Please select ONE of the following questions and respond in a well-organized four-paged essay.
1. Can you describe the psychology of SS “desk murders” like Adolf Eichmann and Rudolf Hoss? What is the meaning of Hannah Arendt’s famous phrase, “the banality of evil?”
2. How popular was the Nazi regime? Please evaluate the degree of resistance to the Nazis on the part of ordinary Germans. What forms could resistance take? In your essay, please address the attempts on Hitler’s life and the non-violent protest of the student group known as the “White Rose.”
3. Please discuss Hitler’s foreign policy objectives. Who was Neville Chamberlain? What was the significance of the British policy of “appeasement?” Given Hitler’s man pronouncements on foreign policy, did Hitler believe he had fought the “wrong war?”
4. What did you learn about the Third Reich from your reading of Joachim Fest’s psychological portraits of the Nazi Leadership?
Texts
Joseph W. Bendersky: A Concise History of Nazi Germany (New York: Rowan & Littlefield, Third Ed, 2007) ISBN-10: 0742553639
Joachim Fest: The Face of The Third Reich: Portraits of The Nazi Leadership (Da Capo Press, 1999) ISBN-10: 1848857039
Elie Wiesel: Night (Hill & Wang, 2006) ISBN-13: 978-0374500016