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Amerika im Dritten Reich: Ideologie, Propaganda and Volksmeinung 1933-1945 (America and the Third Reich: Ideology, propaganda, and public opinion, 1933-1945). By Philipp Gassert. (Stuttgart: Steiner, 1997. 415 pp. ISBN 3-515-07104-0.) In German.
Philipp Gassert's book appears as one of the Transatlantic Historical Studies published under the auspices of the German Historical Institute. The book is based largely upon primary and archival sources, though Gassert is familiar with most of the relevant secondary literature. Despite its subtitle, however, Amerika im Dritten Reich devotes a good deal of space to German images of American culture before Adolf Hitler came to power. Gassert, for example, shows how United States intervention in 1917 tipped the balance in favor of the Allies and enraged Germans. Anger grew when they learned about the terms of the Treaty of Versailles.
The German debate about the United States during the Weimar Republic contained a number of discordant voices. Woodrow Wilson was hated, but Henry Ford was widely admired. Respect for...