Has anyone ever read a book about German families dealing with Hitler's rise to power?

[Girard442]

Last edited Fri Mar 9, 2018, 09:22 PM - Edit history (1)

There must have been major family rifts over the issues of the day -- although not enough, sadly.

On edit: TY for all the responses.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. I'm not sure that ordinary people were aware of political goings-on

to the extent people are now because of the Internet, social media and cable news.

[dhol82]

2. Found this one.

http://www.historynet.com/conversation-growing-up-in-nazi-germany.htm

Also, In The Garden Of The Beasts was a terrific book about an American ambassador and his family in Germany in the 30’s.

[applegrove]

3. I have Garden but cannot make myself go near it let alone read it. Love Erik larsen

But I think I will end up skipping that book.

[dhol82]

4. Why? It is an excellent book. n/t

[applegrove]

10. Trauma from a psychopath. I'm allergic. I can read stuff from the Battle of Britain so long as

Hitler is just a teeny tiny bit player and Churchill or Spitfires are huge. Cannot do it the other way around.

[dhol82]

13. Sorry for that.

If you ever want to give it a try it’s not Hitler centric.
It gives an excellent overview of what life was like in Berlin during that era.
Frankly the biggest psychopath in the book is the ambassador’s daughter.

[applegrove]

14. Thanks.

[Laffy Kat]

23. It really is. Not graphic at all.

For those of us history lovers it's a great read. I learned a lot. The most disturbing elements are the obvious parallels between pre-war Germany and the present U.S. leading up to fascism.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

7. It's a fascinating book. I recommend it.

[applegrove]

11. I heard that. That's why I bought it.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

28. Do not skip it.

LIke all of Larsen's books it's phenomenal. It's about the the first ambassador to Nazi Germany after Hitler came to power and Franklin Roosevelt became President. The actual ambassador was an obscure professor from the University of Chicago (and I'm saying this off the top of my head, not bothering to double-check) because no one else was willing to take on the job. Think of it. No respectable man who would otherwise have been Ambassador to Germany wanted the position.

The book does an excellent job of putting the reader into mid 1930s Berlin. Just astonishing. It's not clear why you are so unwilling to read it, but I hope you can give it a try. It's phenomenal. And it really illuminates a time, the early years of Roosevelt and Hitler, that have largely been overwhelmed by the tsunami that was WWII and the Holocaust.

[Girard442]

9. TY. Both look promising.

[Blindingly apparent]

5. Hagans Explaining Hitler

1990s era Book, attempted to explain the German citizen complicity in Hitler’s rise to power this was not the only topic but it was covered

[Kablooie]

6. I recently read, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich

Very good book.

The author was a CBS journalist in Berlin during Hitler's rise to power and describes his personal experiences and what it was like.
He could see what was happening because he had access to outside news but the German people only knew what the government allowed them to know.

After the war he dug through a mountain of Nazi documents to piece together the back story.

[RandomAccess]

8. Here's a reference I regard highly

tho I've never read the full book. IMO the excerpt is quite illuminating.

THEY THOUGHT THEY WERE FREE http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/T/bo27509064.html
EXCERPT: http://press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/511928.html

[dhol82]

12. Thank you. Looks very interesting.

Just ordered it and look forward to reading it shortly.

[hlthe2b]

16. I will bookmark that to read later. thanks

[fierywoman]

15. Read Heinrich Bo"ll (sorry, I don't know how to put the umlaut OVER the "o"!)

[DFW]

18. Here's how

Start-Programs-Accessories-Character map. Character map is what you want. Click on "select" when you find the character you want. When you are done, click on "copy" and then just paste, or Control+V.

Suddenly, you can write Putin just like Путин. Or Heinrich Böll just like Heinrich Böll!

[fierywoman]

19. Thank you so much. But I'm very computer illiterate. Are we talking about a

Mac or a PC? (I have a Mac.)

[jberryhill]

26. Hold down the letter key for a while

Ïf ÿôú hold down the letter in question for a bit, a little męnu pops up. Press the ñumber for the diacritical mark yœu like.

[Jane Austin]

30. Wow! I never knew that.

Thanks so much.

[jberryhill]

32. I never knew it until I did too

[fierywoman]

34. I send you big mushy kisses!!!!! I never knew this either !!!!!! MWAH!

oöoòmyÿgoôöod!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Fla Dem]

42. Okay, I'm thicker than cement.

Here's what I get when I hold down the letter in question: qqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqq. It just continuously prints the letter.

