The German War

More Advance Praise for

“Little by little, with a raft of new insights, and a clear and empathetic eye, Nicholas Stargardt’s remarkable new book transforms our view of something we thought we already understood: the German population’s evolving attitudes during the war. For the first time, the wartime chronology of German sentiment, of popular hopes and fears, realism and fantasy, becomes truly visible. A powerful and compelling account.”—Mark Roseman, Professor of History, Indiana University

“Why did most Germans, reluctant to enter a second world war in 1939, ultimately unify behind an effort that by 1943 seemed doomed to failure? Weaving together first-person testimonies drawn from diaries, memoirs and letters, Nicholas Stargardt provides insightful, illuminating, complex and convincing answers in this big book. Seven decades and a mountain of monographs later, I wouldn’t have thought there’d be much more to say about WWII. Stargardt has proven me wrong.”—Robert Moeller, Professor of History, University of California, Irvine

“Forcing reflection on many different levels, Nicholas Stargardt’s book pierces through the tangles of both propaganda and moralism to offer a searching and compulsively readable account of a conflict that was understood from within as a German, not just a Nazi, war. Stargardt negotiates the considerable risks of writing from inside German experiences of this brutally destructive war with subtlety, humanity and wisdom. This is a rich and deeply impressive lesson in ethical understanding without sacrifice of historical distance or critical judgment.”—Jane Caplan, Emeritus Fellow, St Antony’s College, Oxford

“
The German War
is a tour de force of historical learning, breadth of vision, and narrative skill. In depicting the intricate back and forth between the big violence of the conduct of the war and the impossible complexities inside individual stories—between the challenges facing ordinary lives and the relentlessness of a wartime beyond their control—Nicholas Stargardt brings an acuteness of insight and sureness of touch to an extraordinary wealth of material. A truly epic account.”—Geoff Eley, Professor of History and German Studies, University of Michigan

“Nicholas Stargardt spotlights the surprising twists and turns in the popular embrace of both the war and Nazi racial extremism. He explains—as few have—why the German people fought to the finish, whereas even the supposedly fanatical Japanese surrendered before an invasion of the homeland.”—Sheldon Garon, author of
Molding Japanese Minds: The State in Everyday Life

THE GERMAN WAR

Copyright © 2015 by Nicholas Stargardt

Published by Basic Books,

A Member of the Perseus Books Group

All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, contact Basic Books, 250 West 57th Street, New York, NY 10107.

Books published by Basic Books are available at special discounts for bulk purchases in the United States by corporations, institutions, and other organizations. For more information, please contact the Special Markets Department at the Perseus Books Group, 2300 Chestnut Street, Suite 200, Philadelphia, PA 19103, or call (800) 810-4145, ext. 5000, or e-mail [email protected].

A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

Library of Congress Catalog Number: 2015945013

ISBN: 978-0-465-07397-9 (EB)

First published in Great Britain in 2015 by The Bodley Head

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Contents

Maps

List of Illustrations

Preface

Dramatis Personae

Introduction

PART ONE

Defending the Attack

1    
Unwelcome War

2    
Closing Ranks

3    
Extreme Measures

PART TWO

Masters of Europe

4    
Breaking Out

5    
Winners and Losers

PART THREE

The Shadow of 1812

6    
German Crusade

7    
The First Defeat

PART FOUR

Stalemate

8    
The Shared Secret

9    
Scouring Europe

10    
Writing to the Dead

PART FIVE

The War Comes Home

11    
Bombing and Retaliation

12    
‘Holding Out’

13    
Borrowed Time

PART SIX

Total Defeat

14    
Digging In

15    
Collapse

16    Finale

Epilogue: Crossing the Abyss

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Maps

List of Illustrations

Irene Reitz and Ernst Guicking
(estate of Irene and Ernst Guicking, reproduced courtesy of Bernhild Breithaupt).

Wilm and Helmut Hosenfeld
(estate of Wilm Hosenfeld, reproduced courtesy of Detlev Hosenfeld).

August and Karl-Christoph Töpperwien
(estate of August Töpperwien, reproduced courtesy of Lorenz Töpperwien).

Kazimiera Mika with her sister, killed by a German plane (
Julien Bryan/United States Holocaust Memorial Museum #50897).

View from the nose of a Heinkel He 111 P bomber
(Bundesarchiv Bild 183-S52911).

Frieda and Josef Rimpl’s wedding
(Jehovas Zeugen in Deutschland).

Ernst Guicking in France
(estate of Irene and Ernst Guicking, reproduced courtesy of Bernhild Breithaupt).

Practising air raid defence in Berlin, 1939
(Bildagentur der Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz 30013762).

Liselotte Purper with her Rolleiflex
(Bildagentur der Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz 20014683)

Jews crossing from one part of the Łód
ghetto to another
(Deutsches Historisches Museum, Orgel-Köhne 4762/12).

Ethnic Germans from Romania boarding a Danube steamer
(Bildagentur der Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz 30017520).

Café in Cracow
(National Digital Archives Warsaw, sign. 2-4291).

Café in Paris
(Deutsches Historisches Museum, GG 334/20).

German soldiers visit a synagogue converted into a brothel in Brest, France
(Bundesarchiv Bild 101II-MW-1019-07).

A German woman and her Polish lover tied to a pillory in Eisenach, 15 November 1940
(Stadtarchiv Eisenach).

Fritz Probst, Christmas 1939
(Museum für Kommunikation, Berlin).

Kurt Orgel, January 1945
(estate of Liselotte Orgel-Purper).

Female Red Army prisoners, August 1941
(Bundesarchiv Bild 183-L19872).

Red Army prisoners at Mauthausen, 1941
(Bundesarchiv Bild 192-051).