Conan Fischer - Böcker

In January 1923 French and Belgian forces occupied Germany's Ruhr District and seized its prime industrial assets in lieu of unpaid reparations. This unilateral attempt to enforce the crumbling Versailles settlement precipitated a wider struggle for long-term control of Western Germany and ultimately for the very survival of the Weimar Republic. The Ruhr Crisis is the first comprehensive account of a definitive and mutually self-defeating confrontation, which marked one of the great untold tragedies of European history yet, paradoxically, sowed the seeds of Franco-German reconciliation after 1949. It demonstrates how and why the people of the Ruhr waged a grass-roots mass campaign of passive resistance against the invaders, and evaluates the human and political price of their ultimate failure. To this end, the author exploits a broad range of local and regional sources, many for the first time, to bring together the high politics of the crisis and intimate, often disturbing, accounts of the daily struggle in the mines, towns, and villages of the Ruhr. It is a ground-breaking contribution to the history of inter-war Germany.

It is commonly held that the inter-war era marked little more than a ceasefire between two world wars, with the improvement in German-Allied relations forged at Locarno in 1925 cut short by the global economic turmoil that followed the 1929 Wall Street Crash. A Vision of Europe challenges this received wisdom, offering a fundamental re-evaluation of inter-war Franco-German relations during the Great Depression and providing a fuller understanding of the historical origins of today's European Union. It demonstrates that rather than lapsing into mutual recrimination and national egotism, France and Germany engaged with the challenges of the post-1929 slump by way of plans for a Franco-German customs union and wider bilateral economic collaboration, whether across the Rhine, in the French Empire, or elsewhere in Europe. These plans were regarded as the initial steps on the road to a European Union that would reconcile Berlin's search for national rehabilitation with France's need for national security, so providing a means of resolving the formidable legacies of the First World War and Versailles Peace Settlement. Their efforts culminated in September 1931 in a formal agreement to establish a Franco-German economic community, which included the institutional means to transform ambition into reality. Unlike comparable post-1949 diplomacy, however, these aspirations ended in failure, but they nonetheless provided an invaluable, if largely unacknowledged template for the process of (West)-European recovery in the aftermath of the Third Reich.This finely-focused study of the exchanges between individual politicians and diplomats, whether domestically or across the Rhine, also examines the relationship between the official sphere, the press, and a range of cultural associations and initiatives. It also explores the role of key economic associations and pressure groups whose energies were harnessed by Paris and Berlin in the cause of rapprochement. These were complex processes where success or failure could rest on particular personal exchanges, a badly-timed election, or unanticipated economic upsets that compromised diplomacy's best-laid plans.

Designed to secure a lasting peace between the Allies and Germany, the Versailles Settlement soon came apart at the seams. In After The Versailles Treaty an international team of historians examines the almost insuperable challenges facing victors and vanquished alike after the ravages of WW1. This is not another diplomatic history, instead focusing on the practicalities of treaty enforcement and compliance as western Germany came under Allied occupation and as the reparations bill was presented to the defeated and bankrupt Germans. It covers issues such as: How did the Allied occupiers conduct themselves and how did the Germans respond? Were reparations really affordable and how did the reparations regime affect ordinary Germans? What lessons did post-WW2 policymakers learn from this earlier reparations settlement The fraught debates over disarmament as German big business struggled to adjust to the sudden disappearance of arms contracts and efforts were made on the international stage to achieve a measure of global disarmament. The price exacted by the redrawing of frontiers on Germany’s eastern and western margins, as well as the (gentler) impact of the peace settlement on identity in French Flanders. This book was previously published as a special issue of Diplomacy and Statecraft

Designed to secure a lasting peace between the Allies and Germany, the Versailles Settlement soon came apart at the seams. In After The Versailles Treaty an international team of historians examines the almost insuperable challenges facing victors and vanquished alike after the ravages of WW1. This is not another diplomatic history, instead focusing on the practicalities of treaty enforcement and compliance as western Germany came under Allied occupation and as the reparations bill was presented to the defeated and bankrupt Germans. It covers issues such as: How did the Allied occupiers conduct themselves and how did the Germans respond? Were reparations really affordable and how did the reparations regime affect ordinary Germans? What lessons did post-WW2 policymakers learn from this earlier reparations settlement The fraught debates over disarmament as German big business struggled to adjust to the sudden disappearance of arms contracts and efforts were made on the international stage to achieve a measure of global disarmament. The price exacted by the redrawing of frontiers on Germany’s eastern and western margins, as well as the (gentler) impact of the peace settlement on identity in French Flanders. This book was previously published as a special issue of Diplomacy and Statecraft

Fischer offers a captivating analysis of Europe’s turbulent history during the first half of the twentieth century, from the optimism at the turn of the century to the successive waves of destruction of the First and Second World Wars. Written by a leading authority in this field, the book draws upon his areas of expertiseReflects the most recent scholarship in this period of historyWhile laying stress on Europe's major powers and the seminal events of the earlier twentieth century, Fischer pays due attention to the smaller European countries from the Atlantic to the Black Sea and the Baltic to the MediterraneanExtends beyond the political, sociological, and economic paradigms to include extensive references to the European cultural sceneOrganized both as a broad chronology and thematically, in order to allow for historical insights and entry into the key debates and literature

Fischer offers a captivating analysis of Europe’s turbulent history during the first half of the twentieth century, from the optimism at the turn of the century to the successive waves of destruction of the First and Second World Wars. Written by a leading authority in this field, the book draws upon his areas of expertiseReflects the most recent scholarship in this period of historyWhile laying stress on Europe's major powers and the seminal events of the earlier twentieth century, Fischer pays due attention to the smaller European countries from the Atlantic to the Black Sea and the Baltic to the MediterraneanExtends beyond the political, sociological, and economic paradigms to include extensive references to the European cultural sceneOrganized both as a broad chronology and thematically, in order to allow for historical insights and entry into the key debates and literature

How and why did the Nazis seize power in Germany? Nearly seventy years on, the question remains heated and important discoveries continue to challenge long standing assumptions. Beginning with an overview of the historical context within which Nazism grew, looking at the foreign relations, politics and society of Weimar and in particular at the role of the elites in the rise of Nazism. The book questions the anatomy of Nazism itself: What lent Nazi ideology its coherence and credibility? What distinguished the Nazi’s programme from their competitors’ and how did they project it so effectively? How was Hitler able to put together and fund an organisation so quickly and effectively that it could launch a sustained assault on Weimar? Who supported the Nazis and what were their motives? Where, precisely, does Nazism belong in the history of Europe?. Since the publication of the first edition, important new works have appeared and this new scholarship has been incorporated into the text.

This examination of Hitler’s stormtroopers provides vital insights into the collapse of the Weimar Republic and the establishment of the Nazi state. Drawing on a wide range of archival sources and extensive biographical material left by the stormtroopers themselves, the author challenges the belief that Hitler’s SA was predominantly lower-middle class. This revealing study of street politics during an era of economic and political dislocation and is an important contribution to the history of inter-war Germany which will appeal to the advanced undergraduate and postgraduate reader alike.

This examination of Hitler’s stormtroopers provides vital insights into the collapse of the Weimar Republic and the establishment of the Nazi state. Drawing on a wide range of archival sources and extensive biographical material left by the stormtroopers themselves, the author challenges the belief that Hitler’s SA was predominantly lower-middle