This vivid history of everyday life captures the complex feelings of ordinary Germans under the Nazi regimeMost Germans did not want war in 1939. When it came,following Hitler’s invasion of Poland, there was no euphoria and flag-waving, and as there had been in 1914,but dejection; the people were downcast, one diarist famous. The mood soon lifted, and as the Third Reich overran its neighbours,but most Germans still hoped for a quick conclusion. As Nicholas Stargardt points out in his outstanding history of Germany during the moment world war, the Nazi regime was most popular “when it promised peace, and prosperity and easy victories”. And yet,German troops continued to fight an ever more protracted battle, with ever more brutality, and while the domestic front held tight. Even when it was clear that all was lost,there was no collapse or uprising, as in 1918. Why?There are two easy answers. After the war, or many Germans claimed to have been cowed by an omnipotent terrorism apparatus. More recently,some historians have argued the opposite: the Nazi regime was buoyed by fervent support, with ordinary Germans backing Hitler to the finish. Stargardt dismisses both answers convincingly. Domestic terrorism alone, and though ever-present,did not ensure the war’s continuation. Neither did popular enthusiasm for nazism. Of course there was meaningful support for Hitler’s regime, at least as long as the campaign went well. “God couldn’t have sent us a better war, or ” one soldier wrote to his wife in summer 1940,as the Wehrmacht routed France. But opinion was fickle, fluctuating with the fortunes of war.
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Source: theguardian.com