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Broken Lives : How Ordinary Germans Experienced the 20th Century / Konrad H. Jarausch.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press, [2018]Copyright date: ©2018Description: 1 online resource (464 p.) : 30 b/w illusContent type:
Media type:
Carrier type:
ISBN:
  • 9780691196480
  • 9781400889334
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 306.20943 23
LOC classification:
  • JN3971.A91 J36 2018
Other classification:
  • online - DeGruyter
Online resources: Available additional physical forms:
  • Issued also in print.
Contents:
Frontmatter -- Contents -- Cast of Characters -- Introduction: Narratives of German Experiences -- Part I: Prewar Childhood -- 1. Imperial Ancestors -- 2. Weimar Children -- 3. Nazi Adolescents -- Part II. Wartime Youth -- 4. Male Violence -- 5. Female Struggles -- 6. Victims' Suffering -- Part III. Postwar Adulthood -- 7. Defeat as New Beginning -- 8. Democratic Maturity -- 9. Communist Disappointment -- Conclusion: Memories of Fractured Lives -- Acknowledgments -- Notes -- List of Sources -- Index
Summary: The gripping stories of ordinary Germans who lived through World War II, the Holocaust, and Cold War partition-but also recovery, reunification, and rehabilitationBroken Lives is a gripping account of the twentieth century as seen through the eyes of ordinary Germans who came of age under Hitler and whose lives were scarred and sometimes destroyed by what they saw and did.Drawing on six dozen memoirs by the generation of Germans born in the 1920s, Konrad Jarausch chronicles the unforgettable stories of people who not only lived through the Third Reich, World War II, the Holocaust, and Cold War partition, but also participated in Germany's astonishing postwar recovery, reunification, and rehabilitation. Written decades after the events, these testimonies, many of them unpublished, look back on the mistakes of young people caught up in the Nazi movement. In many, early enthusiasm turns to deep disillusionment as the price of complicity with a brutal dictatorship--fighting at the front, aerial bombardment at home, murder in the concentration camps-becomes clear.Bringing together the voices of men and women, perpetrators and victims, Broken Lives reveals the intimate human details of historical events and offers new insights about persistent questions. Why did so many Germans support Hitler through years of wartime sacrifice and Nazi inhumanity? How did they finally distance themselves from this racist dictatorship and come to embrace human rights? Jarausch argues that this generation's focus on its own suffering, often maligned by historians, ultimately led to a more critical understanding of national identity-one that helped transform Germany from a military aggressor into a pillar of European democracy.The result is a powerful account of the everyday experiences and troubling memories of average Germans who journeyed into, through, and out of the abyss of a dark century.
Holdings
Item type Current library Call number URL Status Notes Barcode
eBook eBook Biblioteca "Angelicum" Pont. Univ. S.Tommaso d'Aquino Nuvola online online - DeGruyter (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Online access Not for loan (Accesso limitato) Accesso per gli utenti autorizzati / Access for authorized users (dgr)9781400889334

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Cast of Characters -- Introduction: Narratives of German Experiences -- Part I: Prewar Childhood -- 1. Imperial Ancestors -- 2. Weimar Children -- 3. Nazi Adolescents -- Part II. Wartime Youth -- 4. Male Violence -- 5. Female Struggles -- 6. Victims' Suffering -- Part III. Postwar Adulthood -- 7. Defeat as New Beginning -- 8. Democratic Maturity -- 9. Communist Disappointment -- Conclusion: Memories of Fractured Lives -- Acknowledgments -- Notes -- List of Sources -- Index

restricted access online access with authorization star

http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_16ec

The gripping stories of ordinary Germans who lived through World War II, the Holocaust, and Cold War partition-but also recovery, reunification, and rehabilitationBroken Lives is a gripping account of the twentieth century as seen through the eyes of ordinary Germans who came of age under Hitler and whose lives were scarred and sometimes destroyed by what they saw and did.Drawing on six dozen memoirs by the generation of Germans born in the 1920s, Konrad Jarausch chronicles the unforgettable stories of people who not only lived through the Third Reich, World War II, the Holocaust, and Cold War partition, but also participated in Germany's astonishing postwar recovery, reunification, and rehabilitation. Written decades after the events, these testimonies, many of them unpublished, look back on the mistakes of young people caught up in the Nazi movement. In many, early enthusiasm turns to deep disillusionment as the price of complicity with a brutal dictatorship--fighting at the front, aerial bombardment at home, murder in the concentration camps-becomes clear.Bringing together the voices of men and women, perpetrators and victims, Broken Lives reveals the intimate human details of historical events and offers new insights about persistent questions. Why did so many Germans support Hitler through years of wartime sacrifice and Nazi inhumanity? How did they finally distance themselves from this racist dictatorship and come to embrace human rights? Jarausch argues that this generation's focus on its own suffering, often maligned by historians, ultimately led to a more critical understanding of national identity-one that helped transform Germany from a military aggressor into a pillar of European democracy.The result is a powerful account of the everyday experiences and troubling memories of average Germans who journeyed into, through, and out of the abyss of a dark century.

Issued also in print.

Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.

In English.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 27. Sep 2021)