The period from defeat in the First World War to defeat in the Second
World War saw Germany experience two political extremes: its first
attempt at democracy, with the abdication of the Kaiser and the
proclamation of a republic on 9 November 1918, and one of the most
reprehensible dictatorships of the modern age, following the appointment
of Hitler as Chancellor on 30 January 1933. With the unleashing of a
second world war, and the purposeful mass murder of around six million
human beings in unprecedented industrial genocide, the collapse from
democracy into dictatorship has understandably aroused the most virulent
historical controversies. The years since 1945 have to an extent been
lived in the shadow of the earlier period, but also of course in their
own right with their own peculiarities, none more pronounced than the
creation of two Germanies, the FRG and GDR, one democracy, one
dictatorship, ideological foes in the Cold War. The controversies
attaching to the later period are (as yet?) less heated but the
questions are no less insistent.

It is extraordinarily difficult for any single historian to do justice
to changes so varied, complex and controversial. Instead, in this book
an international team of scholars, experts in their fields, have
collaborated to produce an innovative work that blends the basic
guidance of a conventional textbook with analysis of central issues in
political, social, economic and cultural history.