Volumes 1-2 cover the period from feudalism through the Revolution of 1848. Volume 3 "Von der "Deutschen Doppelrevolution" bis zum Beginn des Ersten Weltkrieges 1849-1914" (1995) employs Wehler's longtime emphasis on a German "Sonderweg" or "special path" as the root of Nazism and the German catastrophe in the 20th century. Wehler places the origins of Germany's path to disaster in the 1860s and the 1870s, when economic modernization took place, but political modernization failed to take place and the old Prussian rural elite remained in firm control of the army, diplomacy and the civil service. Traditional, aristocratic, premodern society battled an emerging capitalist, bourgeois, modernizing society. Recognizing the importance of modernizing forces in industry and the economy and in the cultural realm, Wehler argued that reactionary traditionalism dominated the political hierarchy of power in Germany, as well as social mentalities and in class relations (Klassenhabitus). Wehler's "Deutsche Gesellschaftsgeschichte: Vom Beginn des Ersten Weltkrieges bis zur Gründung der beiden Deutschen Staaten 1914-1949" (2003) is the fourth volume of his monumental history of German society. Germany's catastrophic politics between 1914 and 1945 are interpreted in terms of a delayed modernization of its political structures.