Ordinary Germans in Extraordinary Times
Subtitle: The Nazi Revolution in Hildesheim
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Published: October 2004
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 312
ISBN-13: 9780253344656
Subjects: European history: Second World War; European studies; History; History - General History; History: World; Europe - Germany; General; 20th century; Ethnology; Germany; Hildesheim; Hildesheim (Germany); National socialism; Social life and customs
Description: "This book is a carefully drawn account of how townspeople went about their lives during the Nazi era, reacting to and shaping events. Andrew Stuart Bergerson argues that ordinary Germans did in fact make Germany and Europe more fascist, more racist, and more modern during the 1930s, but they disguised their involvement behind a pre-existing veil of normalcy." "Ordinary Germans in Extraordinary Times considers the actual customs and experiences of friendship and neighborliness in a German town before, during, and after the Third Reich. By analyzing the customs of conviviality in interwar Hildesheim, and the culture of normalcy these customs invoked, Bergerson aims to help us better understand how ordinary Germans transformed "friends and neighbors" into "Jews" or "Aryans.""--BOOK JACKET.