Module Identifier HY38230  
Module Title WEIMAR GERMANY:MAKING+BREAKING OF GERMAN DEMOCRACY,1914-1933  
Academic Year 2003/2004  
Co-ordinator Dr Peter A Lambert  
Semester Semester 2  
Course delivery Lecture   18 Hours  
  Seminars / Tutorials   10 Hours  
Assessment
Assessment TypeAssessment Length/DetailsProportion
Semester Exam3 Hours  60%
Semester Assessment Essay: 2 essays (1 x 4,000 words, 1 x 2,500 words)  40%

Learning outcomes

On completion of this module, students should be able to:
a) Demonstrate familiarity with a substantial body of historical knowledge in the field of German history between 1914 and 1933.
b) Engage in source criticism, discussion and understanding of evidence relating to developments in politics, culture and society in the Weimar Republic.
c) Demonstrate familiarity with a wide range of historical techniques relevant to the study of late-modern politics and society.
d) Gather and sift appropriate items of historical evidence.
e) Read, analyse and reflect critically on secondary and primary texts, in particular the work of D. J. K. Peukert.
f) Develop the ability to evaluate strengths and weaknesses of historical arguments respectively emphasising the significance of elements of `backwardness? and of `classical modernity? in the crises of the Weimar Republic.
g) Develop oral (not assessed) and written skills which will have been improved through seminar discussions and essays
h) Work both independently and collaboratively, and to participate in group discussions (not assessed).

Brief description

Many historians have argued that the survival of old elites and of mentalities rooted in the authoritarian value system of Imperial Germany meant that the German experiment in democracy was fatally flawed at the outset. In this option module the approach will be subjected to an extensive interrogation. In the cultural, social and economic, as well as in the political history of the Weimar Republic, the module will appraise the innovative and adventurous alternative which the adherents of a German Democracy sought to develop, and will ask exactly how and why such alternatives failed or were closed down. It is within this framework that we will seek to understand the processes which first allowed the establishment of a mass electoral base for National Socialism and finally brought Hitler to power in 1933.

Reading Lists

Books
** Recommended Text
Detlev J.V. Peukert (1991) The Weimar Republic. The Crisis of Classical Modernity
Eberhard Kolb (1988) The Weimar Republic

Notes

This module is at CQFW Level 6