{"product_id":"bystander-society-9780197691717","title":"Bystander Society","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn this powerful and revelatory new work, historian Mary Fulbrook takes on one of the most fraught issues in modern times: the role of ordinary Germans in enabling the rise of Nazism and with it the exclusion, persecution, and then extermination of millions of people across Europe. The question often asked of the Nazi erawhat and when did ordinary Germans know about the crimes being committed in their name?is, Fulbrook argues, the wrong one. The real question is how they interpreted and actedor failed to actupon what they knew; and how, in the process, became complicit.To address these issues, Fulbrook examines German society before and during the Nazi regime, exploring the social conditions that eventually facilitated mass murder. She explores the creation of a bystander society, one in which the majority of Germans were either unable to act or developed growing indifference to the fate of those deemed non-Aryanmainly Jews and therefore outside the Volksgemeinschaft, or national community. Over the course of the 1930s, from Hitler''s assumption of the German chancellorship, through the passage of the Nuremberg Laws, to the devastation of Kristallnacht, this bystander society became more entrenched. Ordinary Germans became passive about the fate of non-Aryans and, by turning away, contributed to their isolation from mainstream society. For many citizens of the Reich, conformity led progressively through growing complicity in everyday racism to more active involvement in genocide during World War Two. In other words, social changes under Nazi rule shaped the perceptions and responses of German citizens, creating the conditions that made the Holocaust possible.Based on an extraordinary archive of personal accounts, Bystander Society moves between the individual and the wider context, highlighting the significance of changing social and political circumstances over the course of the Nazi period by offering first-hand testimony both from those who were its primary victims, and those who initially sought to stay on the side lines but could not avoid being caught up in the violence of the times. These accounts illuminate how interpersonal relations in everyday life shifted, such that some fellow citizens could first be viewed as outcasts and then, in wartime, deportedmost often to their deathsin full view of those who would later often claim ignorance of their fates.Chilling and illuminating, Bystander Society reconceives the whole notion of bystanding within Nazi Germany, offering an interpretation of the conditions for inaction, one with wide and enduring relevance.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA commendable attempt to understand why people stood by and did nothing when confronted with Nazi barbarism, written by one of the greatest historians of modern Germany. * Darren O'Byrne, The Critic *\u003cbr\u003e[a] terrific work of historical scholarship * Richard Lofthouse, QUAD *\u003cbr\u003e[A] brilliant new book... Fulbrook brings a lifetime of scholarship and reflection, as well as a fearless courage, to the task. * Nicholas Stargardt, Literary Review *\u003cbr\u003eMary Fulbrook superbly weaves contemporary accounts of experiences from Jews and non-Jews into a rich tapestry that shows how Germany under Hitler gradually turned into a society capable of the Holocaust. * Ian Kershaw *\u003cbr\u003eWith her signature insightfulness, historian Mary Fulbrook addresses the fascinating but troubling problem of 'bystanders' to the Holocaust. She probes how social dynamics in Hitler's early years pushed non-Jews to conform, and how after the Nuremberg Laws of 1935 most fervently did so. By the late 1930s, more Germans became complicit in Nazi crimes and, during World War II, German, Austrian, and Baltic 'bystanders' eagerly engaged in violence, participating in genocide. This gripping account is a must-read for anyone interested in how bystanders became accomplices and later perpetrators, and how democracy could be destroyed. * Marion Kaplan, Professor Emerita of Modern Jewish History, New York University, author of Between Dignity and Despair: Jewish Life in Nazi Germany and Hitler's Jewish Refugees: Hope and Anxiety in Portugal *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTable of Contents\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePreface  Acknowledgements  Introduction: Bystanders and collective violence    PART I THE SLIPPERY SLOPE: SOCIAL SEGREGATION IN NAZI GERMANY    1. Lives in Germany before 1933  2. Falling into line: spring 1933  3. Ripping apart at the seams: the racialization of identity, 1933-4  4. Shifting communities: dissembling and the cost of conformity  5. A nation of Aryans? The normalization of racial discrimination    PART II THE EXPANSION OF VIOLENCE AT HOME AND ABROAD    6. Changing horizons: views from within and without  7. Shock waves: polarization in peacetime society, November 1938  8. Divided fates: empathy, exit, and death, 1939-41  9. Over the precipice: from persecution to genocide in the Baltics  10. Inner emigration and the fiction of ignorance  11. Towards the end: rescue, survival, and self-justifications    CONCLUSION  12. The bystander myth and responses to violence","brand":"Oxford University Press Inc","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48732675375447,"sku":"9780197691717","price":22.94,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9780197691717.jpg?v=1719997905","url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/bystander-society-9780197691717","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}