Daily life in Hitler's Germany / Matthew Seligmann, John Davison, John McDonald.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Seligman, Matthew S., 1967-

Contributor:

Davison, John.

McDonald, John.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Hitler, Adolf, 1889-1945.

Germany--Social life and customs--20th century.

Germany.

Manners and customs.

Hitler, Adolf, 1889-1945--Influence.

Hitler, Adolf.

Physical Description:

224 pages : illustrations ; 27 cm

Place of Publication:

New York : Thomas Dunne Books, 2004.

Summary:

Daily Life in Hitler's Germany tells the story of what it was like to actually live under the Nazi regime in the 1930s and during the war years of the early 1940s. The wide range of topics examined in the book include the Nazi indoctrination of children through such organizations as the Hitler Youth, the subversion of the arts to serve National Socialist ideology, the Nazi obsession with sport as a means of creating a super-fit Aryan race, the role of women in Germany in the 1930s, and the fate of those individuals and races who had no place in the Thousand Year Reich. In addition, Daily Life in Hitler's Germany looks closely at the Nazi "economic miracle" of the 1930s to explain how unemployment in Germany had virtually disappeared by 1939. Written by experts on twentieth-century and German history, the book gets under the skin of the Third Reich to bring the most chilling era in Germany's past to life. Above all, the Third Reich was the manifestation of the character, ambitions, and will of its leader, Adolf Hitler. Dogmatic and intolerant in his simplistic views, eventually the Nazi state reflected his crude belief in Darwinism: that struggle was the father of all things. Daily Life in Hitler's Germany examines fully how Hitler influenced the everyday lives of millions of ordinary Germans.

The hundreds of photographs in the book are particularly interesting, and show many facets of the Nazi regime. Propaganda and ritual were central to Nazi social control, and so Daily Life in Hitler's Germany contains images of the mass Nuremberg rallies, the persecution of the Jews and other minorities, the 1936 Olympic Games, and the large-scale military maneuvers conducted by the armed forces. Ultimately the Third Reich failed in its aim of building a large empire in Eastern Europe, and the price was paid by the German people themselves. As Daily Life in Hitler's Germany shows, Germany's cities were reduced to rubble by strategic bombing, and the country itself was torn apart and then divided in the most destructive war in modern history.

Contents:

Chapter 1 The Nazi police state 10

Chapter 2 Resistance 26

Chapter 3 Culture and propaganda 44

Chapter 4 Young Germans and Nazi youth policies 58

Chapter 5 Women 74

Chapter 6 Urban life and country life 88

Chapter 7 Sport 106

Chapter 8 Employment 124

Chapter 9 Minorities and genocide 142

Chapter 10 The army and military service 158

Chapter 11 Wartime policies and privations 176

Chapter 12 Individual lives 192.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 220-221) and index.

ISBN:

0312328117

OCLC:

56081737