Ryerson University
HST 603: History
of The Third Reich
(Winter Session 2009)
Section 01 Mon: 11:00AM - 1:00PM
(EPH441) & Wed:
9:00 - 10:00AM (KHS251)
Section 02 Wed: 11:00AM - 1:00PM
(EPH441) & Fri:
2:00 – 3:00 PM (EPH441)
Instructor:
Peter Wronski
Office Hours:
Weds:
10:00-11:00 AM or by appointment -
JOR 501
Email :
pwronsky@ryerson.ca
Phone :
979-5000 ext. 6058
Course website:
www.petervronsky.com/thirdreich.htm
OR
www.russianbooks.org/thirdreich.htm
COURSE DESCRIPTION / OBJECTIVE
More than sixty years after its destruction by the Allied armies, Hitler's
Germany still manages to arouse both controversy and curiosity. Was the Nazi
state rooted in the German past, or rather the product of modern crises that
could overwhelm any nation? This course combines a chronological, biographical
and thematic approach to explaining the history of the Third Reich. The
course covers Germany's historical roots leading to the emergence of the
National Socialist Party, the rise of Hitler and his henchmen to power, the rise
and fall of the Third Reich's totalitarian-racial police state and Nazi
criminality in warfare, occupation policy and genocide.
The objectives of this course are:
1. To examine the Third Reich in its contemporary setting and to
establish a factual framework for its history; 2. To understand the relationship
between National Socialism and the conduct of foreign and domestic policy; 3. To
improve your ability to think critically and to analyze data by undertaking the
kind of research required for an upper level university essay or a professional
or academic report or publication and to write and present it clearly and
effectively.
(Upper-level liberal studies elective)
WARNING: Lectures may feature
graphic images that some may find disturbing.
TEXTS
(available at the Ryerson book store)
Klaus P. Fischer, Nazi
Germany: A New History, (New
York: Continuum, 1995.)
Christopher R. Browning, Ordinary Men:
Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland, (New
York: HarperPerennial, 1998.)
[second edition]
METHOD OF STUDENT EVALUATION
Essay Proposal (250 words):
10%
Mid-Term Test:
10%
Essay (2500 words):
30%
Final Exam:
30%
Seminars:
20%
METHOD OF INSTRUCTION:
Lecture & Seminar
TENTATIVE LECTURE SCHEDULE
(see website for more lecture content)
Introduction to History of the Third Reich
SEMINARS: Four
one-hour seminars will be scheduled during the semester. Discussion will be
based on lecture and assigned reading materials.
Participation is mandatory and worth 20% of the final mark based
on attendance and the quality and degree of your participation.
Readings will consist of academic journal articles which you can access
online through the
Ryerson Library internet portal.
See website for instruction how to access academic journal titles online.
ESSAY ASSIGNMENTS
There are two parts to the essay assignment: the outline and the essay.
Part 1: An Outline (10%)
The outline should consist of one double-spaced page with a description of your
proposed essay, an argument if you have one and/or your approach to the subject
and its significance to the course if not immediately evident.
(Approximately 250 words.)
A one or two page annotated bibliography
of six sources
at least should accompany the essay description. This should consist of the author, title, publisher,
city, and year of publication of the book, journal article, or other source and
a short commentary on what the source
offers to your essay.
Outlines submitted with no annotations to the bibliography will be heavily
penalized. Sources should be current
academic monographs or academic journal articles -- not popular works like
Time-Life Books, Complete Idiot’s or Dummies Guides, Colliers Children’s
Encyclopedia, Encarta, Wikipedia, Historyplace.com, etc. Journalistic works with
citations are acceptable. In general, if your source does not provide
detailed references in the form of footnotes, endnotes or specific
page references, it is unsuitable as a source.
If you intend to include websites, provide their URLs in the proposal for
approval.
You will be assessed on the uniqueness of your topic and on the depth, currency
and academic quality of your sources. The use of academic journal
articles, many of which are available online through the Ryerson Library is
highly encouraged. If you are not familiar with academic article databases
like JSTOR and Project Muse, go (run!) immediately to a librarian at the Ryerson
Library and ask them to show you how to use these databases. You can
access them from home and many (but not all) articles are available for
downloading in full text. A link on the course website also provides you an
introduction as to how to enter the online journal interface.
You may at any time after submitting a proposal, change your approach, your
sources, and even completely change your essay topic without submitting a new
proposal but I strongly suggest to check with me first on topic changes.
Part 2: The
Essay (30%)
Essays should be 2,500 words in length (approximately 10-12 pages not including
your title page and bibliography and appendix if any.)
Standard 12 pt font, cursive or
non-cursive, double spaced text, standard 2.5 cm margins, 11” X 8 ½” paper.
