Ordinary Germans in Extraordinary Times

Andrew Stuart Bergerson

ISBN 10: 0253344654 / ISBN 13: 9780253344656

Published by Indiana University Press, 2004

About this Item

Hildesheim is a mid-sized provincial town in northwest Germany. This title presents an account of how townspeople went about their lives and reacted to events during the Nazi era. It considers the actual customs and experiences of friendship and neighbourliness in a German town before, during, and after the Third Reich. Num Pages: 336 pages, 22 b&w photos. BIC Classification: 1DFG; GTB; HBJD; HBWQ. Category: (P) Professional & Vocational. Dimension: 242 x 164 x 28. Weight in Grams: 664. . 2004. Hardcover. . . . . Books ship from the US and Ireland.

Seller Inventory # V9780253344656

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Ordinary Germans in Extraordinary Times
• Publisher: Indiana University Press
• Publication Date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0253344654
• ISBN 13: 9780253344656
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

Hildesheim is a mid-sized provincial town in northwest Germany. Ordinary Germans in Extraordinary Times is a carefully drawn account of how townspeople went about their lives and reacted to events during the Nazi era. Andrew Stuart Bergerson argues that ordinary Germans did in fact make Germany and Europe more fascist, more racist, and more modern during the 1930s, but they disguised their involvement behind a pre-existing veil of normalcy.

Bergerson details a way of being, believing, and behaving by which "ordinary Germans" imagined their powerlessness and absence of responsibility even as they collaborated in the Nazi revolution. He builds his story on research that includes anecdotes of everyday life collected systematically from newspapers, literature, photography, personal documents, public records, and especially extensive interviews with a representative sample of residents born between 1900 and 1930.

The book considers the actual customs and experiences of friendship and neighborliness in a German town before, during, and after the Third Reich. By analyzing the customs of conviviality in interwar Hildesheim, and the culture of normalcy these customs invoked, Bergerson aims to help us better understand how ordinary Germans transformed "neighbors" into "Jews" or "Aryans."

About the Author

Andrew Stuart Bergerson is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Missouri–Kansas City. He lives in Kansas City.