Jonathan Petropoulos 
Claremont Mckenna College 
Office Tel.: 909-607-2775 
Office Hours: Mon/Wed. 3-4
Seaman 219 
e-mail: jonathan_petropoulos@mckenna.edu 
website: http://newmedia.cgu.edu/petropoulos

Choose a WeekReading List AssignmentsWeek 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4  Week 5Week 6 Week 7 Week 8 Week 9 Week 10Week 11Week 12 Week 13
Week 14 Week 15 Week 16 Main Page

Barkai, Avarham.  “Volksgemeinschaft, ‘Aryanization’ and the Holocaust,” in David Cesarini, ed., The Final Solution: Origins and Implementation.

* Borowski, Tadeusz.  This Way for the Gas Ladies and Gentlemen.

Browning, Christopher.  “Hitler and the Euphoria of Victory: The Path to the Final Solution,” in David Cesarini, ed., The Final Solution: Origins and Implementation.

* Carr, William, A History of Germany, 1815-1990.

* Fontane, Theodor.  Effi Briest.

* Friedrich, Otto.  Before the Deluge: a Portrait of Berlin in the 1920s.

Fulbrook, Mary.  “Occupation and Division,” in The Divided Nation: A History of Germany, 1918-1990.

* Goethe, Johann Wolfgang.  The Sorrows of Young Werther.

Hauner, Milan.  “Did Hitler Want World Dominion?” in Journal of Contemporary History 13 (1978), 15-32.

* Maier, Charles.  Dissolution: The Crisis of Communism and the End of East Germany.

Mosse, George.  “National Monuments,” in The Nationalization of the Masses.

* Ritter, Gerhard.  Frederick the Great: A Historical Profile.

* Steiner, George. In Bluebeard’s Castle.  Some Notes Towards the Redefinition of Culture.

Assignments: [top]
5-7 page paper (20%);
10 page paper (30%);
Mid-term (20%); 
Final exam (30%).

Week 1: Introduction.
19 January: Periodization and the “Sonderweg.”
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Week 2: Frederick II: (Ritter, entire).
24 January: The Rise of Prussia.
26 January: How “Enlightened” was Frederick the Great?
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Week 3: Sturm und Drang (Goethe, entire; Carr. Ch. 1).
31 January: Goethe and his Sorrows.
2 February: The German Lands Through the Congress of Vienna.
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Week 4: Toward Unification (Carr, Ch. 2; Mosse).
7 February: Cultural Nationalism.
9 February: The Revolution of 1848.
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Week 5: The Genesis of the German Reich (Carr, Chs. 3-6).
14 February: The “First” German Unification.
16 February: Bismarck’s “Reign.”
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Week 6: Imperial Germany (Carr, Chs. 7-8; Fontane, entire).
21 February: Social Imperialism.
23 February: Gender and Society in Imperial Germany.
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Week 7: World War I (Carr, Ch. 1; Steiner, 3-25).
28 February: Mid-Term Exam. 
1 March: The Guns of August.
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Week 8: Weimar Germany (Carr, Chs. 10-11; Friedrich, Chs. 1-5).
6 March: The Treaty of Versailles and Its Legacy.
8 March: Weimar Society.
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Week 9: Spring Break.

Week 10: The End of the Weimar Republic (Carr, Ch. 12; Friedrich, Chs. 6-17). 
20 March: Weimar Culture.
22 March: The Crisis of the Early 1930s.
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Week 11: The Third Reich. (Carr, Ch. 13; Barkai).
27 March: The Nazi Seizure of Power.
29 March: Germany to 1939.
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Week 12: The Path Toward War (Carr, Ch. 14; Hauner; Browning).
3 April: Hitler’s Foreign Policy.
5 April: Blitzkrieg.
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Week 13: The Holocaust (Borowski, entire; Steiner, 29-93).
10 April: Perpetrators.
12 April: Victims.
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Week 14: Defeat and Reconstruction (Carr, Ch. 15; Fulbrook).
17 April: Collapse and Stunde Null.
19 April: Occupation and the Creation of Multiple States.
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Week 15: The GDR and FRG (Maier, pages, t.b.a.).
24 April: The GDR, FRG, and the Cold War.
26 April: The Crisis of the GDR.
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Week 16: Reunification (Maier, pages. t.b.a.).
1 May: 1989.
3 May: Germany in the 1990s.

Final Exam (Take Home: date t.b.a).

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