A01=Abraham Plotkin
Abraham Plotkin
American
Author_Abraham Plotkin
Berlin
biography
Category=DNBH1
Category=NHD
economy
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
European history
German history
German Jew
Germany
Great Depression
Hitler
Jewish history
labor studies
May 1933
Nazi
personal papers
politics
pre-war
Social-Democrat
socialist
socioeconomic
twentieth century
Weimer Republic
Weimer-era
working-class
Product details
- ISBN 9780252075599
- Weight: 399g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 12 Dec 2008
- Publisher: University of Illinois Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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This is the first published edition of the diary of Abraham Plotkin, an American labor leader of immigrant Jewish origin who lived in Berlin between November 1932 and May 1933. A firsthand account of the Weimar Republic's final months and the early rise of Nazi power in Germany, Plotkin's diary focuses on the German working class, the labor movement, and the plight of German Jews. Plotkin investigated Berlin's social conditions with the help of German Social-Democratic leaders whose analyses of the situation he records alongside his own.
Compared to the writings of other American observers of the Third Reich, Plotkin's diary is unique in style, scope, themes, and time span. Most accounts of Hitler's rise to power emphasize political institutions by focusing on the Nazi party's clashes with other political forces. In contrast, Plotkin is especially attentive to socioeconomic factors, providing an alternative view from the left that stems from his access to key German labor and socialist leaders. Chronologically, the diary reports on the moment when Hitler's seizure of power was not yet inevitable and when leaders on the left still believed in a different outcome of the crisis, but it also includes Plotkin's account of the complete destruction of German labor in May 1933.
Catherine Collomp is a professor of American history at UniversitÉ Paris VII-Denis Diderot and the author of several books and many articles on American labor and immigration history. Bruno Groppo, a specialist of comparative labor history, is a researcher at the Centre National de la Scientifique (Paris).