[jberryhill]

45. Those were instructions for Mac

[denverbill]

17. I read this one in college and thought it was really interesting.

https://www.amazon.com/Nazi-Seizure-Power-Experience-1922-1945/dp/1626548722

It talked about the way they came to dominate in one town in Germany.

I always wondered how Germans allowed themselves to follow Hitler. This was an interesting case study.

[DFW]

20. I haven't read a book, but talked to some people who were children at the time.

A slightly older (very close) friend of my wife's parents told me about growing up then. He told me the brainwashing was total and comprehensive. All boys were expected to join the Hitler Youth, and so he did (he was ten). He said they soon were so thoroughly indoctrinated, they couldn't imagine another truth (Fox "News" anyone?). My wife's mom was the same way at first, but her parents were vehemently opposed. She said they had big arguments at their house, but her parents had to watch what they said because a wrong word even from their daughter could lead to their deaths--something my wife's mom at the time didn't understand. She understood soon enough, when she and her classmates had to run into ditches on the way to school to avoid British fighters strafing the streets and rural roads if they saw vehicles on them. She also lost 3 brothers, one of which was killed 3 miles from home while trying to retreat. Both her parents found out the hard way.

I wish I could have talked to my wife's dad more about the time, but he was drafted as cannon fodder off his farm at age 17, and returned from Stalingrad minus one leg at age 18. He said very little about the horrors he witnessed, clammed up when asked, traumatized even 35, 40 and even 50 years later. He supported his only son (my wife's brother) when he doped himself up with sleep deprivation, hashish and booze when called for his physical (military service was still compulsory in West Germany at the time). It worked, and he was allowed to perform civil service instead (ambulance helper, or some such). His most fervent wish was that all his grandchildren be girls so they would never have to go into the military against their will. It was a wish that fate was to grant him.

[jberryhill]

33. Your wife's dad wasn't going to tell you any more

My uncle was a grunt in Operation Barbarossa. Froze off a finger. Eventually ate cigarette butts to develop appendicitis for a ticket to the rear, deserted, and hid out in the alps for a while.

From the little I understood about what he wouldn't talk about, I'm glad I didn't hear it. I think one of the only people he'd even swap stories with was my dad, who was in the US 89th Division. Fun fact, same unit as Obama's uncle and, yeah, I stumbled across the photographs he took when they liberated the Orhdruff camp when I was very young and did not know what that was.

Other fun story - My parents sponsored my uncle and his wife when they immigrated in the 50's (the dread "chain migration&quot and his English was not so good. He got confused between the directions to the immigration office and directions to the Army re-enlistment office. So he shows up, and they say "You want to re-enlist?"

"Yes, I want to get on the list."

"What was your unit?"

He didn't understand the question and they asked, "Who was your commanding officer?"

"Guderian."

"Guderian? Guderian was a Kraut!"

"Yah, Yah, Yah!"

They had a lot of fun with my uncle that day.

But talk about the war? Oh fuck no.

[DFW]

37. The combat part traumatized him for life.

Seeing the guys from unit get blasted to bits before his eyes must have been rather traumatic, even for a farm boy who was used to seeing chickens and pigs slaughtered for food. Seeing the lower half of his leg six feet from the rest of him probably didn't do his psyche any good, either. When the retreating unit saw he was still alive, and picked up what was left of him, he was moved to a MASH in the Ukraine somewhere. Gangrene kept eating up his leg until they finally amputated high enough up so the blood poisoning didn't kill him.

In his seventies, in the advanced staged of Parkinson's, in his delirium, he started reliving his experience, calling out to long-dead members of unit to watch out for incoming artillery shells like the one that tore him apart.

He was happiest when playing with his little granddaughters. I can understand why.

[steve2470]

38. Funny story! nt

[steve2470]

36. My dad would speak very little of it

He only had one thing to say about the Battle of the Bulge: "It was cold!". It was so obvious that the topic made him uncomfortable that I usually stayed away from it.

[malthaussen]

39. That part about brainwashing is true, I believe...

... I knew a German army vet from that time. He was in the Hitler Youth, served through most of the war, etc... and still got tears in his eyes relating how Herr Hitler shook his hand when he was about 14 or so. Despite all that came after, it still moved him to meet the man.

