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.
Today, its not the same cataclysm of war headed our way, but a similar catastrophe is brewing, and our feckless leader is doing his best impersonation of one who thinks the laws of physics dont apply to him as well.
Very good.
The Germans were clueless and paid their price. Americans fall into their stupidity clueless path.
Absolutely right!
I’m not so sure about 1943, but my father (in WWII and the Army of Occupation) and other sources indicate that they simply could not believe that they could lose, and even AFTER they had very clearly lost, there were many who simply couldn’t/wouldn’t even comprehend how they could have been defeated by vastly inferior people. Some believed that the loss could only have been caused by internal sabotage (oddly true - the saboteur was Hitler himself!).
After the war, some Germans would rather have their families starve to death than line up for rations handed out by a black US soldier, for example. And not often publicized was that there was significant German underground resistance and the occasional sniping of Allied soldiers all through the late 1940’s.
I saw this attitude myself. I was at an airport in Germany in the early 2000’s, and I must have aroused suspicion (not looking very German); a plainclothes security woman made an incredibly inept and bumbling attempt to get me to say “something stupid”. I pointed out to her that my father was in the army the reduced Germany to rubble, and then occupied it - and that both of us thought that between the US and Russia, we should have kept it! She took off...
I think it was a moot point, since Britain had also declared war on Japan after Pearl Harbor, any restrictions we had on aiding Britain went bye bye, only a matter of time before the Germans would have attacked our ships sending supplies to Britain, therefore giving us the Casus Belli to declare war on Germany.
When Germany invaded Poland, most Germans were indifferent to the war.
That changed when they defeated France, and saw the images of their troops marching down the Champs d’Elysees, suddenly they all thought Hitler was a gift sent from God.
Read later.
Good point- it would have delayed the inevitable. USA would have stepped in by the end of 1942.
I don’t think there is anything reliable but I have often thought about the question and I am convinced the feeling is much like the USA today. The masses sense they are losing the war but they are incapable of changing anything......
When to hit the Eject Button,,,
before You’re “disappeared”
Don’t go Quietly!
Hermann Göring, commander of the German Luftwaffe 1944
I think you misunderstood the statement.I believe it was the germans that declared war on America on 10 December 41.
Right.
My father was in both occupations and said that the Japanese citenzry were more in the dark about the war. A lot of the WW 1 generation and older Germans could see the writing on the wall.
True. Even in the last two years with a weakened hold on public opinion the Nazi leaders and Nazi apparatus alone would have maintained awareness of the situation as a whole, life for the rest of the population would have been atomized. Perhaps even more after the saturation bombing disrupted communications and gave government rulers priority use of roads, railroads, telegraphs, etc. to selectively distribute emergency supplies and evacuate the victims.
My wife's mother worked in London during the blitz as an emergency volunteer. She told my wife horrific stories about what they found among the rubble after the German bombers had completed their missions. There wasn't a lot of sympathy for German civilians among the British public as the course of the war wore on badly for Germany.
Germans have always been obtuse
Ouderkirk,
just thinking that you’re study may include another similar occurrence,
The Apache of south east Arizona.
The words,actions and reactions of the Apache and troops of Mexico and U.S.
Tribe’s fighting for their existence and finally succumb to overwhelming forces.
I’m a big fan of Cochise.
My Dad was in the initial Occupation of Japan and he said the Japanese civilians were wary at first but relieved that the war was over.
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