ABSTRACT
Although fascism first manifested itself in Italy, it is Nazi Germany that is usually referred to as the textbook totalitarian state. The rise and fall of National Socialism is understandably one of the most closely studied issues in modern European history. Historians have been at great pains to explain why millions of Germans voted for the Nazi party in free elections and how such a regime could eventually acquire such an extensive European empire; five decades after the collapse of the Third Reich, fundamental disagreements about interpreting Nazism still exist. The popular image of German society under Nazi rule is a confusing one, ranging from the adoration of crowds surrounding Adolf Hitler, to the bestiality of the concentration camps and fear of the Gestapo. It is a picture that raises questions crucial to our understanding of National Socialism. What, for example, were the respective roles of consent and coercion in sustaining the regime, and what was the nature of that consent? Behind the facade of national unity was there any dissent or even ‘resistance’, and, if so, was it terror alone that rendered it so ineffectual?
