The German War: A Nation Under Arms, 1939–1945

Such utter and complete commitment to serve was only thinkable because it was never unlimited and unbounded. It had a temporal dimension. As one soldier reassured his wife in February 1940, ‘Next year we’ll make up for everything, yes?’ Two years later, another was vowing ‘to catch up on everything later which we’re missing out on now

Even dovish British Conservatives could not ignore this breach, though the Bank of England did perform a final service to the Reich by sending the Czech gold reserves back from London. In

Instead, on the night of 31 August, an SS commando unit clad in Polish uniforms attacked the German radio station at Gleiwitz and a Polish member of the unit then read a communiqué in Polish and German, ending with the words ‘Long live Poland!’ He was then shot by his SS comrades and his body left behind as evidence. The Gleiwitz station lay 5 kilo

As a Jew, he expected in the first week of the war to be shot or sent to a concentration camp.

From the veterans of the eastern front from 1914–17 to young soldiers just out of school and teenagers still at home, families identified the war, not with the Nazi regime, but with their own intergenerational familial responsibilities. It was the strongest foundation for their patriotism.

Whereas left-wing and liberal thinkers saw history in linear, progressive terms, many conservatives believed that it was circular and repetitive, like the life cycle.

chose as his theme the words embossed on German soldiers’ brass belt buckles: ‘Gott mit uns’ – ‘With God on our side

Hitler had succeeded in portraying himself as the champion of an injured and besieged German minority, mobilising reservoirs of resentment at the loss of territories in the post-1918 settlement.

Whereas in Britain and France it was self-evident that Hitler was waging a war of conquest by launching an unprovoked attack on Poland, it was equally obvious to most Germans that they were caught up in a war of national defence, forced upon them by Allied machinations and Polish aggression.