Contains an account of German social development, focusing on the 20th century and showing that the rise of the Nazi regime grew out of Germany's past. Germany's unification took place through a series of wars, during which large sections of the middle classes abandoned humanistic values and adopted militaristic and authoritarian values. In pt. 4 (p. 299-402), "The Breakdown of Civilization, " Elias states that the extermination of the Jews is an example of the vulnerability of civilization and the dangers of growth processes, in which decay can predominate. Although every war is a regression to barbarism, the Holocaust was the deepest regression; even the minimum rules of civilized conduct were not observed. People in Germany and elsewhere thought that the Nazis, living in a "civilized" society, would not act as brutally as they talked; they could not believe that the Nazis would actually act in accordance with their barbaric ideology.