The Bismarck Myth
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The Bismarck Myth
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Author : Robert Gerwarth
language : en
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Release Date : 2005-07-14
The Bismarck Myth written by Robert Gerwarth and has been published by OUP Oxford this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2005-07-14 with History categories.
Few statesmen in history have inspired the imagination of generations of Germans more than the founder of the Kaiserreich, Otto von Bismarck. The archetype of charismatic leadership, the Iron Chancellor maintained his pre-eminent position in the pantheon of Germany's political iconography for much of the twentieth century. Based on a large selection of primary sources, this book provides an insightful analysis of the Bismarck myth's profound impact on Germany's political culture. In particular, it investigates the ways in which that myth was used to undermine parliamentary democracy in Germany after the Great War, paving the way for its replacement by authoritarian rule under an allegedly 'Bismarckian' charismatic leader, Adolf Hitler. As one of the most powerful weapons of nationalist agitation against the Weimar Republic, the Bismarck myth was never contested. The nationalists' ideologically charged interpretation of Bismarck as the father of the German nation-state and model for future political decision-making clashed with rivalling - and thoroughly critical - democratic and communist perceptions of the Iron Chancellor. The quarrel over Bismarck's legacy demonstrates how the clash of ideologies, particularly between 1918 and 1933, resulted in a highly political fight for the 'correct' and universal interpretation of the German past. Essential reading for anyone interested in modern German history, this book sheds new light on the Weimar Republic's struggle for survival and the reasons for its failure.
The Bismarck Myth
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Author : Robert Gerwarth
language : en
Publisher: Oxford University Press on Demand
Release Date : 2005-07-14
The Bismarck Myth written by Robert Gerwarth and has been published by Oxford University Press on Demand this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2005-07-14 with History categories.
Few statesmen in history have inspired the imagination of generations of Germans more than the founder of the Kaiserreich, Otto von Bismarck. The archetype of charismatic leadership, the Iron Chancellor maintained his pre-eminent position in the pantheon of Germany's political iconography for much of the twentieth century.Based on a large selection of primary sources, this book provides an insightful analysis of the Bismarck myth's profound impact on Germany's political culture. In particular, it investigates the ways in which that myth was used to undermine parliamentary democracy in Germany after the Great War, paving the way for its replacement by authoritarian rule under an allegedly 'Bismarckian' charismatic leader, Adolf Hitler.As one of the most powerful weapons of nationalist agitation against the Weimar Republic, the Bismarck myth was never contested. The nationalists' ideologically charged interpretation of Bismarck as the father of the German nation-state and model for future political decision-making clashed with rivalling - and thoroughly critical - democratic and communist perceptions of the Iron Chancellor. The quarrel over Bismarck's legacy demonstrates how the clash of ideologies, particularly between 1918and 1933, resulted in a highly political fight for the 'correct' and universal interpretation of the German past.Essential reading for anyone interested in modern German history, this book sheds new light on the Weimar Republic's struggle for survival and the reasons for its failure.
Bismarck
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Author : David J Bercuson
language : en
Publisher: Random House
Release Date : 2010-12-23
Bismarck written by David J Bercuson and has been published by Random House this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2010-12-23 with History categories.
Late in the morning of 27 May 1941, the German battleship Bismarck was sunk by an overwhelming British armada in a fierce battle that lasted ninety minutes. Admiral Gunther Lutjens, Captain Ernst Lindemann and 2,206 men of her crew were lost, only 115 survived. Five days earlier, an RAF reconnaissance plane flying low off the coast of Norway spotted four large warships in the sea below. At 19,000 tons fully loaded, the sight of the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen was shocking enough; even more so was the sight of the 50,000 ton battleship Bismarck - the pride of the German navy - a ship shrouded in myth, an awesome and mysterious behemoth of destruction. Their purpose in these waters was obvious and chilling: the German navy was sending this powerful four-battleship task force to seize control of the North Atlantic sea lanes. The survival of free Britain was at stake. With almost all of Europe under Hitler's thumb, and the United States still frustratingly neutral, Britain was left alone to fight Nazi Germany. The only hope lay in the convoy route across the North Atlantic from the United States. The fate of Britain and the United States hung in the balance, and all knew that the destruction of the Bismarck would be a dramatic turning point in the war. Noted historians Bercuson and Herwig have uncovered much new information on the Bismarck, including a close examination of classified British and United States diplomatic files, only recently opened, revealing secret diplomatic manoeuvrings between Churchill and Roosevelt. They tell the full story of the Bismarck for the first time, from the key strategic decisions of the national leaders, to the gripping hour-by-hour account of the battle. This is the definitive account of one of the most dramatic and momentous events of the Second World War.
