The Third Reich Trilogy

Author: Richard Evans

Context:

Referenced alongside Adam Tooze as a historian whose work discusses Nazi economic and anti-Semitic policies

The Yiddish Policeman's Union

Author: Michael Chabon

Context:

Explicitly mentioned as 'Michael Chabon's great novel' - an alternative history where Jews ended up in Canada/Alaska rather than Palestine

The Third Reich in Power

Author: Richard Evans

Context:

Directly referenced as 'Richard Evans's book on the Third Reich in power' - used as a source for examples of Kristallnacht violence in towns like Treutlingen and Esslingen

I Will Bear Witness (diaries)

Author: Victor Klemperer

Context:

Referenced as 'Victor Klemperer's diaries' - describing his experience of being excluded from all aspects of German life as a Jew

Hitler (biography)

Author: Ian Kershaw

Context:

Referenced as 'Ian Kershaw's biography' (of Hitler) - cited regarding Hitler's mindset connecting the Jewish question with his desire for an apocalyptic showdown in Europe, and regarding the establishment of Heydrich's central office for Jewish immigration as a step toward the Holocaust