“Fascinating….Bessel does an excellent job of evoking the blasted landscape of a conquered Germany.” 
—The New Yorker
“A sober yet powerful account.” —New York Times Book Review
Authoritative and dramatic, Germany 1945 by distinguished British historian Richard Bessel is groundbreaking history that brilliantly explores the devastation and remarkable rebirth of Germany at the end of World War II. Called “a masterly account by a first rate historian,” by Ian Kershaw (Hitler), Germany 1945 is sure to become the definitive work on the subject.

Germany 1945: From War to Peace

History

Bessel, Richard

Americas

Harper

1945 was the most pivotal year in Germany's modern history. As World War II drew to a devastating and violent close, the German people were confronted simultaneously with making sense of the horrors just passed and finding the strength and hope to move forward and rebuild. Richard Bessel offers a provocative portrait of Germany's emergence from catastrophe, and he astutely portrays the defeated nation's own sense of victimhood after the war, despite the crimes it had perpetrated. Authoritative and dramatic, Germany 1945 is groundbreaking history that brilliantly explores the destruction and remarkable rebirth of Germany at the end of World War II. Ultimately, it is a success story; a story of life after death.

Harper-perennial

A social history of Germany in the years following the First World War, Germany After the First World War explores Germany's defeat and the subsequent demobilization of its armies, events which had devastating social and psychological consequences for the nation. Richard Bessel examines the changes brought by the War to Germany, including those resulting from the return of soldiers to civilian life and the effects of demobilization on the economy. He demonstrates that the postwar transition was viewed as a moral crusade by Germans desperately concerned about challenges to traditional authority; and he assesses the ways in which the experience of the War, and memories of it, affected the politics of the Weimar Republic. This original and scholarly book offers important insights into the sense of dislocation, both personal and national, experienced by Germany and Germans in the 1920s, and its damaging legacy for German democracy.

Germany after the First World War

Europe

Oxford University Press

A social history of Germany in the years following the First World War, this book explores Germany's defeat and the subsequent demobilization of its armies, events which had devastating social and psychological consequences for the nation. Bessel examines the changes brought by the War to Germany, including those resulting from the return of soldiers to civilian life and the effects of demobilization on the economy. He demonstrates that the postwar transition was viewed as a moral crusade by Germans desperately concerned about challenges to traditional authority; and he assesses the ways in which the experience of the War, and memories of it, affected the politics of the Weimar Republic. This is an original and scholarly book, which offers important insights into the sense of dislocation, both personal and national, experienced by Germany and Germans in the 1920s, and its damaging legacy for German democracy.

Germany After the First World War

Clarendon Press

Postwar Europe: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions)

One of the terrible and tragic themes of modern history is the forced removal of millions of human beings. The causes, course, and consequences of the removal of peoples from their homes form a central theme in the history of the modern world. While removing people from their homes by force did not begin suddenly in the nineteenth century, the combination of the development of a global (capitalist) economy, of modern race-thinking, of world wars, of the triumph of popular and national sovereignty, and of new technological means of physically uprooting and transporting peoples has given this phenomenon a quantitatively and qualitatively new character.Removal has been a global phenomenon, and therefore this volume treats it within the frame of world history and international comparison. Examples discussed range from the United States in the 1830s to the expulsion of pied noir settlers from Algeria in the 1960s. A number of factors reshaped the older practices of forced migration and helped to make the removals discussed in this volume distinctly 'modern'. These include the use of modern apparatuses of administration, communication, and coercion, as well as warfare based on modern technology and organization.

Removing Peoples: Forced Removal in the Modern World (Studies of the German Historical Institute London)

Haake, Claudia B.

World

OUP/German Historical Institute London

The Second World War was the defining event of the twentieth century, leaving millions dead and 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 how racial hatred was the driving force behind–and not a by-product of–Nazism. War was the anvil on which Hitler’s worldview was forged; to him, war was “the most memorable period of my life,” and “all the past fell away into oblivion.” German National Socialism was born in war, emerging triumphant over a country deeply scarred by defeat and eager to reclaim its greatness and to punish those who had usurped it. As a political philosophy, Nazism glorified struggle and conflict, viewing them as the purpose of a nation and a measure of its overall condition. As a political movement and state system, Nazism made its ideology real, plunging the European continent into a war of annihilation and a sea of blood. Nazism–inseparable from war–destroyed the old Europe, and thus helped to create the world in which we live. Incisive, authoritative, and immensely readable, this is an incendiary and forcefully argued work of scholarship that will rank with the most influential historical analyses of our time.

Nazism and War (Modern Library Chronicles)

Modern Library

Simon&Schuster

As this book shows, Nazi ideology was based on two central beliefs: in war and race. Peace was merely a preparation for war, war which would redraw the racial map of Europe. The author begins with the aftermath of the First World War and the corrosive myth-building which substituted memories of senseless slaughter with the myth of a meaningful and even sacred event. It moves on steadily through the 1920s and the Nazi seizure of power, to the economic boom, massive rearmament and government-sponsored anti-Semitism of the 1930s. And then on to the war itself and the Nazis' racist war of extermination. The author pays particular attention to the chaos and extreme violence of the last months of the war, so catastrophic for the German people that they came to believe that they too had been victims of the war. Finally he describes the aftermath of the Second World War and the wreckage left behind by the Nazis which affected the lives of Germans and Europeans far beyond May 1945.

Nazism and War

Phoenix (an Imprint of The Orion Publishing Group)

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 that “Nazi war was racial struggle; Nazi racial struggle was war.” War was the anvil on which Hitler’s worldview was forged: German National Socialism emerged triumphant over a country deeply scarred by defeat and eager to reclaim its greatness. As a political philosophy, Nazism glorified struggle and conflict, viewing them as the purpose of a nation and a measure of its overall condition. As a political movement and state system, Nazism made its ideology real, plunging the European continent into a war of annihilation and a sea of blood. Nazism destroyed the old Europe, and thus helped to create the world in which we live. Praise for Nazism and War “[A] stimulating and thoughtful volume.”—Richard Overy, Literary Review “[A] rich, well-rounded portrait . . . offers both the serious scholar and the lay reader a concise yet comprehensive perspective on the events and horrors of that period.”—Publishers Weekly “[An] impressive study . . . highly recommended.”—Library Journal “Clear, engaging, and quietly profound.”—Booklist

Random House Publishing Group

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Books by Bessel, Richard

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Bessel, Richard. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Germany 1945: From War to Peace

Germany 1945: From War to Peace

Germany after the First World War

Germany After the First World War

Postwar Europe: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions)

Removing Peoples: Forced Removal in the Modern World (Studies of the German Historical Institute London)

Nazism and War (Modern Library Chronicles)

Germany 1945: From War to Peace

Nazism and War

Nazism and War (Modern Library Chronicles)