Germany and the Second World War Volume IX/II

German Wartime Society 1939-1945: Exploitation, Interpretations, Exclusion

Edited by Jorg Echternkamp

Germany and the Second World War

Written by a team of distinguished German historians, experts in the area
Ninth volume in the magisterial Germany and Second World War series

Germany and the Second World War Volume IX/II

German Wartime Society 1939-1945: Exploitation, Interpretations, Exclusion

Edited by Jorg Echternkamp

Germany and the Second World War

Description

The Second World War affected the lives and shaped the experience of millions of individuals in Germany - soldiers at the front, women, children, and the elderly sheltering in cellars, slave labourers toiling in factories, and concentration-camp prisoners and POWs clearing rubble in the Reich's devastated cities.
Taking a 'history from below' approach, the volume examines how the minds and behaviour of individuals were moulded by the Party as the Reich took the road to Total War. The ever-increasing numbers of German workers conscripted into the Wehrmacht were replaced with forced foreign workers, slave labourers, and concentration camp prisoners. The interaction in everyday life between German civilian society and these coerced groups is explored, as is that society's relationship to the Holocaust.
From early 1943, the war on the home front was increasingly dominated by attack from the air. The role of the Party, administration, police, and courts in providing for the vast numbers of those rendered homeless, in bolstering civilian morale with 'miracle revenge weapons' propaganda, and in maintaining order in a society in disintegration is reviewed in detail.
For society in uniform, the war in the east was one of ideology and annihilation, with intensified indoctrination of the troops after Stalingrad. The social profile of this army is analysed through study of a typical infantry division. The volume concludes with an account of the various forms of resistance to Hitler's regime, in society and the military, culminating in the failed attempt on his life in July 1944.

Germany and the Second World War Volume IX/II

German Wartime Society 1939-1945: Exploitation, Interpretations, Exclusion

Edited by Jorg Echternkamp

Germany and the Second World War

Part One: Perceptions and Assigned Meanings
1. Introduction to Part One, Jorg Echternkamp
2. Nationalism in German War Society 1939-1945, Sven Oliver Muller
3. Total Entertainment? Cultural Warfare 1939-1945: Film, Radio, and Theatre, Birthe Kundrus
4. 'The War and the Jews': Nazi Propaganda in the Second World War, Jeffrey Herf
5. The Decline of Interpretative Power: National Socialist Propaganda during the War, Aristotle A. Kallis
6. Moods in Wartime: The Emotions Expressed in Forces Mail, Katrin A. Kilian
7. Talking to the lVolksgemeinschaftr: German War Society as seen by the Western Allies through Front-Line Interrogations, Rafael A. Zagovec
8. 'Human Leadership' in Armament Companies in the National Socialist War Economy, Georg Wagner-Kyora
Part Two: Aliens in war-time everyday life
1. Introduction to Part Two, Jorg Echternkamp
2. Social Differentiation of Foreign Civilian Workers, Prisoners of War, and Detainees in the Reich, Mark Spoerer
3. Forced labour in agriculture, Ela Hornung, Ernst Langthaler, and Sabine Schweitzer
4. Forced labour in industry, Oliver Rathkolb
5. German Policy on Prisoners of War, 1939 to 1945, Rudiger Overmans
6. Limits to German Rule: Conditions for and Results of the Occupation of the Soviet Union, Bernhard Chiari
7. 'Everything will be totally changed.' German Society and the War: A Summing-Up, Hans-Ulrich Thamer

Germany and the Second World War Volume IX/II

German Wartime Society 1939-1945: Exploitation, Interpretations, Exclusion

Edited by Jorg Echternkamp

Germany and the Second World War

Author Information

Jorg Echternkamp is Research Associate, Militargeschichtliches Forschungsamt (Research Institute for Military History), Potsdam.

Contributors:

Bernhard Chiari, University of Potsdam and the Free University of Berlin
Jörg Echternkamp, Research Institute for Military History, Potsdam
Jeffrey Herf, University of Maryland
Ela Hornung, University of Vienna
Aristotle A. Kallis, University of Lancaster
Katrin A. Kilian, Free University of Berlin and Berlin Technical University
Birthe Kundrus, Hamburg Institute for Social Research
Ernst Langthaler, University of Vienna
Sven Oliver Müller, University of Bielefeld
Rüdiger Overmans, University of Freiburg
Oliver Rathkolb, University of Vienna
Mark Spoerer, Hohenheim University, Stuttgart
Hans-Ulrich Thamer, University of Münster
Georg Wagner-Kyora, University of Halle
Sabine Schweitzer, University of Vienna
Rafael A. Zagovec, Central Archives of the Evangelical Church in Hessen and Nassau