Life and Death in the Third Reich (review)

In France, the postwar myth of a “nation of resisters” gradually succumbed to the morally indignant charge of a “nation of collaborators” before the historiography returned to a nuanced middle ground. German historiography followed a different interpretive sequence. Postwar histories, welcomed by West Germans and their American allies, drew a distinction between a criminal regime of Nazis and a helpless, opportunistic, or morally deficient, but ideologically non-Nazi, German citizenry trapped by the Hitler dictatorship. Subsequent studies later depicted a closer identification between Germans and Nazis in a dynamic relationship of coercion and consent that blurred differences, and disclosed more susceptibility to National Socialist ideology, complicity in policy decisions and their implementation, and a regime with increasing legitimacy in the popular mind. In contrast to the eventual moderation in French historiography, Peter Fritzsche’s new book now attempts to thrust the German debate continually beyond the question of complicity and toward the notion that most Germans actually politically desired the Nazis. Although they struggled with this new relationship, an “audacious, murderous, and self-destructive collaboration in the name of a new, revived Germany…” characterized the behavior of most Germans (p. 18).

Fritzsche’s approach is that of the “cultural turn” in history, emphasizing “shared cultural and ideological dispositions” (p. 7). His methodology involves “conversations,” “narratives,” “reading texts,” and “linguistic categories,” revealing the “ideological traffic between ‘Germans’ and ‘Nazis’” (p. 7). It is a case of what Germans heard, saw, felt, read and wrote, as they “witnessed” the Third Reich in a particular “audiovisual space”. Fritzche depicts the daily life in Nazi Germany as “camera-ready history” (p. 75). These cultural aspects are, however, interwoven with more traditional interpretive methods and writing.

Fritzsche’s contribution consists essentially of argumentation and interpretation as opposed to new documentation or historical facts. With few archival references, this work relies heavily on other studies, but draws most of its substance and depth primarily from published diaries, letters, and literary evidence. Acknowledging that such sources are unrepresentative, he argues that they are significant because they are so telling. Indeed, diaries and letters bring the episodes to life with compelling images, feelings, and, often incisive, contemporary observations. Moreover, Fritzsche’s captivating writing marvelously recreates general atmospheres as well as private soul-searching and tragedy. To Fritzsche, the Germans legitimized the regime through a consciousness of belonging to the Nazi Volksgemeinschaft (racial/national community). They culturally imbibed Nazi racial ideology and anti-Semitism, accepted the racial war of annihilation in the East, and were complicit in the Holocaust, though unaware of the industrial mass murder. At the war’s end, they recast themselves in historical memory as bystanders or victims of a universal catastrophe afflicting the entire modern world.

Although Fritzsche’s narratives and images are often impressive (particularly on the Holocaust and war), his fundamental contentions regarding the extent that Germans became Nazis remain ultimately unconvincing. His evidentiary base is too limited and selective for such grand generalizations. One could easily assess situations and “read” the documentation, especially the abundance of neglected evidence and subject matter (religion, battlefield experiences; realistic choices available; resistance, etc.), to quite a different conclusion. Unfortunately, a concise review cannot sufficiently convey the book’s true merits nor provide the detailed critical challenge its arguments require. Such a critique would include the very qualifications Fritzsche himself repeatedly invokes before continuing undeterred on his predetermined interpretive course.