In this ground-breaking study, Shelley Baranowski not only explores how and why church-going Protestants in eastern Prussia turned to Nazism in large numbers, but also shows that the rural elite and the church propagated a myth of the stability, the wholesomeness, and the class-harmony--in short, the "sanctity"--of rural life, a myth that was a key component of Nazi propaganda that helped secure support for the Third Reich in rural areas. Of great interest to historians and students of the period as well as anyone interested in how a fringe radical movement gained wide popular support.

The giant Nazi leisure and tourism agency, Strength through Joy (KdF)'s low cost cultural events, factory beautification programs, organized sports, and, especially, mass tourism mitigated the tension between the Nazi regime's investment in rearmament and German consumers' desire for a higher standard of living. Shelley Baranowski reveals how Strength through Joy de-emphasized the sacrifices of the present while its programs presented visions of a prosperous future--that would materialize as soon as "living space" was acquired. As an agency open to racially acceptable Germans only, it...

The giant Nazi leisure and tourism agency, Strength through Joy (KdF)'s low cost cultural events, factory beautification programs, organized sports, and, especially, mass tourism mitigated the tension between the Nazi regime's investment in rearmament and German consumers' desire for a higher standard of living. Shelley Baranowski reveals how Strength through Joy de-emphasized the sacrifices of the present while its programs presented visions of a prosperous future--that would materialize as soon as "living space" was acquired. As an agency open to racially acceptable Germans only, it...

Drawing on recent studies of the links between empire, colonialism, and genocide, Nazi Empire, 1871-1945 examines German history from 1871 to 1945 as an expression of the aspiration to imperialist expansion and the simultaneous fear of destruction by rivals. Acknowledging the important differences between the Second Empire, the Weimar Republic, and the Third Reich, Shelley Baranowski nonetheless reveals a common thread: the drama of German imperialist ambitions that embraced ethnic homogeneity over diversity, imperial enlargement over stasis, and "living space" as the route to the biological...

A Deep Exploration of the Rise, Reign, and Legacy of the Third Reich For its brief existence, National Socialist Germany was one of the most destructive regimes in the history of humankind.