Introduction

Germany – The Weimar Republic, 1918-33

In this course, Professor Benjamin Ziemann explores the Weimar Republic, the system of government that replaced the German Empire in 1919. In the first module, we think about the beginning of the Weimar Republic, before moving on to consider political fragmentation in the German state. In the fourth and fifth modules, we turn to two groups that were overwhelmingly important the period—Reichsbanner Black-Red-Gold and the Nazi Party—before thinking in the sixth module about the crises that marked the end of the Weimar Republic and the beginning of Nazi Germany.

Select Bibliography:
- Falter, Jürgen W.: ‘The social bases of political cleavages in the Weimar Republic, 1919-1933,’ Historical Social Research, Supplement 25 (2013), pp. 194-216: Link
- Fischer, Conan, ‘A Very German Revolution’? The Post-1918 Settlement Re-Evaluated’, Bulletin of the German Historical Institute London 28 (2006), No. 2, pp. 6-32: Link
- Föllmer, Moritz, ‘Which Crisis? Which Modernity? New Perspectives on Weimar Germany,’ in: Jochen Hung, Godela Weiss-Sussex, Geoff Wilkes (eds.), Beyond Glitter and Doom: The Contingency of the Weimar Republic, Munich: Iudicium, 2012, pp. 14-25: Link
- Stibbe, Matthew, Germany 1914-1933. Politics, Society and Culture, Harlow: Longman, 2010 (the best short textbook on Weimar Germany)
- Szejnmann, Claus-Christian/Benjamin Ziemann, ‘“Machtergreifung”. The Nazi Seizure of Power in 1933’, Politics, Religion & Ideology 14 (2013), pp. 321-337
- Ulrich, Bernd/Benjamin Ziemann (eds.), The German Soldiers of the Great War. Letters and Eyewitness Accounts, Barnsley: Pen & Sword, 2010
- Ziemann, Benjamin, ‘Germany after the First World War - A Violent Society? Results and Implications of Recent Research on Weimar Germany,’ Journal of Modern European History 1 (2003), pp. 80-95: Link
- Ziemann, Benjamin, ‘Weimar was Weimar. Politics, Culture and the Emplotment of the German Republic,’ German History 28 (2010), pp. 542-571: Link
- Ziemann, Benjamin, Contested Commemorations. Republican War Veterans and Weimar Political Culture, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2013

Primary Sources:
- A particularly useful collection of primary sources, images and maps is the Weimar section of the German History Docs project

Introduction

This module gives a broad introduction to Weimar Germany (1918-33), including some comments on German society, the arts, the economy, and politics in the period.