Pages must be stapled (no
binders or paperclips), paginated, and submitted with a cover page containing no
art or decorative elements. The
cover page must have: your name,
student number, course number, section number and essay title.
Essays not conforming to these
standards will not be accepted and late penalties will be imposed until the
essay is resubmitted in the required format.
Essays must be based on a minimum of six sources (not including course
texts but seminar readings are acceptable), and
should not include,
encyclopedias, textbooks, or general or popular histories, or unapproved
websites, (2 marks deducted for every Wikipedia or like citation) etc.,
as described above in Part 1.
Paragraphs are to be indented without any additional spaces between paragraphs,
unlike in this course outline, for example.
Any relevant images, maps, graphs included in the essay are to be placed
into an Appendix at the back.
The essay should have a single descriptive title or a creative title
with a descriptive subtitle. For
example:
Generals in Blue:
Lives of the Union Commanders or
The Architect of Genocide:
Himmler and the Final Solution, etc.
“History Essay” is not a title.
Marks will be deducted for essays submitted without a title and/or title
page.
Citations
A history essay is like a courtroom argument—it is based on the presentation of
evidence conforming to rules of evidence in an expositive argument.
The way hearsay is not admissible in court, Wikipedia for example, is
likewise not admissible as evidence in historical discourse.
Just as court evidence is presented in a disciplined system:
Exhibit A, Exhibit B, Exhibit C, etc,
in the historical argument, the Chicago
Style footnoted citation is used to lead and guide the reader through the
evidence behind the persuasive discourse of the text above.
Some of the journal readings for seminars will have been pointed out to you as
appropriate models for the citation style required for your essay.
Essays must have a bibliography and have footnoted
citations in the Chicago style (at the bottom of the page).
Parenthetic in-text or inline style citations are unacceptable for a
history essay.
A well
researched essay integrating multiple sources into its argument contains on
average five to six citations per page -- approximately 50 to 70 citations per
essay.
As a general rule, references should be given for direct quotations, summaries
or your own paraphrases of other people's work or points of view, and for
material that is factual, statistical, controversial, assertive or obscure.
You must cite more than just direct quotes. WHEN IN DOUBT, IT IS
BETTER TO PROVIDE A REFERENCE. You
do not need to cite items of general knowledge like, for example:
the sun rises in the east or Elizabeth II is the Queen of England.
Essays that do not provide specific page references in each citation will be
automatically failed without an opportunity to resubmit.
Go to these links for a guide to the required citation format:
http://www.dianahacker.com/resdoc/p04_c10_s1.html
http://www.douglascollege.ca/library/chicago.html
Why Chicago Style Footnotes?
http://www.yale.edu/bass/writing/sources/kinds/principles/why.html
This is an example of the basic required style for citations which are to be
inserted at the bottom of each page:
1 Jane Doe, The ABC's of History
(Toronto: Ontario Publishers, 1997), pp. 20-21
2
Jane Doe, p. 23
It is not necessary to use archaic terms like
ibid or
op cit. and their use is even
discouraged as word processing drag or cut-and-paste editing can easily displace
the logic of these citation terms.
An author’s surname and page number
is acceptable for subsequent citations once you have introduced all the relevant
reference information in the first citation to that particular source. If you
are citing more than one work by the same author, then include the title as
well. Titles are to be put into
italics or underlined.
See the above webpages for further details and formats as to how to cite
journals, multiple authors, collections, etc. or search “Chicago style
footnotes” on Google.
To create
numerically sequential footnotes in MS WORD 2007 go to the "References"
ribbon and select [Insert Footnote]; in earlier version of MS WORD, go to
the "Insert" menu and then select [Footnote] item.
Footnotes may optionally on occasion contain additional relevant
short comments on the cited source but in general this practice is
discouraged.
Bibliographies
Essays MUST provide alphabetically
ordered by author’s surname, bibliographies of all works consulted, whether or
not they have been quoted directly. An adequate bibliography for this assignment
will contain no less than six books or
journal articles related to the topic. General books, dictionaries,
atlases, textbooks and/or encyclopedias DO NOT count towards this minimum number
of sources, and their inclusion in citations will NOT be considered as
constituting research. Seminar readings
are acceptable as citable sources.
An example of a bibliographic entry is as follows:
Smith, John. History of Canada
(Toronto: Ontario Publishers, 1997).
Submission of Essays
Essays are to be submitted to the instructor on the due date in lecture.
Electronic Submission of Essays
If you find it necessary to submit an essay by e-mail, the following file naming
protocol is to be used:
"Last Name_First Name_CourseNumber_SectionNumber_Title"
Any attached file not using this exact naming protocol will not be accepted.
