Nicholas Stargardt

A major new history of the Third Reich that explores the German psyche

A Nation Under Arms, 1939Ð1945

The German War

Children's Lives Under the Nazis

Witnesses of War

Hitlers Krieg und die Kinder

"Maikäfer, flieg!"

De Duitse oorlog. De Tweede Wereldoorlog door de ogen van burgers en soldaten

Германия, 1939-1945

Мобилизованная нация

WINNER OF THE 2016 PEN HESSELL-TILTMAN PRIZE The Second World War was a German war like no other. The Nazi regime, having started the conflict, turned it into the most horrific war in European history, resorting to genocidal methods well before building the first gas chambers. Over its course, the Third Reich expended and exhausted all its moral and physical reserves, leading to total defeat in 1945. Yet 70 years on – despite whole libraries of books about the war’s origins, course and atrocities – we still do not know what Germans thought they were fighting for and how they experienced and sustained the war until the bitter end. When war broke out in September 1939, it was deeply unpopular in Germany. Yet without the active participation and commitment of the German people, it could not have continued for almost six years. What, then, was the war Germans thought they were fighting? How did the changing course of the conflict – the victories of the Blitzkrieg, the first defeats in the east, the bombing of Germany’s cities – change their views and expectations? And when did Germans first realise that they were fighting a genocidal war? Drawing on a wealth of first-hand testimony, The German War is the first foray for many decades into how the German people experienced the Second World War. Told from the perspective of those who lived through it – soldiers, schoolteachers and housewives; Nazis, Christians and Jews – its masterful historical narrative sheds fresh and disturbing light on the beliefs, hopes and fears of a people who embarked on, continued and fought to the end a brutal war of conquest and genocide.

A Nation Under Arms, 1939–45

Examines the lives of children of all nationalities under the Nazis, drawing on primary material, including diaries, reminiscences, accounts of children's games, and letters from reformatories and to fathers at the front.

This 1994 book examines the development of the modern idea of militarism from the 1860s until the outbreak of World War I.

Radical and Socialist Critics 1866-1914

The German Idea of Militarism

The Second World War was a German war like no other. The Nazi regime, having started the conflict, turned it into the most horrific war in European history, resorting to genocidal methods well before building the first gas chambers. Over its course, the Third Reich expended and exhausted all its moral and physical reserves, leading to total defeat in 1945. Yet 70 years on - despite whole libraries of books about the war's origins, course and atrocities - we still do not know what Germans thought they were fighting for and how they experienced and sustained the war until the bitter end. When war broke out in September 1939, it was deeply unpopular in Germany. Yet without the active participation and commitment of the German people, it could not have continued for almost six years. What, then, was the war Germans thought they were fighting? How did the changing course of the conflict - the victories of the Blitzkrieg, the first defeats in the east, the bombing of Germany's cities - change their views and expectations? And when did Germans first realise that they were fighting a genocidal war? Drawing on a wealth of first-hand testimony, The German War is the first foray for many decades into how the German people experienced the Second World War. Told from the perspective of those who lived through it - soldiers, schoolteachers and housewives; Nazis, Christians and Jews - its masterful historical narrative sheds fresh and disturbing light on the beliefs, hopes and fears of a people who embarked on, continued and fought to the end a brutal war of conquest and genocide.

A Nation Under Arms, 1939-45

As early as 1941, Allied victory in World War II seemed all but assured. How and why, then, did the Germans prolong the barbaric conflict for three and a half more years? In The German War, acclaimed historian Nicholas Stargardt draws on an extraordinary range of primary source materials—personal diaries, court records, and military correspondence—to answer this question. He offers an unprecedented portrait of wartime Germany, bringing the hopes and expectations of the German people—from infantrymen and tank commanders on the Eastern front to civilians on the home front—to vivid life. While most historians identify the German defeat at Stalingrad as the moment when the average German citizen turned against the war effort, Stargardt demonstrates that the Wehrmacht in fact retained the staunch support of the patriotic German populace until the bitter end. Astonishing in its breadth and humanity, The German War is a groundbreaking new interpretation of what drove the Germans to fight—and keep fighting—for a lost cause.

