This book focuses on the recent scholarly controversies and on the questions that have preoccupied observers—the nature of Nazi support, the role of the dictator, the function of ideology and anti-Semitism, and the goals of foreign policy. It provides a briefing on Hitler's rise to power.

Introduction -- How the Nazis Came to Power -- The Collapse of Weimar -- The Nazi Rise to Power: A Comprehensible Catastrophe -- Discussion -- The New Rulers and Their Values -- Nazism: Fascism or Totalitarianism? -- Comments on Reactionary Modernist Components of Nazi Ideology -- The New Nazi Rulers: Who Were They? -- Discussion -- The Institutional Structure -- Politics and Polyocracy: Notes on a Debate -- Traditional Elites and National Socialist Leadership -- Discussion -- Society Under Nazism: Accommodation and Resistance -- Women Between God and Führer -- Workers and National Socialism -- Organized Mass Culture in the Third Reich: The Women of Kraft durch Freude -- Workers’ Opposition in Nazi Germany: Recent West German Research -- Discussion -- The Impact Abroad -- Variety in Perception: Western Views of Nazi Germany -- France and Hitler: 1933–1936 -- Discussion -- The Place of Nazism in History -- A Roundtable Discussion