-- Mal

[DFW]

40. It makes me cringe

But there are people who swoon at meeting Trump, too, so go figure.

But they were REALLY indoctrinated to the point where meeting Hitler was like meeting God to them. I mean, I got to meet a LOT of heroes in my time, and some of them did indeed impress me, but not to THAT extent. Ten years of nothing but pure brainwashing will do that to even the most rational people, I guess. Remember, some people out there really believe what Hannity says, even though Mother Goose probably has a greater truth-to-fiction ratio.

[malthaussen]

41. It seems that con men have a lot of personal charm...

... how many times has somebody met a thorough scumbag for the first time and walked away dazed at how nice a guy he is? Plenty of memoirs talk of Der Fuhrer's personal magnetism, and when some of the pols met Mr Trump for the first time, even though you'd think they should know better, they left raving about his magnetism. It's Dale Carnegie to the max. Pretend you're interested in what the other guy has to say, listen, agree, tell them how smart they all, and they'll eat out of your hand. The same types are good at working a crowd -- provided anyone who disagrees with them is excluded or intimidated.

As no respecter of persons (which is not a virtue, I agree), I'm never impressed by these types, but then I've never had a really good con man try to work me personally.

-- Mal

[DFW]

44. There is much to that

I remember Bill Bennett, in particular. Huey Long had a similar rep in Louisiana.

[Iahotdog]

21. When I was younger I read

Adolf Hitler by Toland, and rise and fall of the third rich. I doubt if I could get through either of them now with all the drama in our own government.

[Archae]

22. If you want video, "The World At War, Hitler's Germany" is excellent.

BBC production.

[Laffy Kat]

24. There are also some documentaries on Netflix.

One in particular, "What Our Fathers Did: A Nazi Legacy" is about adult children coming to terms with their fathers' roles in the SS. One man accepts his past and feels shame for his father while the other just can't quite believe it could have been as bad as all that even when confronted with the evidence.

[Aristus]

25. The volume 'Germany At War' from Time-Life's World War II Library

has some excellent stories about ordinary Germans under the heel of the Reich.

There's also a very interesting story about a German Jewish family who neither fled the country nor went into hiding. They hid 'in plain sight'.

They had light hair and blue eyes, and so didn't resemble the ugly caricatures that the Nazis insisted the Jews resembled. They doctored their family tree to remove certain ancestors who could have revealed the charade. And otherwise went about their lives openly during the war and the Holocaust. They lived in terror that they would be discovered. But they never were. The sons were even called up for service in the Wehrmacht. They were worried that their circumcisions would be noted during the entry physical, but evidently, they were not, and the sons served with distinction on the Eastern Front.

Interesting stuff...

[jberryhill]

27. Got it second hand from my mom

She was born in Austria in 1922. I'm really glad she passed away when she did. The current administration would have done her in.

[YOHABLO]

29. "I Will Bear Witness: A Diary of the Nazi Years, 1933-1941" by Victor Klemperer

and its sequel "I Will Bear Witness 1942-1945: A Diary of the Nazi Years" by Klemperer great reads.

[Orange Free State]

31. Staying Human by Katharine Stegelman

Great book, came out in 2014 but much of it could apply to the Trumpian era in US history. It is a true story about a man who served in the German army and his Jewish wife. I recommend it.

[Squinch]

35. GREAT question, great information. Thanks for this thread!

[TuxedoKat]

43. Someone

already mentioned the book I was going to post about, They Thought They Were Free. You might like the Netflix series, Babylon Berlin, it is set it the late '20s. Phenomenal.

Edited to add:

I just entered the title of one of these books in my Goodreads account and a whole list of books on this topic came up, so you might like to try that to get more titles.

[Kashkakat v.2.0]

46. "Generation War" - a German tv series + several other ww2 european films on netflix - there is a new

Last edited Sun Mar 11, 2018, 01:25 PM - Edit history (1)

honesty and realism acknowledging how ordinary citizens just went along with it, either from just being oblivious to what was really going on, or because it satisfied some deep seated sadistic urges in their personalities.

Cant remember the name one film - but it was from the viewpoint of two young Dutch boys who were friends, one whose father went full-on Nazi while the other's resisted in some way. Was so powerful seeing it through the eyes of children - we as adults know what the hand reaching out from a train car meant..... but they didnt.

EDTA - "Secrets of War" is name of film mentioned in above paragraph