Introduction
This volume on Nazi Germany offers a variety of primary sources to students, educators, and other researchers. In working with a time period that has been documented extensively, we editors were able to put together a wealth of materials that lend themselves to classroom use, independent or guided primary-source research, and general interest reading. The selected themes—from foreign policy to consumer culture to racial policy—provide access to a diversity of experiences and developments that are too often reduced to a singular focus on Hitler and his genocidal policies. Teachers, students, and other users will discover images, documents, videos, and audio clips that will spark debates about power structures in the Third Reich, Nazi Germany’s relationship with other countries, and the experiences and behaviors of Germans from all walks of life—women and men, industrial workers, farmers, middle-class consumers, the architects of racial legislation, and those (such as Jews, leftists, homosexuals, Roma, disabled people, and “asocials”) whom the regime labeled as unwelcome and as a threat to the so-called “people’s community” [Volksgemeinschaft]. The selected sources, together with the accompanying abstracts, will hopefully inspire users to explore other historical materials, on the web or in the library.
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