Posted on 04/03/2015 4:52:05 PM PDT by Ouderkirk
I have been looking for commentary from your average German about the feeling in Germany in 1943.
They had to know the Americans were massing troops and material for an invasion from England, the Russians were gearing up for the same, and American bombers are starting to trash your cities, they are rounding up people and killing them on a scale that is unmistakable, and that you understand that it could be you at any minute. So, do you keep your head down, enjoy what you can while things are quiet and await your fate?
Was there sort of a nihilist "party while you can" atmosphere? It's clear that a certain amount of the leadership knew they were doomed and it was not a matter of IF, but WHEN and HOW BAD was it going to be in the next year or so.
There had to be a certain consciousness of the situation no matter the propaganda. The daily reality had to creep in for most folks at some point even though you couldn't discuss it publicly.
I've been trying to correlate what I am experiencing to what happened during that time to gauge the likelihood of several potential outcomes.
This may seem like an odd question to ask, but it is something that I have been thinking about in a larger context of the history of WW2 and the present.
I have an aunt, who passed away recently, who grew up in Berlin under Hitler and then under the Russians (they escaped to the West before the wall went up).
They were fairly well off financially and came from a fairly respectable family. The father was a symphony conductor and supposedly too old for the war (he fought in WWI I understand), and the children were all girls so didn’t of course get drafted.
So probably the impact of the war was minimal on them compared to a lot of others. The main think I asked her was what she thought about the Nazis taking away the Jews? What she told me is that the government told them that they were spies and enemies of the country, and you believed that your government was honest and not acting improperly, so you pretty much didn’t question what was happening.
I think about that quite a bit these days given what is going on in our country.
Actually it just the opposite.
I would imagine the reports coming from Stalingrad early in ‘43 did not inspire confidence in the German youth.
What she told me is that the government told them that they were spies and enemies of the country, and you believed that your government was honest and not acting improperly, so you pretty much didn’t question what was happening.
I think about that quite a bit these days given what is going on in our country.
Progressives/Totalitarians of today would round us up and load us on cattle cars and many people would not question it at all.
But we are armed and that is the biggest deterent.
I can’t answer your question but perhaps this might be helpful. I remember my father who was lost behind enemy lines in WW2 telling me that he was given food and shelter and by German people who ultimately helped him return to his unit.
Watch “Swing Kids” ...
They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45
by Milton Mayer
http://www.amazon.com/They-Thought-Were-Free-Germans/dp/0226511928
Actually it just the opposite.
You’re wrong.
Why would the German Generals be encouraged by a war with the United States?
Recently have read of newspaper accounts where the town people are hanging out the white flag, but then the SS take them down and force the people to fight. At least until the SS flee, and then the people welcome the Allies.
There was an account of Hitler Youth surrendering, and then wanting to join our airforce so they could fly our planes!
One recent article did talk about a village where the women and girls put up a hard fight against our troops. But yeah - 1943 might be a bit harder. My dad was a teen traveling in Europe when Hitler was recently in. He met a German kid at a youth hostel (in France I think) and asked the kid what this Hitler guy was all about. The German kid held up his finger to his lips, looked around and whispered "It is not safe to talk". This would have been about 1935 or 1936.
I would recommend Sophie Scholl - The Final Days.
The best part of the movie was the exchanges between Sophie and her interrogator, Mohr. It really set up the philosophical differences between those who were loyal to the Nazi State and those who opposed it. The question is, were there more more “Mohrs” or were there more who though like Scholl, but were afraid to act as she did.
I actually did mean to say that Germany did declare war on us first.
Sorry, I just saw that PA Engineer already posted this book.
There is a good summary of it here: Redemption in the Garden of good and Evil
I understand what you said but misunderstood the “just the opposite” post.
The German generals wondered what Hitler was thinking when he/Germany declared war on the US.
From my German aunt, whom I described above, before the war the Germans, especially the young ones, really liked American culture and emulated it. In particular, she remembers both the book and movie Gone With the Wind which were a huge hit in Germany, and I think the movie would have come out shortly before the war started. She said she bought the book when it first came out and read it several times and it was her favorite novel.
Interesting.
Clark Gable and Western movies were favorites of Hitler. Later, when Gable joined the USAAF, Hitler put a bounty on his head.
Certainly seeing constant Allied air raids destroy many German cities must have given many Germans an inkling that maybe things weren't going well. And the thousands of coffins arriving daily and disfigured and crippled German soldiers in plain sight must have given them pause.
By the last year I would bet most adults knew the war was lost. Otherwise Hitler and Goebbels would have been crowing about German victories.
https://archive.org/details/theythoughttheyw027497mbp
I second PA Engineers recommendation...Not sure if this is exactly what you wanted and presume there are many other excellent sources...
But...They Thought They Were Free, The Germans 1933-45, by Milton Mayer (pdf available at website above) is an insight into what it was like to be an ordinary German, and how Nazism affected them...
Fascinating read, highly recommended...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3079082/posts
The link is to the WWII thread that has the newspapers of the day - this one from Oct. 1943.
A couple pages in there is an article on what the German’s are reporting. The Soviets just marched through Ukraine (and all of the food it produces) and the Germans are getting pushed back hard. The German response in the news:
“The loss of prestige...is balanced by an increased war power derived by the Nazis. “This {loss] will be forgotten when the strategic advantages that have been won through a shortening of the front appear.”
I would imagine most of the Germans were still pretty upbeat based on the propoganda they were fed. (Just like today in America! Unemployment at record lows, historic treaty with Iran, model of success in Yemen....)
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