Word: social
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...just a bunch of rubbish." Greil Marcus, who writes formidably on popular and radical culture (the recent Lipstick Traces), talks about the "suicidal nostalgia" surrounding a lot of contemporary music: "People have been sold a bill of goods about the '60s, as if it were some kind of social Golden Age, when there was no Viet Nam, no social conflict. There weren't any Negroes, nothing bad happened. You have Woodstock, but you don't have the war. You have Jim Morrison as some image of sexual nirvana, but you don't have Janis Joplin for the miserable junkie...
Germany was in a state of turmoil, ruin and mass hunger. It had lost nearly 2 million men, and its mutinous army had virtually disintegrated. Kaiser Wilhelm II had fled into exile in Holland. The Social Democrats had proclaimed a republic, with themselves in charge, and the Communists were challenging them for control of the streets. And in a hospital northeast of Berlin, raging at the nation's defeat, lay a 29-year-old Austrian corporal partly blinded by mustard gas. "In vain all the sacrifices," Adolf Hitler later wrote in Mein Kampf (My Struggle). "In vain the death...
...carried suitcases of money to a store to buy a sausage. And the mark kept falling, to an all-time low of 4.2 trillion that November. Everything was for sale, all savings were destroyed, and nothing seemed to have any value any longer. No less than military defeat and social upheaval, the hyperinflation undermined all the traditional securities of German society...
Recovery did come eventually, with lots of American and British loans, but the Wall Street Crash of 1929 started a worldwide depression to which the shaky German economy was especially vulnerable. Unemployment soared. The feeble Social Democratic coalition government collapsed. And Adolf Hitler, whose Nazi Party held an insignificant twelve seats in the Reichstag, suddenly became a voice that attracted attention. He was one of the first 20th century figures to master radio as an important political medium. His message: Down with the system. Vote for a leader who will bring us back to greatness...
...experienced Hitler's persuasion, refused to accept the deal. When Hitler heard that, he ordered the Wehrmacht to mobilize, as publicly as possible. Schuschnigg tried to defend his regime by announcing a plebiscite in four days, on March 13, to decide whether Austrians wanted "a free, independent, social, Christian and united Austria." Hitler, apoplectic, ordered the Wehrmacht to invade Austria on March 12 unless Schuschnigg called off the plebiscite. Once again Schuschnigg surrendered, but Hitler kept increasing his demands. Now he insisted that Schuschnigg resign and be replaced by Nazi leader Arthur Seyss-Inquart. Schuschnigg again surrendered, and resigned...