Only MS Word files (preferred) in .doc or .docx format or PDF files will be
accepted.
The submission of files by e-mail will usually be acknowledged within two days.
A hard copy of the essay is to be submitted at the next
opportunity. Indicate on the front of
the hardcopy the date you had e-mailed the essay to me previously.
The e-mailed essay will secure your submission date.
Obviously the hard copy is to be exactly identical with the e-mailed
copy. Hard copies of previously
e-mailed essays not indicating the e-mail date on the cover will be assigned the
date of the submission of the hard copy with no appeal accepted.
Hardcopy Submission of Essays
Do not slip essays under my door or into my mail-box. Hard
copies may be submitted to the Essay Drop Off Box in the History Department
(JOR500).
I will guarantee essay returns with comments by the day of the exam only to those essays submitted to me on the due date, in hard copy, in required format, in lecture. All other essays will be marked after the exam and arrangements may be made to get your essay mark by e-mail after the final marks have been submitted.
Late Penalties and Extensions
Extensions may be granted on medical or compassionate
grounds but will be automatically penalized three (3) marks regardless. Students
requesting an extension should submit an e-mailed request to me before
the deadline specifying precisely the date to which they are requesting the
extension. After the due date, students
need to provide appropriate documentation relating to the extension request
(i.e. doctor’s note, death certificate of relative, police report on their
stolen laptop, repair bills for their crashed hard disc, veterinary reports on
the contents of Fluffy ’s stomach, etc). Essays
submitted under an extension must have my written response to the extension
request attached to the front of the essay.
E-mailed submissions are to be attached as a ‘reply’ to my earlier
response to the extension request.
Submissions without my extension approval attached to their front will be
penalized as late with no opportunity of appeal afterward.
No late work will be accepted after the
last day of lecture or extensions granted beyond the last lecture day.
Two (2) marks per/day are deducted from your essay mark
for late submissions, weekends included, until the day the essay is submitted to
me. If I do not acknowledge the
receipt of your e-mailed essay within a few days, it is your responsibility
to ensure I have received it.
Keep copies of all work, including
marked assignments returned to you and e-mails of your submissions until your
final course mark is released.
Re-submissions of earlier e-mailed essays "lost" in transmission, should
such an unlikely scenario occur, will only be accepted in the form of a forwarded
copy of the original e-mail.
There are no exceptions to this.
Outstanding assignments will not be accepted after the last day of lecture.
Earning Marks
The evaluation of your research, content, evidence, originality and
argumentation is of primary concern in marking as is the quality of your sources
as described above. Equally important is the syntax, style and structure of your
work. Marks will be deducted from work containing excessive grammatical/spelling
mistakes, typographical errors, work that is excessively long or inadequately
short, or which fails to provide properly formatted footnoting/bibliography.
Essays that consist of frequent long quoted passages or sentences, even if
footnoted, will be severely penalized.
Be selective in direct quotations.
Ask yourself, “can this be said in my own words and then cited?” Is there
a stylistic or argumentative reason for quoting the source directly? Be sure to
edit and check your work carefully. Do not simply rely on your computer’s
spelling or grammar checker.
Grounds for Assignment Failure
Essays which do not supply proper and adequate references and bibliographies as
described above or submitted after the final day of lecture will be failed. Any
written work that quotes directly from other material without attribution, or
which paraphrases extensive tracts from the works of others, is plagiarized will
be failed with no opportunity to submit and will result in additional severe
academic consequences. Please consult the Ryerson academic calendar for further
information on plagiarism. If you have any questions or doubts about how to cite
material, please feel free to contact me.
Suggested Essay Themes
1. A biography of a lesser known Third Reich military figure, party functionary, politician, business figure, writer, journalist, or civilian, male or female, who might have made a contribution to the history of the Third Reich.
2. An exploration of a particular theme, policy, crucial moment or aspect in the biography of a more prominent figure. For example, Hess's decision to fly to England, Speer's appointment as Minister of War Production; the decision to implement the Final Solution; the decision to invade Russia. Do not attempt to write a complete biography of a major figure—pick a decisive moment in their life or a particular theme. Remember—you only have 10 pages!
3. A particular battle or campaign significant to the outcome of the war, to military tactics or to technologies. Explore the historical debates about a battle and the elements attributed to its outcome.
4. An exploration of a military technology and/or the individual designer behind it, a development in military management—logistics, medical care, prisoner-of-war policy, recruitment, transport, espionage, aerial surveillance, naval issues.
