Mobilized Nation. Germany 1939–1945

After Hitler came to power in 1933, Nazi propaganda sought to create a unified organism from German society, devoted to the Führer. The mobilization of citizens in personal and public life reached its peak in 1939 with the onset of World War II. Relying on ego-documents – diaries and letters – Nicholas Stargardt shows how citizens of the Third Reich lived during the war, what feelings they experienced throughout those six years, what difficulties they faced in everyday life, and how, in the end, they confronted the terrible truth about the Holocaust.
“When war broke out in September 1939, it was greeted with great gloom in Germany. However, no one particularly tormented themselves searching for an answer to the question of why it started. Germans were convinced that they were forced to fight in self-defense due to the machinations of the Allies and the aggressive encroachments of the Poles.

In our era, it seems rather strange that at that time many Germans sincerely believed in such things, and they were not just hardcore Nazis. How could they confuse the deliberately ignited brutal imperialist war waged by their authorities with a war for the defense of the homeland? How could they see themselves as patriots in a ring of enemies, rather than fighters for Hitler's cause with his master race?” (Nicholas Stargardt)