The Destruction Of The Bismarck
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Author : David Jay Bercuson
language : en
Publisher:
Release Date : 2001
The Destruction Of The Bismarck written by David Jay Bercuson and has been published by this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2001 with World War, 1939-1945 categories.
Splendidly Victorian
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Author : Michael H. Shirley
language : en
Publisher: Routledge
Release Date : 2017-11-22
Splendidly Victorian written by Michael H. Shirley and has been published by Routledge this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2017-11-22 with History categories.
This title was first published in 2001. The eminent historian of Victorian Britain, Walter L. Arnstein has, over the course of a career spanning more than 40 years, arguably introduced more students to British history than any other American historian. This collection of essays by some of his former students celebrates Arnstein's inspirational teaching and writing with surveys and analyses of various aspects of the social, cultural, economic and political history of nineteenth and early twentieth-century Britain. Nineteenth-century topics covered in the volume include early Victorian caricatures and the thin legal lines that they often trod; British Army fashion and its contribution to Royal spectacles; Free Trade Radicals and how they viewed educational reform and moral progress; the persistence of Chartist ideology following the failure of the movement in 1848; Disraeli and Derby's involvement with the Navy's administration; religious periodicals and their influence; the myth of Bismarck as an honest broker of peace and the subsequent collapse of the myth as a later source of enmity in Anglo-German relations; the powerful mystique evoked back in England by the London missionary societies Mongolian; missions; Victorian urban planning and the re-introduction of the market place.
The First World War And German National Identity
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Author : Jan Vermeiren
language : en
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Release Date : 2016-07-18
The First World War And German National Identity written by Jan Vermeiren and has been published by Cambridge University Press this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2016-07-18 with History categories.
An innovative study of the impact of the wartime alliance between Imperial Germany and Austria-Hungary on German national identity.
The German Myth Of The East
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Author : Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius
language : en
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Release Date : 2010-12-09
The German Myth Of The East written by Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius and has been published by OUP Oxford this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2010-12-09 with History categories.
Over the last two centuries and indeed up to the present day, Eastern Europe's lands and peoples have conjured up a complex mixture of fascination, anxiety, promise, and peril for Germans looking eastwards. Across the generations, a varied cast of German writers, artists, philosophers, diplomats, political leaders, generals, and Nazi racial fanatics have imagined (often in very different ways) a special German mission in the East, forging a frontier myth that paralleled the American myths of the 'Wild West' and 'Manifest Destiny'. Through close analysis of German views of the East from 1800 to our own times, The German Myth of the East reveals that this crucial international relationship has in fact been integral to how Germans have defined (and repeatedly redefined) themselves and their own national identity. In particular, what was ultimately at stake for Germans was their own uncertain position in Europe, between East and West. Paradoxically, the East came to be viewed as both an attractive land of unlimited potential for the future and as a place undeveloped, dangerous, wild, dirty, and uncultured. Running the gamut from the messages of international understanding announced by generations of German scholars and sympathetic writers, to the violent racial utopia envisaged by the Nazis, German imaginings of the East represent a crucial, yet unfamiliar, part of modern European history, and one that remains fundamentally important today in the context of an expanded European Union.
Bismarck S Shadow
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Author : Richard Frankel
language : en
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Release Date : 2004-12-01
Bismarck S Shadow written by Richard Frankel and has been published by Bloomsbury Publishing this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2004-12-01 with History categories.
History is a tale often told by ghosts and demi-gods, and our relationship to these figures often determines the shape of the narratives we weave about the past. Bismarck's Shadow targets this idea, as it is a book that unearths a fascinating phenomenon of German political culture - the elevation of a dead political figure, Otto von Bismarck, to the level of a demi-god and the effects of such deification on the course of German politics during the first half of the 20th century.Already a central national symbol during his lifetime, after his death Bismarck became the object of a political religion, what Frankel regards as a 'Bismarck Cult'. This book examines how certain ritual practices and a particular historical understanding - a Bismarckian gospel - provided its followers meaning and direction. Extending beyond the cultural as well, Bismarck's Shadow also looks at how the cult of Bismarck translated into political practice. In Frankel's estimation, the logic of the Bismarckian political religion contributed to the right's progressive radicalization from the turn of the century to the triumph of the Nazis. The image of the deceased figure of Bismarck serves as a tool to investigate the transformation of the German right from a traditional, state-supporting group to a populist, radical nationalist movement like Nazism.Timely and compelling, Bismarck's Shadow raises long overdue questions about the political religion of National Socialism, Germans' perceptions about Bismarck, and the relationship between Otto von Bismarck and Adolf Hitler.
Bismarck
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Author : Jonathan Steinberg
language : en
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Release Date : 2011-02-17
Bismarck written by Jonathan Steinberg and has been published by OUP Oxford this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2011-02-17 with History categories.
