Stalingrad fell on February 2, 1943. Hitler promoted Sixth Army commander Friedrich Paulus to field marshal, a veiled directive to commit suicide, which Paulus refused to follow.
With Hitler increasingly distracted and stressed by the war, Joseph Goebbels began his own initiative to strengthen the German war effort.
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“Selig Sind die Toten” from Ein deutsches Requiem.
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I don’t like it how you implied that the Nazi regime was secretly unpopular, and that the spurious outbursts of German resistance (e.g. the White Rose) reflected some sort of suppressed anti-Nazi sentiment in society.
Up until the very end of the war, the Nazis were broadly popular in Germany, and Hitler was seen as a “great leader”. Even those who were intellectually opposed to Nazism were materially comfortable enough and had their egos placated enough to simply not bother. The Nazi regime was built on a combination of fanatical support from their middle class base and general apathy and resignation from everyone else. It was NOT a regime of overt repression (at least not inside Germany proper).
History education is important, otherwise we are liable to repeat mistakes of the past. That’s why it’s so important to convey facts as they were at the time and not romantic fantasies of a suppressed “resistance to totalitarianism” – especially nowadays when far-right parties rise again throughout Europe.
To their dying breath many Germans continued to believe that there wasn’t anything fundamentally morally wrong with Nazis, and that Hitler simply “went too far in a few places”. While Holocaust denial became taboo, many of the other excesses of Nazi rule were never rebuked (sometimes to this very day: a not-too-secret belief in the ‘righteousness’ of anticommunism and that Operation Barbarossa was ‘justifiable’ are still tenets of the German political class).
I’m sure They Thought They Were Free was part of your research material, so you should already know all this.
This is also a great thing to keep in mind for when you finally reach the end of the war. “Denazification” in the West was a sham, and never went further than skin-deep changes in symbolism and top-level personnel. There were no reeducation campaigns or massive overhauls to state ministries (much less local government) as there was in the East. The BRD was very much a successor state to the Third Reich (*especially* in the military/national security sectors), a fact that many Americans and (West) Germans find very uncomfortable, but one that I hope you’d be courageous enough to point out.
I reject your suggestion that I am presenting “romantic fantasies” and find it insulting. I mentioned the White Rose because they were real, not because I was trying to “imply” anything. By 1943, the disaster at Stalingrad and the Allied bombing raids that were causing massive death and destruction in German cities were unquestionably sapping German morale and raising doubts about Hitler’s leadership. That was what I meant to convey.
As for They Thought They Were Free, I am not only aware of it, I discussed it in episode 373, in which I also said, “ethnic Germans, which was most of the population of Germany, had little to fear from the Nazi government, provided they made no effort to oppose it. These ordinary Germans passed through the Nazi period in relative safety and comfort, at least until the hardships of war began to bite.” I guess you missed that one.
First, please excuse me for my tone. Rereading my comment I can see how it comes across as very combative, but that wasn’t my intention, much less to insult you. I am, after all, a regular listener of your show and have been for years.
This is just an area of history I am fairly passionate about, and I’ve become hypersensitive to various misconceptions that float around the subject (on that note, I very much appreciate you pointing out just how INefficient Nazi/Fascist rule actually was!)
As for the matter at hand, what I was specifically referring to is this line:
“[…] but word of their actions spread across Germany. The Nazi movement began in Munich, people whispered. Perhaps the anti-Nazi revolution would begin there as well.”
To me this line sounded like all throughout Germany the White Rose group gave hope to a populace eager to see the Nazis go away. The lack of specificity in the wording (“people” whispered?) seems to imply it.
I must have misinterpreted it, but if I did, then others might also have.
And as for They Thought They Were Free and episode 373… that was over two months ago, so I’ve clearly forgotten about the reference. Again, forgive me for the baseless accusation.