Social Policy in the Third Reich: The Working Class And The 'National Community': The Working Class and the 'National Community', 1918-1939 - Softcover

'... an outstanding empirical analysis of Nazi-Germany in peacetime.'The Economic History Review'Even for those who are aware of Mason's pioneering work on the Third Reich, this edition is a 'must' ... highly recommended.'History and Politics'... a monument to scholarship.'Patterns of Prejudice'... 'Sozialpolitik im Dritten Reich', of which the above-mentioned volume is the first English translation, has become a classic.'European Studies Newsletter'... a superb and concise survey of many of the key debates about National Socialism over the last twenty years.'German History

This book analyzes the attitudes and policies of the Nazi leadership towards the German working class. The author argues that the regime did not securely integrate the working class and was thus less successful in imposing mass economic sacrifices in the interests of forced rearmament. With a growing labour shortage in the late 1930s, industrial conflict re emerged. These two factors slowed down military preparations for war and may well, it is argued, have influenced Hitler's foreign policy in 1938/39.The author has added a substantial epilogue to this edition in which he responds to the main criticisms, aroused by the German original, and assesses the relevance of more recent research to the arguments put forward.