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The People’s Dictatorship: A History of Nazi Germany by Alan E. Steinweis (review)

2024; German Studies Association; Volume: 47; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/gsr.2024.a927874

2164-8646

Eric Kurlander,

European history and politics

Reviewed by: The People's Dictatorship: A History of Nazi Germany by Alan E. Steinweis Eric Kurlander The People's Dictatorship: A History of Nazi Germany. By Alan E. Steinweis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023. Pp. 294. Cloth $90.00. ISBN 9781107012363. When reviewing a new textbook on the Third Reich, one generally looks for three elements: an original narrative, a consideration of central themes and problems, and the incorporation of recent research. Alan Steinweis's well-conceived, fluently-written new history accomplishes these three tasks. By building the narrative around the concept of "people's dictatorship" (akin to Mary Fulbrook's concept of "participatory dictatorship"), Steinweis provides an analytical framework that acknowledges the regime's consensual elements (the Third Reich "revolutionized German society in important respects . . . backed by popular consensus") while reaffirming the fact that the Third Reich, dependent as it was on "a system of coercion and terror," never created "the People's Community envisaged by Nazi true believers" (3). This framework provides ample space for addressing central themes and problems, and the historiographical scaffolding, while modest, is up to date. The book is organized loosely along chronological and thematic lines. The first three chapters examine the role of ideology and pragmatism, coercion and consent, in consolidating the NSDAP's hold on the state, balancing the distinctive role of Hitler, Nazi ideology, and Nazi propaganda against the socioeconomic and political dislocations of the interwar period. Steinweis does not downplay the revolutionary element in Nazi ideology but notes that it manifested itself unevenly after 1933, producing a Nazi "third way" seeking to "address the challenges posed by modern capitalism by reconfiguring the relationship between state and society" (21). Chapter three examines the period of "coordination" of party and state, which began with a quasi-constitutional alliance of Nazis and nationalist conservatives, and ended with the purge of the party's radical elements and conservative opponents in June 1934, followed by Hitler uniting the office of Chancellor and President in his person, subordinating the military, and designating the SS as the Third Reich's chief policing and terror organization. The middle three chapters focus on the economy, society, and policing, respectively. The Nazi preoccupation with race, Steinweis argues, "did not rule out the possibility of upward mobility based on natural ability" (78). Nor were workers or women, despite much of the Third Reich's anti-Marxist and chauvinist rhetoric, immune to the benefits of rising employment and excitement around Hitler's foreign [End Page 353] policy successes, which "caused many to accept antisemitism as an unfortunate but also unavoidable byproduct of an otherwise successful system" (98). To be sure, the regime's "incessant propaganda and frequent, heavy-handed attempts to mobilize the population" (99) caused irritation and sometimes non-conformity. However, "many Germans approved of the political, social, and cultural direction of their country" (121). The official legal and police apparatus offered plenty of coercive power to help reinforce such approval, of course, but so too did denunciations of "racial aliens" such as Jews and Roma or simply fellow Aryans who failed to give the Hitler salute. The final four chapters tackle World War II, with the first two looking at Nazi efforts to build a Greater Germanic Empire and the final two focusing on its disintegration in total war and genocide. In keeping with the volume's main themes, Steinweis reminds us of the underlying skepticism toward Hitler's aggressive foreign policy, whether among ordinary Germans or the General Staff. Still, Hitler's early victories "lulled" Germans into a "sense of security about what the costs of war would be for them" (169). Chapter eight examines the Nazi "New Order," which sought to create a "German economic empire" that would "exploit the areas under its domination" in variegated ways, depending on a range of racial, economic, political, and geographic factors. The "most ruthless forms of exploitation" (171) fell, of course, onto Jews, Poles, and Ukrainians, while even the T4 euthanasia program had an economic rationale, namely to "husband the resources of a medical system that was coming under increasing strain as the result of mounting civilian and military casualties during the war" (190). When it comes to the Third...