Holocaust

Good coverage of what Germans really knew during the Nazi 3rd Reich. Turns out that about half knew about the Holocaust somewhat and that most Germans were never bothered by any fear of being turned into the Gestapo. Based on survey research and looking into neglected sources. ( )

What We Knew: Terror, Mass Murder, and Everyday Life in Nazi Germany by Eric A. Johnson (2006)

The first half of the book contains interview transcripts of Jews and non-Jews who lived in Nazi Germany. The second half of the book examines data from a large-scale survey conducted by the authors, an American historian and a German sociologist. The book attempts to answer the question of when/what the German citizens knew of the mass extermination of the Jews during the Holocaust. The methodology of the authors' research is very sound. The data is exclusively self-report which lessons the veracity somewhat, but that issue is discussed by the authors. The second half, detailing the survey results, is necessarily somewhat dry, but lends credibility to the authors' conclusions. Recommended for the serious student of WWII history. ( )

The refrains in Germany for many years after WWII were "we didn't know" about the Holocaust, and "if we had known and had tried to do something, we too would have been killed by the Nazis." These claims have not stood up to historical scrutiny. Large numbers of ordinary Germans were involved in carrying out the mass murder of Jews, and knowledge of it was widespread among the population at home in Germany. Moreover, the Nazi elite ruled primarily by consensus, not terror; it was a popular dictatorship. Central Michigan University historian Johnson and German sociologist Reuband confirm these interpretations in their wide-ranging study based on hundreds of interviews and surveys they conducted with both Jewish and Christian Germans. Johnson (Nazi Terror) and Reuband don't add much that is new to what we know about the Nazi dictatorship and the Holocaust, but the materials they have gathered are interesting. Roughly two-thirds of the book consists of transcripts of interviews with Jews who had a range of experiences (going into hiding, leaving Germany before Kristallnacht, suffering in the camps) and Germans (those who heard about the murder of Jews, those who didn't, those who participated). The analysis in the book's final third is sober and sobering. But it's the gripping immediacy of the interviews, laced as they are with anger, guilt, sadness and, still among some Christian Germans, pride, that carries the book.

The authors interviewed nearly 200 people--Holocaust survivors and perpetrators--in researching the book, and more than 3,000 people--Jews and non-Jews--were surveyed in writing about their experiences during the Hitler years. Johnson and Reuband began their research in 1993; 40 interviews were selected for this book (20 were Jews and 20 were non-Jews). The authors posit that "far from living in a state of constant fear and discontent, most Germans led happy and even normal lives in Nazi Germany." They believe that the Holocaust could not have been possible without the complicity of the majority of the German population. Johnson and Reuband conclude that many Germans were quick to concern themselves only with their private lives and tended not to think about what was happening to the Jews. Despite the regime's efforts to keep the mass murder of Jews a secret, news of the atrocities reached a large portion of the German public by the end of the war. The authors insist that about one-third of the population became aware of the murder of Jews while it was taking place, and it is evident that many Germans did not want to know about what was being done. This scholarly work is a major contribution to the understanding of life in Nazi Germany.