Nazism and War
An incendiary work of scholarship arguing that racism was the driving force behind Nazism, rather than a by-product of it—essential reading in an age of renewed fears of bigotry, tyranny, and fascism.
World War II was the defining event of the twentieth century, redrawing the political map in ways that continue to affect nearly the entire human race. What was unprecedented, however, was not simply the war’s scale, but its causes. Unlike previous territorial or political clashes, the war launched by Nazi Germany was an ideological one, waged to wipe entire peoples and cultures from the face of the earth.
In Nazism and War, Richard Bessel, one of the preeminent authorities on the social and political history of modern Germany, demonstrates…
Richard Bessel is professor of history at the University of York and a specialist on the social and political history of Nazi Germany. His previous books include Life in the Third Reich; Political Violence and the Rise of Nazism: The Storm Troopers in Eastern Germany, 1925–1934; and Germany After the First World War.
