Germany History

Hardcover. Kerber, 1st, 2004, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 176 pages. In 1953, Peter Keetman spent a week at the Volkswagen plant in Wolfsburg. The result was a series of exceptionally clear, almost abstractly detailed photographs that document the entire production process of the VW Beetle. Storage stacks of shiny metal bumpers look like so many Modernist sculptures; car bodies hovering above the assembly line retrospectively form a surreal Pop art montage. This oversize publication reproduces the Volkswagenwerk series in full, in their original size, together with texts that refer both to this series and to Keetman's greater oeuvre. Keetman was known throughout his career as photographer of systemically conceived picture series on themes that included close-ups of water and oil drops, a style of working he developed as a member of Fotoform. Fotoform, a German movement of the 1950s of which Keetman was a primary proponent, was critical in the development of German photography as it is today: the group's "subjective photography" combined scientific objectivity with abstraction. PLEASE NOTE: DUE TO SIZE & WEIGHT, DOMESTIC SHIPPING ONLY.

Hardcover. Zurich/NY, Edition Stemmle, 1st, 1999, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dustjacket. 223 pages. Foreword by James H. Billington. Text by Leah Bendavid-Val. Includes images by Max Alpert, Dmitri Debakov, Georgy Lipskerov, Max Penson, Leonid Shokin, Esther Burley, Jack Delano, Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, Russell Lee, Gordon Parks, Marion Post Wolcott, Ben Shahn, and numerous others. Afterword by Philip Brookman and with biographies of the photographers. Clean copy.

Softcover. Cambridge MA, Harvard University Press, 2nd pr., 1988, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 414 pages, b&w illustrations. Scholars exploring the history of science under the Nazis have generally concentrated on the Nazi destruction of science or the corruption of intellectual and liberal values. Racial Hygiene focuses on how scientists themselves participated in the construction of Nazi racial policy. Robert Proctor demonstrates that the common picture of a passive scientific community coerced into cooperation with the Nazis fails to grasp the reality of what actually happened-namely, that many of the political initiatives of the Nazis arose from within the scientific community, and that medical scientists actively designed and administered key elements of National Socialist policy. The book presents the most comprehensive account to date of German medical involvement in the sterilization and castration laws, the laws banning marriage between Jews and non-Jews, and the massive program to destroy "lives not worth living." The study traces attempts on the part of doctors to conceive of the "Jewish problem" as a "medical problem," and how medical journals openly discussed the need to find a "final solution" to Germany's Jewish and gypsy "problems." Clean, bright copy.

Hardcover. UK, Cambridge University Press, 1st, 1984, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover in a lightly worn dust jacket, 251 pages. In a unique application of critical theory to the study of the role of ideology in politics, Jeffrey Herf explores the paradox inherent in the German fascists' rejection of the rationalism of the Enlightenment while fully embracing modern technology. He documents evidence of a cultural tradition he calls 'reactionary modernism' found in the writings of German engineers and of the major intellectuals of the. Weimar right: Ernst Juenger, Oswald Spengler, Werner Sombart, Hans Freyer, Carl Schmitt, and Martin Heidegger. The book shows how German nationalism and later National Socialism created what Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's propaganda minister, called the 'steel-like romanticism of the twentieth century'. By associating technology with the Germans, rather than the Jews, with beautiful form rather than the formlessness of the market, and with a strong state rather than a predominance of economic values and institutions, these right-wing intellectuals reconciled Germany's strength with its romantic soul and national identity. Light pencil underlining to some pages, otherwise clean.

Hardcover. London/NY, Oxford University Press, 1st, 1995, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 304 pages. Reforming Sex reconstructs the complicated history of a movement that has been romanticized as the harbinger of 1960s sexual radicalism and demonized as a precursor to Nazi racial policy, but mostly buried and obscured by Nazi book-burnings and repression. Relying on a broad range of sources--from police reports, films and personal interviews to sex manuals unearthed from library basements and secondhand book stores--the book analyzes a remarkable mass mobilization during the turbulent and innovative Weimar years of doctors and lay-people for women's right to abortion and public access to birth control and sex education. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Casemate, 1st, 2010, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dustjacket, 264 pages. Following the Allied breakout from the Normandy beachhead in July 1944, the vaunted German Army seemed on the verge of collapse. As British and US forces fanned out across northwestern France, enemy resistance unexpectedly dissolved into a headlong retreat to the German and Belgian borders. In early September an elated Allied High Command had every expectation of continuing their momentum to cripple the enemy's warmaking capability, by capturing the Ruhr industrial complex and plunging into the heart of Germany. After a brief pause to allow for resupply, Courtney Hodge's First Army prepared to punch through the ominous but largely outdated Westwall (Siegfried Line) surrounding Aachen. Drawing on primary Wehrmacht and US sources, including battle analysis and daily situation and after-action reports, The Roer River Battles provides insight into the desperate German efforts to keep a conquering enemy at the borders of their homeland. Tactical maps down to battalion level help clarify the very fluid nature of the combat. Combined, they serve to explain not just how, but why decisions were made and events unfolded, and how reality often differed from doctrine in one of the longest US campaigns of World War II.

