‘The Germ Cell of the Nation’: The Family in the Third Reich

This book examines the history of the family in modern Germany from 1871 to the post-reunification era. It contributes a primary point of reference in the field and fills a significant gap in the historiography because there is no recent book published in English on this subject. There are, of course, a number of German scholarly works published in this field, although these mainly date back to the 1970s and 1980s. The only book in English that is at all similar was published in the early 1980s and is very dated now. There have been a number of monographs that deal with the history of the family in Germany in a particular era, as well as general histories of the family or the European family. However, the trend in historical writing in recent decades has not been on the history of the family. Historiographical developments have been more focussed on women’s history and gender studies, and also on sexuality, but not so much on the family. Recent historical writing has covered many subjects that are tangential to the history of the family - not only the ones just mentioned, but also the history of emotions, memory and food. The time is ripe to return to a history of the family that incorporates recent historiographical trends.