Rezension: Vom Scheitern der Demokratie – Die Pfalz am Ende der Weimarer Republik

• Main Author: Yves V. Grossmann
• Format: Article
• Language: deu
• Published: Universität Mainz 2011-11-01
• Series: Skriptum : Studentische Onlinezeitschrift für Geschichte und Geschichtsdidaktik
• Subjects: history of palatinate; Weimarer Republik; regional history
• Online Access: http://www.skriptum-geschichte.de/?p=877

The recent study about the history of what is today the federal state of Rheinland-Pfalz (Rhineland- Palatinate): „Vom Scheitern der Demokratie – Die Pfalz am Ende der Weimarer Republik“ has recently been reviewed by Yves V. Grossmann. Beginning with the world economic crisis in October 1929 and ending with Hitlers rise to power in 1933, co-publisher Hannes Ziegler approaches the contemporary time in the Rhinland-Palatinate region, which was marked by political instability and economic disaster. The time of crisis during the Weimar years advantaged the political rise of the Nazis, allowing the NSDAP to become a mass-party in the Pfalz-region. This historical rise to power is approached via twelve different articles, each of them looking at the named topic from a different angle. The volume also explicitly deals with the time of French occupation, the economic-crisis and the political radicalisation. The media history and the press are also included. The political landscape, the church, the law system, and the branch of cultural life, which thrived regardless of the crisis, are also being adressed throughout the regional-historicalthemed volume. The review offers a short and comprehensive summary of the book's contents. The classification and evaluation of the volume furthermore arrive at a thoroughly positive conclusion.