Hardcover. Mankato, Creative Education Inc., 1st US, 1985, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Non-paginated. Full color illustrations by Roberto Innocenti. Dust jacket shows standard wear. Clean, tight copy.

Hardcover. New Haven CT, Yale University Press, 3rd pr., 1979, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 287 pages. The treatment of German physicists under the Nazi regime had far-reaching consequences both for the outcome of the Second World War and for the course of science for decades thereafter. Although this fact has been known from a few famous episodes, it has not been dealt with thoroughly by scholars because it involves two very different disciplines. Political historians have cautiously left it to historians of science, who in turn have shied away from it out of ignorance of the political intricacies. Alan D. Beyerchen here examines this history in detail, basing his research on archival materials in Germany and the United States and on tape-recorded interviews with leading physicists. At least twenty-five percent of Germany's academic physicists who were working in 1933 lost their positions during the Nazi period. The victims -- Jews and other "politically unreliable" persons -- included some of Germany's finest scientists. Those who remained faced opposition not only from Nazi officials but also from certain members of their own community, notably the Nobel laureates Philipp Lenard and Johannes Stark. Beyerchen describes the mechanisms of prejudice, the reaction to the dismissals, and the impact of the "Aryan physics" movement which ultimately failed. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Thames & Hudson, 1st, 2013, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, still in publisher's shrink wrap. Celebrates the height of Weimar cinema through images and commentaries on more than seventy of its finest filmsBetween the First and Second World Wars, Germany under the Weimar Republic was the scene of one of the most creative periods in film history. Through the silent era to the early years of sound, the visual flair and technical innovation of its filmmakers set an international standard for the powerful possibilities of cinema as an art form, with movies such as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Nosferatu, Metropolis, and M building a legacy that shaped the world of film.Here is a showcase of more than seventy films, selected to give a wide-ranging overview of Weimar cinema at its finest. Every genre is represented, from escapist comedies and musicals to gritty depictions of contemporary city life, from period dramas to fantastical visions of the future, with themes such as sexuality and social issues tackled by iconic stars like Marlene Dietrich and Louise Brooks. A wealth of film stills captures the bold vision of great directors like Fritz Lang and Ernst Lubitsch, while the text sets the historical scene and gives intriguing insights into what the films meant to the society that created them.

Hardcover. Baltimore, The John Hopkins Press, 3rd pr., 1969, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, turquoise cloth with gilt lettering on spine. No dust jacket, clean copy.

Softcover. Stanford CA, Stanford University Press, 1st pbk, 2004, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 271 pages, b&w illustrations. The Cult of Art in Nazi Germany presents a new interpretation of National Socialism, arguing that art in the Third Reich was not simply an instrument of the regime, but actually became a source of the racist politics upon which its ideology was founded. Through the myth of the "Aryan race," a race pronounced superior because it alone creates culture, Nazism asserted art as the sole raison d'etre of a regime defined by Hitler as the "dictatorship of genius." Michaud shows the important link between the religious nature of Nazi art and the political movement, revealing that in Nazi Germany art was considered to be less a witness of history than a force capable of producing future, the actor capable of accelerating the coming of a reality immanent to art itself. Light sticker residue to rear cover otherwise clean, very good.

Hardcover. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1st thus, 2004, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. 87 pages. Foreword, black and white photographs, and colophon. A description of the Allied bombing campaign from the perspective of the German survivors.

Hardcover. August Paul Wooster and Sons, 1967, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, dark green boards with gilt lettering and decoration. Unpaginated, but approx. 200 pages. Numerous b&w and color illustrations of uniforms, dress, weapons, insignias, etc, appear to be assembled from German pictorial sources. Clean, bright copy. Self-published.

Softcover. Berkeley CA, California University Press, reprint, 2018, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 308 pages. The German Enlightenment and the Rise of Historicism traces the thought of a large and neglected group of German thinkers and their encounter with the ideas and ideal of the Enlightenment from 1740 to 1790. Concentrating on the nature of their historical consciousness, Peter Hanns Reill addresses two basic issues in the interpretation of the Enlightenment: to what degree can one speak of the unity of the Enlightenment and to what extent can the Enlightenment be characterized as "modern"? Reill attempts to revise the traditional interpretation of the Enlightenment as an age insensitive to the postulates of modern historical thought and to dissolve the alleged opposition of the Enlightenment to later intellectual developments such as Idealism. He argues that German Enlightened thinkers generated the general presuppositions upon which modern historical thought is founded. Bright, clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Random House, 1st, 1974, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover, 373 pages. Color and b&w photographs. Water stain on back cover. Dust jacket has some small tears. A pictorial record, with accompanying text, of German society, culture, and politics, from the Weimar Republic to Hitler's last public appearence, detailing the rise of Nazism and Hitler's public and private lives.