5. A look at a particular social, business, or political institution in the Third Reich—the Catholic Church, the Hitler Youth, Hitler Maidens, the SS, the Gestapo, the Reichsbank--again, you probably cannot write an essay on the whole history of the institution--address a particular policy or period or problem in the institution's history.
6. A foreign policy issue or foreign relations with a particular country or a particular period or diplomatic figure, conference, crisis.
7.
A look at cultural institutions of the period—music, art, theatre,
literature, cinema.
8. A look at a service branch in the Third Reich: nursing, hospitals, orphanages, social policy, policing, health care, communications, railways, banks. How did they impact the conduct of the war? What effect did the war have on them? How did National Socialist ideology shape these institutions in a unique way?
9. The role of a professional class in the Third Reich: doctors, lawyers, journalists, scientists or a social class--workers, peasants, middle-classes, aristocracy.
10. A study of a war crimes trial, a
particular crime or type of crime, a perpetrator--individual or institutional,
legal aspects of the crime, the war crime trial process.
Grounds for Failure:
The incompletion of the essay requirement or exam requirement will result
in failure regardless of your standing in the completed requirements.
Essays which do not supply proper and adequate citations indicating
precise page references and bibliographies
will be failed. Essays will not be
accepted after the last day of lecture without prior arrangement. Any written
work that quotes directly from other material without attribution, or which
paraphrases extensive tracts from the works of others, is plagiarised. It will
receive no marks and there will be no
chance to resubmit. Please consult the
Ryerson academic calendar for further information on plagiarism. If you have
any questions or doubts about how to cite material, please feel free to contact
me.
Plagiarism:
Plagiarism is a form of intellectual dishonesty in which someone
attempts to claim the work of others as their own. Work which has been
researched and/or written by others, such as an essay-writing agency, internet
service, friend, or family member is NOT
acceptable. The submission of such work is one form of plagiarism, and it will
be dealt with accordingly as academic misconduct. Quoting directly or indirectly
from research sources without proper attribution is also plagiarism, and it will
also constitute an academic misconduct. The Faculty of Arts policy on plagiarism
will be strictly enforced in this course; resulting in a grade of zero for the
assignment, a report to the Registrar and the programme department of the
student, and possibly other academic penalties. A second violation of the Code
of Academic Conduct on a student’s record will result in a recommendation of
suspension or expulsion.
For additional help, Ryerson now offers the Academic Integrity Website at http://www.ryerson.ca/academicintegrity/
This offers students a variety of resources to assist in their research,
writing, and presentation of all kinds of assignments. It also details all
dimensions of Academic Misconduct and how to avoid it. It was put together by a
team representing the Vice President Academic, faculty, the library, Digital
Media Projects, and Student Services.
The policy is available in its entirety at
www.ryerson.ca/acadcouncil and at
www.ryerson.ca/rr and in the Student Guide.
Ryerson University is committed to promoting academic success and to ensuring
that students’ academic records ultimately reflect their academic abilities and
accomplishments. The University expects that academic judgments by its faculty
will be fair, consistent and objective, and recognizes the need to grant
academic consideration, where appropriate, in order to support students who face
personal difficulties or events. It is also expected that students will deal
with issues which may affect academic performance as soon as they arise. It
should be understood that students can only receive grades which reflect their
knowledge of the course material.
Students should refer to the Student Guide and to the Academic Council and
Records and Registration web sites for detailed information on the various types
of academic consideration that may be requested; necessary documents such as
appeal forms, medical certificates and forms for religious accommodation; and
procedural instructions. Information is also available from the Departments and
Schools, Dean’s Offices and the Secretary of Academic Council.
Students are responsible for reviewing all pertinent information prior to the
submission of a formal academic appeal. Incomplete appeals will not be accepted.
Students are responsible for ensuring that a formal appeal is submitted by the
deadline dates published in the calendar, and must adhere to the timelines
established in the policy.
Important Resources available on campus:
Use the services of the University when you are having problems writing, editing
or researching papers, or when you need help with course material:
o
The Library (LIB 2nd floor)
provides research workshops and individual assistance. Enquire at the Reference
Desk or at
www.ryerson.ca/library/info/workshops.html
o
The Writing Centre (LIB 272- B) offers
one-on-one tutorial help with writing and workshops
www.ryerson.ca/writingcentre/workshops.htm
o
Learning Success Centre (VIC B-15) offers individual
sessions and workshops covering various aspects of researching, writing, and
studying
www.ryerson.ca/studentservices/learningsuccess/seminars/
o
English Language Support (VIC B-17) offers workshops
to improve overall communication skills
www.ryerson.ca/studentservices/els/
Course Evaluation:
This coming year
the Faculty Course Survey will be administered will be administered from
Wednesday, March 18, 2009 to Tuesday, April 7, 2009.