Focusing on the activity of Great Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz after 1914, Scheck presents a fascinating combination of biographical and contextual analysis explaining the predicament of the conservative German right in the troubled transition period before the Third Reich.

Alfred von Tirpitz (1849-1930), who joined the Prussian Navy in 1865 as a midshipman, was chiefly responsible for rapidly developing and enlarging the German Navy, especially the High Seas Fleet, from 1897 until the years immediately prior to the First World War. Epkenhans uses newly discovered documents to provide a fresh treatment of this important naval leader. In 1897, Tirpitz became the Secretary of State of the Imperial Navy Department. In four major building acts of 1898, 1900, 1908, and 1912, and, in working closely with Kaiser Wilhelm II, Tirpitz expanded the Imperial Navy from a small coastal force into a major blue-water navy. Great Britain, reacting with alarm to this challenge to its overseas trade and naval supremacy, accelerated the naval arms race by launching a revolutionary type of battleship, the Dreadnought, in 1906 and entering into strategic alliances with France and Russia. By the start of the First World War in 1914, the British Royal Navy still held a sizable advantage in capital ships over Germany, so that only one notable fleet action, Jutland in 1916, took place during the war. Tirpitz, who had become the German Navy commander with the outbreak of the war, thereafter became a staunch advocate of unrestricted submarine warfare. This policy did not differentiate between neutral and belligerent shipping and proved so controversial with the neutral United States that Germany was forced to retract it, albeit only temporarily. In the meantime, Tirpitz tendered his resignation to the Kaiser, who surprisingly accepted it. Tirpitz remained a minor figure thereafter, later serving the right-wing Fatherland Party as a deputy in the Reichstag.

What role did right-wing women play in the Nazi rise to power?Mothers of the Nation analyzes the work of women in the German Peoples Party and the German National Peoples Party - parties that covered the range from the moderate to the radical right. Looking at politics on both the local and national level, the author discusses issues ranging from social welfare to foreign policy. He shows that right-wing women, in keeping with the tradition of the German bourgeois womens movement, refused to sta nd up primarily for womens interests and instead invoked the Volksgemeinschaft (community of the people), a vision of harmony and cooperation of the groups involved in production.These right-wing campaigners believed that German women should use thei r newly won political rights to strengthen the Volksgemeinschaft by reconciling the divided nation and by infusing it with a higher morality. This stance proved to be both a liability and an asset. The emphasis on the Volksgemeinschaft made it diffic ult for female conservatives to fight for specific womens rights. Yet it also allowed them to paste over the conflicts between interest groups that tore apart Germanys bourgeois parties prior to 1933 and that divided politically active women as well. The ways in which women sought to contain the fragmentation that ultimately rendered their parties defenceless against the Nazis sheds new light on Weimar politics.Bringing the controversial story of right-wing women to life, this book offers a comp elling account of gender and politics during a crucial period in German history.

Corrado Pirzio-Biroli offers a robust defense of the life and career of his great-grandfather, Grand-Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, in this engaging family history. As the creator of the modern German navy, the trusted adviser of Wilhelm II for two decades, and an "eminence grise" during the Weimar Republic, Tirpitz was a central figure in European politics for several decades. While Tirpitz agonized about Hitler's rising power, he could not prevent it, and he felt as though he was too old to assume dictatorial powers. If he had done so, he would have liked to have upheld the Reichstag, which he had always shown respect and counted on. Drawing on personal recollections, unpublished family papers, and thoughtful analysis, the text reveals how Tirpitz had to adapt to a rapidly changing world in which his country went from being a juggernaut that traditional powers tried to rein in to a pariah nation. Trace four generations of one of Europe's most interesting families, and discover how Tirpitz proved to be a visionary leader in this account of one of history's most misunderstood and important figures.

Germany, 1871-1945 presents an original, lucid, and thought-provoking history. Its aim is to inspire readers to weigh the historical evidence. At the end of the Second World War, the first unified German state collapsed, a disintegration with European and global ramifications. Ever since, historians have sought to explain what went wrong in German history. Many have focused on the violence which forged unification; others have highlighted the clash of authoritarian, anti-democratic, and anti-Semitic traditions with rapid industrialization and modernization. Germany, 1871-1945 presents a pragmatic interpretation of German history, from the unification to the end of the Nazi regime. This more open approach acknowledges the strong trend in German society towards modernization and democratization, particularly before 1914, while also highlighting the factors which propelled Germany toward World War I. The rise of the Nazis also demands a close analysis of the economic and political instability of the 1920s and early 1930s. Finally, a detailed assessment of the Third Reich explains how the regime's early successes fostered a loyalty and acceptance that remained hard to shake until disaster was obvious and unavoidable.

In 1800, Europeans governed about one-third of the world's land surface; by the start of World War I in 1914, Europeans had imposed some form of political or economic ascendancy on over 80 percent of the globe. The basic structure of global and European politics in the twentieth century was fashioned in the previous century out of the clash of competing imperial interests and the effects, both beneficial and harmful, of the imperial powers on the societies they dominated. This encyclopedia offers current, detailed information on the major world powers and their global empires, as well as on the people, events, ideas, and movements, both European and non-European, that shaped the Age of Imperialism.

This book contains some 600 entries on a range of topics from ancient Chinese warfare to late 20th-century intervention operations. Designed for a wide variety of users, it encompasses general reviews of aspects of military organization and science, as well as specific wars and conflicts. The book examines naval and air warfare, as well as significant individuals, including commanders, theorists, and war leaders. Each entry includes a listing of additional publications on the topic, accompanied by an article discussing these publications with reference to their particular emphases, strengths, and limitations.