This is the life story of one of the most interesting human beings who ever lived. A political genius who remade Europe and united Germany between 1862 and 1890 by the sheer power of his great personality. It takes the reader into close proximity with a human being of almost superhuman abilities. We see him through the eyes of his secretaries, his old friends, his neighbours, his enemies and the press. Otto von Bismarck 'made' Germany but never 'ruled' it. For twenty eight years he acted as a prime minister without a party. He made speeches, brilliant in content but hesitant in delivery, and rarely addressed a public meeting. He planned three wars and after a certain stage in his career always wore military uniform to which he had no claim. The 'Iron Chancellor', the image of Prussian militarism, suffered from hypochondria and hysteria. Contemporaries called him a 'dictator' and several observers credited him with 'demonic' powers'. They were not wrong. The sheer power of his remarkable 'sovereign sel' awed even his enemies. William I observed that it was hard to be emperor under a man like Bismarck. He towered physically and intellectually over his contemporaries. His spoken and written prose sparkled with wit, insight, grand visions and petty malice. He united Germany and transformed Europe like Napoleon before and Hitler after him but with neither their control of the state nor command of great armies. He was and remained a royal servant. This new biography explores the greatness and limits of a huge and ultimately destructive self. It uses the diaries and letters of his contemporaries to explore the most remarkable figure of the nineteenth century, a man who never said a dull thing or wrote a slack sentence. A political genius who combined creative and destructive traits, generosity and pettiness, tolerance and ferocious enmity, courtesy and rudeness - in short, not only the most important nineteenth-century statesman but by far the most entertaining.
The Sinking Of The Bismarck
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Author : Charles River Editors
language : en
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
Release Date : 2015-12-21
The Sinking Of The Bismarck written by Charles River Editors and has been published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2015-12-21 with categories.
*Includes pictures *Includes accounts of the battles and the Bismarck's sinking by sailors on both sides *Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading *Includes a table of contents "The Bismarck had put up a most gallant fight against impossible odds, worthy of the old days of the Imperial German Navy, and she went down with her colours flying." - Vice Admiral John Cronyn Tovey, commander of the task force fighting the Bismarck Immensely powerful and thickly armored, armed with eight 15-inch guns aimed by one of the most sophisticated target acquisition systems of its day, the Third Reich's premier battleship, the KMS Bismarck, left an indelible trail of legends behind it during its single, fatal foray against the British in 1941. Victorious over the HMS Hood, prowling the Arctic waters north of England, and circling in a desperate effort to evade the Royal Navy and reach the safety of Brest in France, the Bismarck's first and last combat voyage lasted a brief total of eight days. Though well-constructed for the most part and extremely formidable, the KMS Bismarck did not represent the world's most powerful battleship at the time, subsequent myth-making notwithstanding. The Americans, Italians, and indeed the pre-invasion French already possessed equal or slightly superior combat craft. The Japanese soon produced much stronger vessels. Nevertheless, Nazi Germany deployed no warship more powerful, so the Bismarck's loss caused a disproportionately high loss of German morale and a similar boost to English confidence during one of the darkest periods of the war. Naval warfare in 1941 sat on the cusp between the past - when battleships and their massive gun batteries ruled the waves - and the very near future - when aircraft carriers proved stunningly dominant over ships armed only with artillery. A single aircraft carrier involved itself in the pursuit and destruction of the Bismarck, causing one of the pivotal events of "Exercise Rhine" through nearly wholly random chance. The KMS Bismarck's destruction represented neither a predestined conclusion nor the result of the impending radical change in naval tactics and strategy. The Bismarck sailed during the narrow window at the start of World War II when the battleship remained a viable independent instrument of war rather than the mobile defense for aircraft carriers or the floating artillery battery supporting shore operations it became. Instead, human decisions and pure chance conjoined to result in the Bismarck's destruction. Admiral Gunther Lutjens, overall expedition commander, committed several major errors during the operation. Towards its end, he wallowed in despair, failing to carry through on several ruses devised by his subordinates which, in the hands of a commander not already resigned to death, might have tipped the scale to the Bismarck's survival. Both sides made crucial errors, but those of Gunther Lutjens proved most decisive. As Charles de Gaulle pithily observed, "Victory often goes to the army that makes the least mistakes, not the most brilliant plans." The sinking of the Bismarck demonstrated the truth of this aphorism. A handful of poor choices at vital turning points on the part of one man - Lutjens - decided the fate of the KMS Bismarck and cost the lives of 2,088 men aboard her (or 94.7% of her crew), including his own. The Sinking of the Bismarck: The History of the Battle that Destroyed Nazi Germany's Most Famous Battleship chronicles the demise of World War II's most famous ship. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about the Bismarck like never before, in no time at all."