Life and death in the Third Reich
By: Peter Fritzsche
Publisher: Belknap; Harvard University Press; Belknap Press of Harvard University Press
Published: 2009
Place of publication: Cambridge, Mass; London
Language: eng
Number of pages: 368
ISBN-13: 9780674034655
Copyright date: 2008
Subjects: Collective memory; Causes; National socialism; Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945); Ethnic relations; History
Description: "[...] Peter Fritzsche deciphers the puzzle of Nazism's ideological grip. Its basic appeal lay in the Volksgemeinschaft -- a "people's community" that appealed to Germans to be part of a great project to redress the wrongs of the Versailles treaty, make the country strong and vital, and rid the body politic of unhealthy elements. The goal was to create a new national and racial self-consciousness among Germans. For Germany to live, others -- especially Jews -- had to die. Diaries and letters reveal Germans' fears, desires, and reservations, while showing how Nazi concepts saturated everyday life. Fritzsche examines the efforts of Germans to adjust to new racial identities, to believe in the necessity of war, to accept the dynamic of unconditional destruction -- in short, to become Nazis"--Pub. website.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Reviving the nation; title: Racial grooming; title: Empire of destruction; title: Intimate knowledge.