- Paperback: 352 pages
- Publisher: Harvard University Press; Reprint edition (1 July 1986)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0674952006
- ISBN-13: 978-0674952003
- Product Dimensions: 21.5 x 13.8 x 2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,023,062 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Product Description
Analyzes six hundred essays written by workers, soldiers, farmers, clerks, young people, and anti-Semites about why they joined the Nazi party.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Interesting indeed is this, written in 1938, five years after Hitler's ascent to power. First of all, Abel is an American, a professor of sociology from Columbia University, who goes and gets these interviews. He then selects representative samples and presents them, with editing and analysis. Almost all of them speak of a sickness of the soul at the state of their once-proud German nation, wiped out through WWI's German defeat, leaving many people very impoverished and frustrated, unemployed and angry.
One gross omission, typical of the man's time, is the lack of interviews with women. All of them are classified as employed men at different income levels. There is a Marxist bent in this sociology professor, who sees humans primarily as workers - professional, industrial and agricultural. He does not see humans, men and women alike, as people with souls and brains of their own, who may do their voting according to emotional and intellectual bents regardless of their current economic situation. Exactly as the GErmans themselves express in their essays, they were raised by sensible and sensitive parents with Christian beliefs. Their views of life, Germany, humanity and their purpose overall were influenced more by the warm hearthfire of their youths than their current factory, office or shop jobs. Women, omitted from the data, make for seriously skewered results. Dr. Abel projects his own Grossbuergerliche ideology on the results, and misses the mark, although he's not completely off base.
What is valuable in the reprinting of this book is the lack of editing in the last part of the book, so that one can hear, pure and clear, how a "normal German" feels about his country, how he longs for it to be great again, for his family to live well, for his parents and children to be happy and prosperous, and for his country's people to be united. The ideals were lofty and almost inspire a reader to wish for them himself, not to live in such culturally diverse and criminally dangerous societies as Germany and USA today.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
5 reviews
16 of 16 people found the following review helpful
EXTEMELY Interesting and HISTORICALLY acurate book
1 Jan 2003
Format:Paperback
EXTEMELY Interesting and HISTORICALLY acurate book written just prior to World War-II by an American Theodore Abel who went to Germany, witnessed the Depression, Inflation, Right and Left Wing rioting and activities, first hand.
Theodore Abel went further into understanding WHY and HOW Hitler and his Nationalist Socialist party took root among the "ordinary middle class and uneducated lower class German people" and he obtained thousands of autobiographies from the ordinary German people by offering prizes under the auspices of Columbia University. He received over 600 essays from Nazi Party members which revealed why they had embraced Nazi-ism and Hitler with the enthusiasm that they did.
Some of these essays are printed word for word in this book which Abel presents as the life histories of A WORKER, A SOLDIER, AN ANTI-SEMITE, A MIDDLE CLASS YOUTH, A FARMER, A BANK CLERK.
This books main purpose is to show in the light of the author's unique personal data, the relative importance of each of the factors which led to Hitler's rise to power.
Afer reading this book,...you be the judge of "COULD IT HAPPEN AGAIN?".
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Chilling View on Mass Movements
10 Feb 2009
Format:Paperback
I read this book 15 years ago and I still can't forget it. Highly recommended for anyone interested in the foundations of the Nazi party, mass movements, propaganda, cults, etc. As I recall, it doesn't take a side and try to demonize or sympathize with its subjects (Nazi party members). Rather, it takes a cold, clinical look at their motives and reports their stories in their own words. Chilling and hard to put down, this will have you really pondering the nature of modern political movements. Highly recommended.
Outstanding Analysis of how Hitler came to Power
14 Dec 2010
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Written in the 1930's by an American sociologist who visited Germany shortly after Hitler came to power the author had NAZI party members complete an essay on why they joined the Party. In an introductory section the essays are analyzed and the factors that drove people to become members is analyzed.
This is the book to read to understand why Germans became NAZI's.
This is the book to read to understand why Germans became NAZI's.
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