Hardcover. Cambridge MA, Harvard University Press, 1st, 2003, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 362 pages. Hitler, Koonz says, understood the German people's need for a sense of coherence in the wake of what many saw as the degeneracy of the Weimar Republic--and 'he promised to rescue old-fashioned values of honor and dignity' by offering a secular faith to replace lost religious certainties. Koonz explores the promotion of these beliefs in German culture and law, and how they led to the catastrophe of the Holocaust, adding much to our understanding of how a civilized society could reach such infamous levels of violence. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Norton, 1st US, 1985, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 192 pages. The photos are breathtaking not necessarily for their quality - many are washed out and most of the subject matter is routine day to day military stuff - but for their rarity. While the Germans seem to have been at least as far advanced in the use of color photography as the Americans, there is still a paucity of color photography in the public record. That is being addressed by the various nations who took large amounts of color film in an official capacity, including the US, UK, Germany and Canada.The book's captions are adequate to the task, and there are good historical sections, as well as an introduction by Max Hastings as well as commentary by an actual German war correspondent. The strength of the book is in its ability to bring the participants of the subject campaign - the German invasion of Russia up to and including Stalingrad - to life. The use of a large format allows one to note small details of the photos, and relate to the subject matter on a personal level. Despite the lack of "action" shots, there is much to see in facial expressions, uniform details, and especially geography as the Russian steppe is shown in summer and winter, as well as the famous Russian mud (Rasputitsa) about which so much has been written.

Hardcover. NY, Metropolitan Books, 1st, 2002, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 446 pages, b&w illustrations. In this important work of historical restoration, Amos Elon shows how a persecuted clan of cattle dealers and wandering peddlers was transformed into a stunningly successful community of writers, philosophers, scientists, tycoons, and activists. In engaging, brilliantly etched portraits of Moses Mendelssohn, Heinrich Heine, Karl Marx, Hannah Arendt, and many others, Elon traces how a small minority came to be perceived as a deadly threat to German national integrity. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Metropolitan Books, 1st, 2002, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 446 pages. As it's usually told, the story of the German Jews starts at the end, with their tragic demise in Hitler's Third Reich. Now, in this important work of historical restoration, Amos Elon takes us back to the beginning, chronicling a period of achievement and integration that at its peak produced a golden age second only to the Renaissance. Elon traces how this minority - never more than one percent of the population - came to be perceived as a deadly threat to national integrity, and he movingly demonstrates that this devastating outcome was uncertain almost until the end. A collective biography, full of depth and compassion,

Softcover. Cambridge University Press, reprint, 1992, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 386 pages, b&w illustrations. Between 1933 and 1945 the Nazi regime in Germany tried to restructure a "class" society along racial lines. This book deals with the ideas and institutions that underpinned this mission, and shows how Nazi policy affected various groups of people, both victims and beneficiaries. The book begins with a serious discussion of the origins of Nazi racial ideology, and then demonstrates the way in which this was translated into official policy. It deals with the systematic persecution not only of the Jews, but also with the fate of lesser-known groups such as Sinti and Roma, the mentally handicapped, the "asocial," and homosexuals. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Alliance Book Corporation, 14th pr., 1939, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, light putty cloth with red lettering on spine, 300 pages. Anti-Nazi book written by ex-Nazi. Translated from German by E.W. Dickes. Front fly leaf with top inch cut out, other wise clean, tight copy.

Hardcover. NY, Free Press, 1st, 1995, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. 368 pages, b&w illustrations. Neufeld, the curator of World War II history at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., provides a well-written, comprehensively researched analysis of Nazi Germany's missile program and its antecedents. The German army became interested in rocket technology during the 1930s at the urging of Karl Becker, an engineer who believed a radical new weapon could deliver a psychological blow to an enemy. The construction of Peenemunde in 1936-37 provided a focal point for research and development that made guided missiles a reality despite Germany's limited material and scientific resources. Neufeld shows that while the rocket program was not Nazi in origin, its leaders readily compromised themselves by accepting National Socialism, especially in agreeing to the widespread use of slave labor. A more ambiguous legacy of Peenemunde is its rocket technology, which decisively shaped the second half of the 20th century. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Princeton NJ, Princeton University Press, 1st, 2006, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a unclipped dust jacket with fading to spine, 260 pages. This fascinating and unusual book tells the story of an arguably catastrophic German habit - that of valuing cultural achievement above all else and envisioning it as a noble substitute for politics. Lepenies examines how this tendency has affected German history from the late eighteenth century to today. He argues that the German preference for art over politics is essential to understanding the peculiar nature of Nazism, including its aesthetic appeal to many Germans (and others) and the fact that Hitler and many in his circle were failed artists and intellectuals who seem to have practiced their politics as a substitute form of art. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Simon & Schuster, 1st, 2017, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. In The Third Reich, Thomas Childers shows how the young Hitler became passionately political and anti-Semitic as he lived on the margins of society. Fueled by outrage at the punitive terms of the Versailles Treaty that ended the Great War, he found his voice and drew a following. As his views developed, Hitler attracted like-minded colleagues who formed the nucleus of the nascent Nazi party. The failed Munich putsch of 1923 and subsequent trial gave Hitler a platform for his views, which he skillfully exploited. Clean copy.