In May of 1945, there were more than eight million “displaced persons” (or DPs) in Germany—recently liberated foreign workers, concentration camp prisoners, and prisoners of war from all of Nazi-occupied Europe, as well as eastern Europeans who had fled west before the advancing Red Army. Although most of them quickly returned home, it soon became clear that large numbers of eastern European DPs could or would not do so. Focusing on Bavaria, in the heart of the American occupation zone, Between National Socialism and Soviet Communism examines the cultural and political worlds that four groups of displaced persons—Polish, Ukrainian, Russian, and Jewish—created in Germany during the late 1940s and early 1950s. The volume investigates the development of refugee communities and how divergent interpretations of National Socialism and Soviet Communism defined these displaced groups. Combining German and eastern European history, Anna Holian draws on a rich array of sources in cultural and political history and engages the broader literature on displacement in the fields of anthropology, sociology, political theory, and cultural studies. Her book will interest students and scholars of German, eastern European, and Jewish history; migration and refugees; and human rights.

The collective work deals with the problems of if, how, and why the histories of German Nazism and Soviet Communism should and could be situated within one coherent narrative. As historical phenomena, can Communism and Nazism fruitfully be compared to each other? Do they belong to the same historical contexts? Have they influenced, reacted to or learned from each other? Are they interpreted, represented and used together by posterity? The background of the book is twofold. One is external. There is an ongoing debate about the historical entanglements of Communism and Nazism, especially about Auschwitz and Gulag, respectively. Our present fascination with the evil history of genocide has situated the Holocaust as the borderline event in Western historical thinking. The crimes against humanity perpetrated by the Soviet Communist regime do not have the same position but are considered more urgent in the East and Central European states that were subdued by both Nazi and Communist regimes. The other, internal background is to develop an analytical perspective in which the “comnaz” nexus can be understood. Using a complex approach, the authors investigate Communist and Nazi histories as entangled phenomena, guided by three basic perspectives. Focusing on roots and developments, a genetic perspective highlights historical, process-oriented connections. A structural perspective indicates an attempt to narrow down “operational” parallels of the two political systems in the way they handled ideology to construct social utopia, used techniques of terror, etc. A third perspective is genealogical, emphasizing the processing and use of Communist and Nazi history by posterity in terms of meaning and memory: What past is worth remembering, celebrating, debating—but also distorting and forgetting? The chapters of the book address phenomena such as ideology, terror, secular religion, museum exhibits, and denial.

A study of the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the coming to power of the Nazis in Germany in 1933 in light of the marxist proposition that revolution would come in advanced capitalist societies. The implications of the actual cases for the theory are drawn out, and an original theorization of capitalist crisis combining economic and political factors is put forward.

The internationally distinguished contributors to this landmark volume represent a variety of approaches to the Nazi and Stalinist regimes. These far-reaching essays provide the raw materials towards a comparative analysis and offer the means to deepen and extend research in the field. The first section highlights similarities and differences in the leadership cults at the heart of the dictatorships. The second section moves to the 'war machines' engaged in the titanic clash of the regimes between 1941 and 1945. A final section surveys the shifting interpretations of successor societies as they have faced up to the legacy of the past. Combined, the essays presented here offer unique perspectives on the most violent and inhumane epoch in modern European history.

In his major work on communism, the international bestseller The Passing of an Illusion, the eminent French historian Franöois Furet devoted a lengthy footnote to German historian Ernst Nolte?s interpretation of fascism. Nolte responded, a correspondence ensued, and the result was the remarkable exchange presented in this volume. Fascism and Communism offers readers the rare opportunity to witness and learn from a confrontation between two of the world?s most distinguished historians over one of the most serious subjects of our time. Each from a different perspective, Furet and Nolte offer compelling arguments for the common genealogy of these two ideologies as well as reasons for the intellectual community?s rejection of this explosive thesis throughout the twentieth century. This discussion leads to a deeper understanding of the nature of totalitarianism as well as the trajectory and interpretation of modern European history.

Two dramatic speeches, made by the German Minister of Propaganda, at the famous Nuremberg rallies of 1935 and 1936, which sum up the National Socialist interpretation of Communism and its threat to the world. In Communism with the Mask Off (1935), Goebbels describes in detail the Jewish origins of Marxism and Communism, and lists the Jewish leaders and instigators of that ideology in Russia, Germany, many European nations and even China. "As far as we ourselves are concerned, we have completely overcome this menace. Indeed perhaps, outside of his work in Germany, the greatest service which our Fuhrer has rendered the world is that here in Germany he has set up a barrier against world Bolshevism against which the waves of this vile Asiatic-Jewish flood break in vain." In Bolshevism in Theory and Practice (1936), he discussed the practical social, political and economic consequences of Marxism-and how Germany had broken that menace. "We have proved under the most unfavourable circumstances that Bolshevism can be overcome if one wishes to do so, if one uses the proper means and if one is determined to oppose the powers of destruction with all one's strength and all one's manly courage. May the world follow Germany's example. Of course National Socialism is not suitable for export, and other nations shall not be persuaded or even forced to adopt its methods. Yet it may prove instructive, and its methods of procedure may stimulate other nations to adopt the same course and thus evade a terrible crisis." About the author: Paul Joseph Goebbels (1897-1945) was an early member of the Nazi Party and reputedly had the highest IQ in the party. He obtained a PhD from Heidelberg University in 1921 with a thesis in nineteenth century Romantic School Literature; he then went on to work as a journalist. By 1924, he had joined the NSDAP and two years later was appointed leader of the party in Berlin to wrest political control of that city from the Communist Party.