A Nation Under Arms, 1939 1945

Einzigartig und fesselnd erzählt der renommierte Oxford-Historiker Nicholas Stargardt in ›Der Deutsche Krieg‹ aus der Nahsicht, wie die Deutschen – Soldaten, Lehrer, Krankenschwestern, Nationalsozialisten, Christen und Juden – den Zweiten Weltkrieg durchlebten. Tag für Tag erleben wir mit, worauf sie hofften, was sie schockierte, worüber sie schwiegen und wie sich ihre Sicht auf den Krieg allmählich wandelte. Gestützt auf zahllose Tagebücher und Briefe, unter anderem von Heinrich Böll und Victor Klemperer, Wilm Hosenfeld und Konrad Jarausch, gelingt Nicholas Stargardt ein Blick in die Köpfe der Menschen, der deutlich macht, warum so viele Deutsche noch an die nationale Sache glaubten, als der Krieg längst verloren war und die Gewissheit wuchs, an einem Völkermord teilzuhaben. Ein verstörendes Kaleidoskop der Jahre 1939 bis 1945 im nationalsozialistischen Deutschland. »Ein Meisterwerk der Geschichtsschreibung, das die ›Vogelperspektive‹ nahtlos mit einer Mikrogeschichte dieser verhängnisvollen Periode des 20. Jahrhunderts verbindet.« Jan T. Gross »Erstmals wird die Chronologie der Stimmung, der Hoffnungen und Befürchtungen (...) der deutschen Bevölkerung während des Krieges wirklich sichtbar. Eine eindrucksvolle, fesselnde Darstellung.« Mark Roseman »Hervorragend geschrieben und in seiner Argumentation überzeugend, ist dieses Buch ein Muss.« Saul Friedländer

1939 - 1945

Der deutsche Krieg

Witnesses of War is the first work to show how children experienced the Second World War under the Nazis. Children were often the victims in this most terrible of European conflicts, falling prey to bombing, mechanised warfare, starvation policies, mass flight and genocide. But children also became active participants, going out to smuggle food, ply the black market, and care for sick parents and siblings. As they absorbed the brutal new realities of German occupation, Polish boys played at being Gestapo interrogators, and Jewish children at being ghetto guards or the SS. Within days of Germany's own surrender, German children were playing at being Russian soldiers. As they imagined themselves in the roles of their all-powerful enemies, children expressed their hopes and fears, as well as their humiliation and envy. This is the first account of the Second World War which brings together the opposing perspectives and contrasting experiences of those drawn into the new colonial empire of the Third Reich. German and Jewish, Polish and Czech, Sinti and disabled children were all to be separated along racial lines, between those fit to rule and those destined to serve; ultimately between those who were to live and those who were to die. Because the Nazis measured their success in terms of Germany's racial future, children lay at the heart of their war. Drawing on a wide range of new sources, from welfare and medical files to private diaries, letters and pictures, Nicholas Stargardt evokes the individual voices of children under Nazi rule. By bringing their experiences of the war together for the first time, he offers a fresh and challenging interpretation of the Nazi social order as a whole.

Witnesses Of War

Ondanks bibliotheken vol boeken over oorsprong, verloop en verschrikkingen van de Tweede Wereldoorlog begrijpen we eigenlijk nog steeds niet waarom ‘gewone’ Duitsers achter de oorlog bleven staan, zelfs toen ze wisten dat die niet meer te winnen was. Wat was de oorlog die de Duitsers dachten te vechten? Hoe veranderden hun opvattingen en verwachtingen na de overwinningen van de Blitzkrieg, de eerste nederlagen in het oosten en de bombardementen van Duitse steden? En wanneer realiseerden de Duitsers zich dat ze meehielpen aan en medeverantwoordelijk waren voor een volkerenmoord? Puttend uit een schat aan brieven, dagboeken en ooggetuigenverslagen en verteld vanuit het perspectief van diegenen die de oorlog meemaakten – soldaten, leraren en huisvrouwen; nazi’s, christenen en joden – vlecht historicus Nicholas Stargardt een meesterlijk narratief van de handelingen en gedachten van het Duitse volk, vanaf het begin van het conflict tot aan de ontknoping.

Nicholas Stargardt

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