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Item Barcode | Collection | Call Number | Status | Item Holds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 33607003106146 | Adult Nonfiction | 943.086 STARGAR | Searching... Unknown | Searching... Unavailable |
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Summary
Summary
A groundbreaking history of what drove the Germans to fight -- and keep fighting -- for a lost cause in World War II
In The German War , acclaimed historian Nicholas Stargardt draws on an extraordinary range of firsthand testimony -- personal diaries, court records, and military correspondence -- to explore how the German people experienced the Second World War.
When war broke out in September 1939, it was deeply unpopular in Germany. Yet without the active participation and commitment of the German people, it could not have continued for almost six years. What, then, was the war the Germans thought they were fighting? How did the changing course of the conflict -- the victories of the Blitzkrieg , the first defeats in the east, the bombing of German cities -- alter their views and expectations? And when did Germans first realize they were fighting a genocidal war?
Told from the perspective of those who lived through it -- soldiers, schoolteachers, and housewives; Nazis, Christians, and Jews -- this masterful historical narrative sheds fresh and disturbing light on the beliefs and fears of a people who embarked on and fought to the end a brutal war of conquest and genocide.
Author Notes
Nicholas Stargardt is one of Britain's foremost scholars of Nazi Germany. He is a professor of modern European history at Magdalen College, Oxford, and a fellow of the Royal Historical Society. The author of Witnesses of War: Children's Lives Under the Nazis , Stargardt lives in Oxford, England.
Reviews (2)
Publisher's Weekly Review
How a people takes to defeat has been a staple of historical inquiry since ancient times, and in this gut-wrenching work, Cambridge University historian Stargardt (Witnesses of War) examines the German experience during WWII. His extraordinarily deep and wide research allows him to fill in an otherwise solid history of the war with intimate, newly unearthed recollections of harrowing service on the battlefield and homefront. Such is the complexity of human nature that, after millions of deaths, massive destruction, and unbelievable "psychological shock waves," Germans maintained their fierce nationalism and took pride in their ability to endure individually and collectively. What will be difficult for many readers to believe is that the people of the country responsible for the Holocaust long considered themselves the victims-of failed Nazi leadership, the Allies (whom they saw as Jews in another guise), and the Soviets. Seeing the bombing of their cities as equivalent to the death camps, and sustaining unbelievable losses on the battlefield, many Germans preferred outright destruction to a negotiated peace as in 1918. Only the next, postwar generation of Germans could get beyond disbelief and disillusionment and begin to free itself of ruinous attachments and convictions. Stargardt has produced a brilliant, sobering work. Maps & illus. Agent: Clare Alexander, Aitken Alexander Associates. (Oct.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Library Journal Review
What was World War II like for the Germans? Devoted complicity with the Nazi regime is typically assumed, and attempts to humanize everyday German citizens and soldiers are controversial even 70 years after the end of the war. Without that perspective, however, an understanding of the conflict is incomplete. In his latest work, Stargardt (Witnesses of War) continues his exploration of German lives during that grim time. While this account is important, it doesn't always make for easy reading as we are confronted with stories from men and women suffering the effects of war on their daily lives. These anecdotes are culled from letters, diaries, and archives, among other sources. From our postwar viewpoint, their experiences may come across as tragic and even ironic, since readers know what they don't-when and how the war ended. VERDICT Stargardt provides a vital and necessary addition to the World War II canon that will appeal to World War II buffs and anyone with an interest in 20th-century German history.-Brett Rohlwing, Milwaukee P.L. © Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Table of Contents
| Maps | p. vii |
| List of Illustrations | p. xix |
| Preface | p. xxiii |
| Dramatis Personae | p. xxvii |
| Introduction | p. 1 |
| Part 1 Defending the Attack | |
| 1 Unwelcome War | p. 23 |
| 2 Closing Ranks | p. 52 |
| 3 Extreme Measures | p. 70 |
| Part 2 Masters of Europe | |
| 4 Breaking Out | p. 91 |
| 5 Winners and Losers | p. 124 |
| Part 3 The Shadow of 1812 | |
| 6 German Crusade | p. 157 |
| 7 The First Defeat | p. 200 |
| Part 4 Stalemate | |
| 8 The Shared Secret | p. 233 |
| 9 Scouring Europe | p. 268 |
| 10 Writing to the Dead | p. 304 |
| Part 5 The War Comes Home | |
| 11 Bombing and Retaliation | p. 345 |
| 12 'Holding Out' | p. 382 |
| 13 Borrowed Time | p. 419 |
| Part 6 Total Defeat | |
| 14 Digging In | p. 449 |
| 15 Collapse | p. 482 |
| 16 Finale | p. 521 |
| Epilogue: Crossing the Abyss | p. 545 |
| Notes | p. 571 |
| Bibliography | p. 639 |
| Index | p. 683 |