This book offers a succinct overview of the turbulent economic history of the Weimar Republic.

The Weimar Republic was a turbulent and pivotal period of German and European history and a laboratory of modernity. The Oxford Handbook of the Weimar Republic provides an unsurpassed panorama of German history from 1918 to 1933, offering an indispensable guide for anyone interested in the fascinating history of the Weimar Republic.

"Weimar Centennial edition with a new preface by the author."--Title page.

This book considers statistical innovation, 1900-45, in the Weimar Republic and the Third Reich.

About half of Kolb's compact book is devoted to a "Historical Survey," chronologically divided at the conventional watersheds of 1923-24 and 1929-30. A briefer second part, a historiographical essay in seven topical chapters, is followed by a seven-page chronology, a 676-item classified and topical bibliography, and an index. The bibliography, updated to February 1987, includes some English-language titles not in the original German edition, and is a list of tremendous value. Frequent references to individual entries (as well as to some works not found there) tie the bibliography to the historiographical essay, which is characterized by fair and judicious appraisal of interpretations of the period, even when Kolb clearly disagrees. There is a chapter on the revolution of 1918 and its aftermath in the first section, and one on art and mass culture in the second; each section of the survey also has one chapter focusing on foreign policy, and one on domestic developments.

November 1932. With the German economy in ruins and street battles raging between political factions, the Weimar Republic is in its death throes. Its elderly president Paul von Hindenburg floats above the fray, inscrutably haunting the halls of the Reichstag. In the shadows, would-be saviours of the nation vie for control. The great rivals are the chancellors Franz von Papen and Kurt von Schleicher. Both are tarnished by the republic's all-too-evident failures. Each man believes he can steal a march on the other by harnessing the increasingly popular National Socialists - while reining in their most alarming elements, naturally. Adolf Hitler has ideas of his own. But if he can't impose discipline on his own rebellious foot-soldiers, what chance does he have of seizing power?

Through an examination of election campaign propaganda and various public relations campaigns, reflecting new electioneering techniques borrowed from the United States, this work explores how conservative political and economic groups sought to construct and sell a political meaning of the Social Market Economy and the Economic Miracle in West Germany during the 1950s.The political meaning of economics contributed to conservative electoral success, constructed a new belief in the free market economy within West German society, and provided legitimacy and political stability for the new Federal Republic of Germany.