How did the German people come to place their trust in a regime that would bring them a life of constant terror? The rise of the Third Reich was predicated on a Germany that had lost the First World War. Germany was paying dearly for that loss through war reparation payments agreed upon in the Treaty of Versailles. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, six million Germans were unemployed. Farms were being foreclosed and businesses were lost through bankruptcy. Germany's young people were emigrating to the Americas, Africa, anyplace they could find work. At the same time, there was a perceived threat from "eastern aliens" (Jews) who were immigrating to Germany with strong currency, buying up businesses and achieving comparative financial success.
The Nazi party spoke to the social and economic concerns brought about by these conditions. Through a sophisticated propaganda machine, the party called for an end to unemployment, new housing, more jobs, and strength through the perpetuation of a pure German race. There was something that appealed to virtually everyone in this platform, or so it seemed, and the power of the Nazi Party escalated to the point that Adolph Hitler was named Chancellor in 1933.
The Nazi propaganda machine continued throughout the war, leading people to believe that, because their cause was just, there was hope for the German effort. As the territory commanded by the Third Reich continued to shrink in the east, the delusions of its leaders led more and more Germans into conscripted service and false hopes for a victorious last stand.
Meanwhile, night after night, the Allied bombings continued and sleep became a precious commodity. Usually, however, rest was replaced with a scene such as the following one recorded by Ursula von Kardoff, a newspaper journalist in Berlin on the night her home was destroyed:
"At ten past three the preliminary warning sounded, and of course we stayed in bed. Ten minutes later came the red warning. We got up, cursing and swearing, and went down to the shelter with two of the Frenchmen . . . . Hardly had we reached the cellar when the whole place started shaking violently, and everything rocked and quaked and roared . . . . Suddenly there came a deafening crash . . . . Everybody started shouting and I cried at the top of my voice, 'If you can hear a bomb you know it won't hit you.' An elderly woman started to scream hysterically." (1)
By the last year of the war, the German home front was a confusing landscape of determination and despair. Long lines of German refugees paraded from their devastated hometowns to central Germany with little or no hope of return, while Nazi propaganda continued to talk up the strength of the Atlantic Wall.
When the inevitable Allied invasion of Europe finally came, the German people experienced a mixed sense of relief and fear--perhaps the endless air raids would finally cease, perhaps now the Third Reich would be victorious. But would the Atlantic Wall hold? Ursula von Kardoff records in her diary on 6 June 1944:
"The invasion began today. Great excitement at the office. Our directive was to write pieces greeting this long-awaited event with positive pleasure. Hurrah! Here it comes at last! Now we'll show them, and throw them all back into the sea! At last final victory approaches! But everybody was extremely skeptical and frightened of air raids. People very much doubt whether the Atlantic Wall will hold." (2)
The Wall did not hold, and when the Allies reached central Germany, they were met by a huge number of white flags indicating the effective collapse of Nazi party control. The hopes of millions of Germans had been dashed by the same party that had so effectively raised hopes during the 1920s and 1930s. By the end of the war, the Allied bombing offensive had destroyed about six million homes, and killed more than 500,000 civilians, leaving Germany to once again face the prospect of paying war reparations.
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1. Ursula von Kardoff, "Diary of a Nightmare, Berlin 1942-1945," (New York: John Day Publishers), p. 97.
