Democrats into Nazis: Middle Class Radicalisation in a Single German Town, 1918-1924

Alex Burkhardt

sept 2019 · Cambridge Scholars Publishing

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How did millions of middle-class Germans come to support extreme nationalist and anti-democratic groups during the Weimar Republic? This troubling and pointedly argued book addresses this question through a targeted case study of Hof, a small Bavarian town, in the five years after the First World War. During this tumultuous period, a series of devastating crises and violent confrontations discredited the representatives of democratic liberalism and handed the initiative to a reinvigorated radical Right. Crucially, these crises were understood by Hof’s inhabitants as part of a broader “European Civil War” unleashed by the Russian Revolution and Treaty of Versailles. This detailed and disturbing study will be read with profit by students and scholars of modern history who seek new insights into the rise of the Nazis, and into the processes of popular radicalisation that did so much to bring about the destruction of the Weimar Republic.

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Alex Burkhardt completed his doctoral degree at the University of St. Andrews, UK, where he was funded by one of the School of History’s prestigious 600-year anniversary scholarships. His work has appeared in both English and German in a range of publications, including Central European History, German History, the Weimarer Schriften zur Republik, and the Bulletin of the German Historical Institute London. He is currently attached to the Phillip’s University of Marburg, Germany, and teaches German Politics and History at the Hessen International Summer University, Germany.