ABSTRACT
The interpretations of Germany’s past by friends and foes of the Third Reich exhibit remarkable similarities. Both wish to demonstrate that Germany’s national history contained the seeds of Hitlerism and that great names in German philosophy, religion and culture were forerunners of the nazi era. Needless to say, this kind of interpretation — which sees the Third Reich as a logical culmination of Germany’s national development — has found many critics. The right radical element in Germany regarded the outbreak of the first world war as a blessing and a challenge. In the early years of the Weimar republic there was violence on Germany’s eastern frontier and civil disturbance at home. The expansion and concentration of great industrial enterprises was not checked by the advent of fascism in Germany; on the contrary, the pressure of the government’s economic programme hastened this development.
