HISTORY 201: The Historian's Craft: Religion in the Age of Hitler (Fall 2022) : Find Primary Sources
What are Primary Sources?
Primary sources are materials from the time period that report on what is happening. Examples include books (e.g., personal narratives, memoirs, and autobiographies, collected works, and collections of documents); journal and magazine articles, newspaper articles, government documents, archival sources (.e.g, diaries, interviews, memos, manuscripts, and other papers and records of organizations); and multimedia sources (e.g., photographs, audio recordings, and motion pictures or video recordings).
This page provides access to selected databases for primary sources that related to the topics of this course.Finding Primary Sources in Books (in the Library Catalog)
Use the tips below to search the Library Catalog for books that contain primary sources.
- Words in catalog records can identify an item as a primary source. Search for format related words like: advertisements, autobiographies, correspondence, diaries, documents, interviews, journal, letters, manuscripts, personal narratives, sources, speeches, etc. You can combine a primary-source format word with words describing your topic (e.g., letters and Lincoln or diaries and civil war).
- To find diaries, letters, autobiographies, personal papers, etc., by a particular person, search for the person's name as an author.
- For more information about finding primary sources, see the Research Guides on this page.
General Primary Sources
- alpha history"Nazi Germany Documents": a collection of Nazi Germany documents and documentary extracts.
- EuroDocs: Germany: National Socialism and World War IIEuroDocs: Online Sources for European History: librarian-selected transcriptions, facsimiles, and translations.
- Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) Daily ReportsFBIS consists of scanned copies of the paper issues of the various FBIS Daily Reports.In February 1941, the Roosevelt administration authorized the creation of the Foreign Broadcast Monitoring Service (FBMS). The mandate of the FBMS was to record, translate, transcribe and analyze foreign shortwave propaganda radio programs. In 1947 FBMS was renamed the Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS). Its original mission was centered on radio and press agency monitoring and translation. But in 1967, FBIS' mission was expanded to include foreign mass media whether it was conveyed by radio, television, or print.
- German Propaganda Archive (Calvin University)"Nazi and East German Propaganda Guide Page" - the link "1933-1945 Material" has an excellent collection of Nazi propaganda.
- GHDI: Nazi Germany (1933-1945)From the German History in Documents and Images (GHDI) website, a comprehensive collection of translated original historical materials documenting German history from the beginning of the early modern period to the present. German Historical Institute (GHI), Washington, DC.
- Internet Archive Search: Nazi GermanyA collection of documents pertaining to Nazi era in Germany, including English translations of sermons, essays, and pamphlets. Use the "Topics & Subjects" option in the left margin to narrow results.Internet Archive is a 501 (c) (3) non-profit organization that is constructing a digital library of internet sites. Access is free to researchers, historians, and the general public.
- Leo Baeck Institute Digital CollectionsPremier online archive on German-Jewish history.
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Online CollectionsIncludes oral history interviews and documents of German Jews who grew up in Weimar Germany and later fled or survived the Nazis.
- UW-Madison Library Research Guide: Historical NewpapersLibrary guide to searching historical newspapers (for instance, US press coverage of Weimar Germany and the rise of the Nazis)
- Warwick University Library Modern Records Centre"History of Germany": digitized English-language documents on the Third Reich and Second World War.
Primary Sources: The Rise of the Nazis
- Hitler and the Nazis: a History in Documents. By David F. Crew. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.Ebook. A broad assortment of primary sources to give readers a glimpse into Germany under Hitler.
- The Nazi Germany Sourcebook: an Anthology of Texts. Eds. Roderick Stackelberg and Sally A. Winkle. London: Routledge, 2002.Ebook. A collection of documents on the origins, rise, course, and consequences of National Socialism, the Third Reich, the Second World War, and the Holocaust.
- NazismFordham University website; links to translations of a few of Hitler's speeches, full-text of Mein Kampf, and some texts about the churches and the Nazis.
- Nazism, 1919-1945 : a History in Documents and Eyewitness Accounts. Eds. Jeremy Noakes and Geoffrey Pridham. New York: Schocken Books, 1990.No copy available in Memorial Library; request through interlibrary from a UW System library.
Primary Sources: Government / Legal Documents
- The Avalon ProjectDocuments in law, history, and diplomacy beginning from ancient times (4,000 BCE) to the 21st Century. Compiled by Yale Law School
- HeinOnlineFull-text legal periodicals and foreign, international, and primary legal materials. Some documents in English relevant to religion in Germany from 1933-45, among other items.
- ProQuest CongressionalCollection of US federal government publications including acts (laws), bills and resolutions, committee reports and documents, hearings testimony, and selected legislative histories.
- ProQuest History VaultConsists of manuscript and archival collections digitized in partnership and from a wide variety of archival institutions in the US.Major collection areas focus on the Black Freedom Movement of the 20th Century, Southern Life and Slavery, Women's Rights, International Relations, American Politics and Society with a strong focus on the 20th Century, and labor unions, workers and radical politics in the 20th Century.
- U.K. Parliamentary PapersPapers issued by the United Kingdom House of Commons including Bills and Acts, Command Papers, House of Commons Papers, and Hansard (the official report of debates in Parliament).
Research Guides
See the Research Guides below for more information about primary sources. The Research Guides include many more online resources including ones with historical journals, magazines and newspapers and documents.
Finding Newspapers
You can search for historical newspapers that could also be used as primary sources.
This newspaper research guide has an entire page dedicated to finding Historical Newspapers.