Although we associate the Third Reich above all with suffering, pain and fear, pleasure played a central role in its social and cultural dynamics. This book explores the relationship between the rationing of pleasures as a means of political stabilization and the pressure on the Nazi regime to cater to popular cultural expectations.
'Pleasure and Power in Nazi Germany makes a major contribution to debates on the problem of popular consent in the Third Reich. Its exploration of private and communal pleasures provides a new lens through which to explore the complicated and subtle relationships between the Nazi regime and its citizens, including those it sought to marginalize or eliminate. The editors' arguments regarding the diverse sites of 'pleasure' is exemplary, and the essays themselves are well written and trenchant. This book will attract a lot of attention.' - Shelley Baranowski, University of Akron, USA 'Self-perceived victims became perpetrators and beleaguered, economically deprived Germans became increasingly content and felt more and more at home in the Third Reich. This provocative collection explores how the pleasures of consumption combined with racism and militarism to stabilize and even accelerate the murderous machinery of Nazism. It adds up to a critical and fascinating portrait of Nazi Germany.' - Peter Fritzsche, author of Life and Death in the Third Reich '...a highly recommendable and worthwhile read for anyone interested in 20th-century German history.' Reviews in History '...many remarkable anecdotes in the excellent edited volume, Pleasure and Power in Nazi Germany, which complicates and textures the image of both daily life and policy under this regime.' - Molly L. Loberg, California Polytechnic State University, German History
"Using "pleasure" as an analytical category, this book makes a significant contribution to the history of the Third Reich by giving us a new angle by which to approach it...Pleasure and Power in Nazi Germany is a clever, thought-provoking book that has much to teach anyone interested in the Third Reich or the histories of emotion and culture in general." - Mark B. Cole, H-German