The Fateful Alliance : : German Conservatives and Nazis in 1933: The ‹I›Machtergreifung‹/I› in a New Light / / Hermann Beck.

• VerfasserIn: Beck, Hermann,
• Place / Publishing House: New York; , Oxford : : Berghahn Books, , [2008]; ©2008
• Year of Publication: 2008
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (372 p.)

On 30 January 1933, Alfred Hugenberg's conservative German National People's Party (DNVP) formed a coalition government with the Nazi Party, thus enabling Hitler to accede to the chancellorship. This book analyzes in detail the complicated relationship between Conservatives and Nazis and offers a re-interpretation of the Nazi seizure of power - the decisive months between 30 January and 14 July 1933. The Machtergreifung is characterized here as a period of all-pervasive violence and lawlessness with incessant conflicts between Nazis and German Nationals and Nazi attacks on the conservative Bürgertum, a far cry from the traditional depiction of the takeover as a relatively bloodless, virtually sterile assumption of power by one vast impersonal apparatus wresting control from another. The author scrutinizes the revolutionary character of the Nazi seizure of power, the Nazis' attacks on the conservative Bürgertum and its values, and National Socialism's co-optation of conservative symbols of state power to serve radically new goals, while addressing the issue of why the DNVP was complicit in this and paradoxically participated in eroding the foundations of its very own principles and bases of support.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- PREFACE -- INTRODUCTION -- Chapter I PRAGMATISTS VERSUS FUNDAMENTALISTS The DNVP in the Weimar Republic, 1918–1933 -- Chapter II UNEASY PARTNERS The Relationship between the DNVP and the Nazis, 30 January–5 March -- Chapter III CONSERVATIVES AND THE NSDAP DURING THE “NATIONAL REVOLUTION” OF MARCH 1933 -- Chapter IV THE NAZIS AND THE CONSERVATIVE BÜRGERTUM A Clash of Worlds -- Chapter V BETWEEN THE DICTATES OF CONSCIENCE AND POLITICAL EXPEDIENCY The DNVP and Anti-Semitism -- Chapter VI REBELLION AGAINST THE INEVITABLE The Tribulations of Spring 1933 -- Chapter VII IGNOMINIOUS DEMISE Defections, Prohibitions, and Final Dissolution -- EPILOGUE -- APPENDIX -- SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY -- INDEX