ABSTRACT
The National Socialist ‘seizure of power’ sparked enough enthusiasm among many Germans for them to abandon their previously gloomy depictions of the status quo. Germany had to take the first essential step towards the new European order. The European repercussions of the German development were envisaged in two different ways. Germany’s ‘rebirth,’ however, was not considered an entirely internal matter; it was supposed to be the prelude for a new Europe. Having leveraged a new thinking between liberalism and communism, Germany would finally live up to its calling by assuming the leading role in Europe, to which it was entitled, and provide Europe with a sound basis for peaceful agreement. As a renunciation of the allegedly misguided values of the French Revolution and its aftermath, including the Treaty of Versailles and democracy as such, it was to become the starting point of a new European Order.
