A History of Hitler's Empire, 2nd Edition

1: The Third Reich, Hitler, and the 20th Century
Why is it important to study the Nazi movement? What was it about the political context of post-WWI Europe and Germany that allowed an extremist group which, at its start, had just a handful of members, to take over the country in less than 15 years' time?

2: The First World War and Its Legacy
After suffering terrible losses and hearing constantly from their rulers that they would win, Germans-and none more so than a wounded Austrian-born volunteer soldier named Adolf Hitler-were shocked by the Armistice of 1918 and the harsh Versailles Treaty that followed.







9: Munich and the Triumph of National Socialism
This lecture covers the stunning advance of the Nazi regime beginning with the Munich Agreement of 1938. Hitler swallowed Czechoslovakia, signed a cynical pact with Stalin, invaded Poland, and stood on the verge of becoming master of the European continent.


11: Holocaust-Hitler's War Against the Jews
Between 1939 and 1942, the Nazis pursued several options regarding what they called "the Jewish question." In late 1941, they finally opted for what they called "the final solution." It called for mass murder hidden behind a program of fictive "resettlement in the east."

12: The Final Solution
Here you examine the later stages of the Nazi murder campaign, asking also what the Allies knew and what they did. The lecture and the course close with the final destruction of the Third Reich, and a reflection on the lessons to be drawn from this chapter in what Churchill called "the dark and lamentable catalogue of human crime."