eBook

Suicide in Nazi Germany

Goeschel, Christian

2009,2015

Overview

The Third Reich met its end in the spring of 1945 in an unparalleled wave of suicides. Hitler, Goebbels, Bormann, Himmler and later Göring all killed themselves. These deaths represent only the tip of an iceberg of a massive wave of suicides that also touched upon ordinary lives. As this suicide epidemic has no historical precedent or parallel, it can tell us much about the Third Reich's peculiar self-destructiveness and the depths of Nazi fanaticism. The book looks at the suicides of both Nazis and ordinary people in Germany between 1918 and 1945, from the end of World War I until the end of World War II, including the mass suicides of German Jews during the Holocaust. It shows how suicides among different population groups, including supporters, opponents, and victims of the regime, responded to the social, cultural, economic and, political context of the time. The book also analyses changes and continuities in individual and societal responses to suicide over time, especially with regard to the Weimar Republic and the post-1945 era.

• Publisher: Oxford University Press,Oxford University Press, Incorporated
• Subject: 1933-1945 / European History / Germany / Germany -- Politics and government -- 1933-1945 / History / Modern History (1700 to 1945) / Nazism / Politics and government / Social and Cultural History / Social history / Social norms / Social values / Suicide / Suicide -- Germany -- History / Third Reich
• ISBN: 0199532567, 9780199532568