Lecture Week 1

LECTURE 1:

AN INTRODUCTION TO NAZI CRIMINALITY (1933-1945)
& A BRIEF HISTORY OF GERMANY  (98 CE – 1918)

SS Schutzstaffel (“special staff” or “guards detachment”) 

Reichsfuhrer-SS (RFSS) Heinrich Himmler (1900 – 1945)

 

SS-Ahnenerbe (ancestral heritage research & study institute) Natzweiler-Struthof

Germania: The Origins and Situation of the Germans (99 CE) by Cornelius Tacitus (55 – 117 CE)   

Battle of Teutoburg Forest (Teutoburgwald) (9 CE)

Quinctilius Varus Arminius ( = Herman Hermann Herrmann)  Herman the German

Volk Volksgemeinschaft Volkgenossen

Alfred Rosenberg Myth of the 20th Century

Blood and Soil Blut und Boden

The “Five Revolts” of Germany Against Western Civilization (From Teutoburg to the Third Reich)

Charlemagne baptizes the last of the resisting wild Saxon Pagan tribes (772 CE ) [second revolt]

 

  • First Reich: The Holy Roman Empire (962 – 1806)

Friedrich Barbarossa  Teutonic Knights

Lebensraum 

  Martin Luther (1483 – 1546) [third revolt] Thirty Year War ( 1618 – 1648) 

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Peace of Westphalia (1648) The Rise of Prussia – 1700s – Fredrick II (The Great) – The Military State

Wars of Independence (1806 – 1813) – Napoleon defeats Prussia and Austria [fourth revolt]

Metternich Period 1815 – 1848 (Austria Dominates)

Johann Gottlieb Fichte Ernst Moritz Arndt Fredrick Ludwick “Father” Jahn Deutsche Volkstum   

Rebirth of Prussia – Prussia vs. Austria

  • Second Reich 1871 – 1918 (Prussia Dominates)

Otto von Bismark (1815 – 1898) Franco-Prussian War 1870 – 1871 Kaiser Wilhelm I reigns 1871 – 1888 Kaiser Wilhelm II reigns 1888 – 1918 Adolf Hitler born in Austria, April 30, 1889

World War One (The Great War) 1914-1918   

Recommended Readings:

Peter Viereck,  The Roots of The Nazi Mind

Fritz Nova, Alfred Rosenberg:  Nazi Theorist of the Holocaust

Michael Burleigh, Death and Deliverance:  ‘Euthanasia’ in Germany 1900-1945

Michael Burleigh, The Third Riech:  A New History

Christopher Hale, Himmler’s Crusade:  The Nazi Expedition to Find the Origins of the Aryan Race

Peter S. Wells, The Battle That Stopped Rome

Simon Schama, Landscape and Memory

Malcolm Pasley (editor), Germany:  A Companion to German Studies (2nd Edition)

Claudia Koonz, The Nazi Conscience