Preface to the sixth German edition

The Weimar Republic, originally submitted in 1984, received a favourable welcome among specialists and has now clearly proved its worth as a textbook on the subject. This has led to the need for new editions at intervals over several years. For the third edition (1993) the volume was thoroughly revised, and for the current sixth edition I have again examined and extended the text and brought the bibliography up to date. In the process, attention was directed towards presenting the current state of research as precisely and comprehensively as possible,taking intensive note of more recent Weimar research.

In the section entitled ‘Historical survey’ the text has been checked and expanded in various places. The section ‘Basic problems and trends of research’ has been revised much more thoroughly; results and trends of the most recent research have been taken into account by dint of revising individual passages and making numerous additions to the text. In the bibliographical section, a number of titles have been dropped and a great many more from recent research have been added, so that the scope of this section has widened markedly (instead of the 622 titles listed in the first edition there are now 994).

At this point, it is essential that I thank all those who accompanied the book at the time of its genesis or who have supported me through the various new editions. Above all, my warmest thanks are due to Professor Dr Klaus Schönhoven; not only did he carefully read and make well-informed comment on the manuscript of the first edition, but I was also able to hold numerous stimulating conversations with him on the subject of the Weimar period. Further thanks are due to my then colleagues for their energetic help: Professor Dr Peter Alter, Professor Dr Wolfram Pyta, Dr Hans-Georg Fleck, Dr Christine Lattek, Georg Mölich and Stefan Noethen, along with Frau Renate Kolwert and Frau Gisela Reddmann, who dealt with the paperwork. ‘Last not least’, I should like to thank sincerely Professor Dr Lothar Gall, who as co-editor of the series has sympathetically looked after this volume and subjected the manuscript to a thorough and bene.cial examination.

Eberhard Kolb