business which primarily financed and otherwise promoted the attainment of power by Adolf Hitler. Turner argued that the extent of business support for Hitler and his NSDAP had been much exaggerated. On the basis of careful examination of unpublished records of major German corporations and of the party, Turner concluded that the bulk of the Nazis' funds during their rise came from their party's members and other ordinary Germans. The principal political recipients of big business funding were the traditional center-right parties: the German People's Party and the German National People's Party. The only election campaign in which big business contributed significant amounts of money to the Nazis was the March 5, 1933 election, after the Nazis had already assumed power. Despite this, Turner concludes that Hitler endorsed the "liberal principle of competition" and private property during his rule, if only "he could distort them into his social Darwinist view of economic life." In Turner's view, the Third Reich was a possible but by no means inevitable result of German history, thus leading Turner to oppose the Sonderweg thesis. Turner contended that the acquisition of power by Adolf Hitler was heavily influenced by contingency and that military rule was a viable alternative to the Third Reich. In his 1996 book Hitler's Thirty Days To Power: January 1933, he maintained that it was the actions of a few individuals, such as German president Paul von Hindenburg and chancellors Franz von Papen and Kurt von Schleicher, which enabled Hitler to come to power through semilegal means. Political incompetence and personal rivalry between Papen and Schleicher ultimately led to Hitler's being appointed chancellor of Germany by President Hindenburg on January 30, 1933 although he had never won a majority in a national election. Turner's General Motors and the Nazis (2005) examined the history during the Third Reich of Adam Opel AG, the German subsidiary of General Motors. Works Stresemann and the Politics of the Weimar Republic, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963. Nazism and the Third Reich, New York: Quadrangle Books, 1972 Faschismus und Kapitalismus in Deutschland, Goettingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1972 Reappraisals of Fascism (editor), New York: New Viewpoints, 1975. Hitler aus nächster Nähe: Aufzeichnungen eines Vertrauten 1929-1932 (editor), Frankfurt/M, Berlin, Wien: Ullstein, 1978. German Big Business and the Rise of Hitler, New York: Oxford University Press, 1985, translated as Die Grossunternehmer und der Aufstieg Hitlers, Berlin: Siedler Verlag, 1985. Hitler: Memoirs of