"This book is about the wartime experience of civilians, the often dubious parts they played in the war, and the ways they approached their neighbors and the groups persecuted by the Germans. The violence of the war was so extensive that people tried to contain it by separating themselves from the fate of others."
In France in 1940, war led to an exodus as millions took to the roads, and more civilians than soldiers died in the weeks before France's surrender. The overwhelming worry in French society was how long would the new order last? Vichy encouraged collaboration. In Paris, one had to live next to and with the Germans. The German occupation of France generally was considerably less terrifying than in the east. The French had to make decisions about "good" and "bad" Germans and how to manage their cooperation or collaboration.
By contrast, in Warsaw, "The keynote of the German occupation was the phrase repeated on legal notices: 'will be punished by death'. Nowhere else did the Germans use the death penalty as promiscuously as in Poland." "The victorious Nazis sought to destroy the Polish nation by tearing out the traces of Polish life in the annexed districts and by subjugating the Poles through harsh colonial-style rule in the occupied territories." The first genocide of the war was the elimination of the Polish elite.
When the author turns to Operation Barbarossa, he embarks on a challenging but enlightening discourse. Smolensk is chosen as a focal point, as it was a crossroads on the way to Moscow and a place that featured significantly in 'War and Peace'. Per the author, Tolstoy's famous novel became the must-read throughout Europe after the German invasion of Russia. Furthermore, in the fall of 1941, a Swiss Red Cross medical team spent a few months in Smolensk and one of it's members was a prolific diarist. Elsi Eichenberger's diary underscores the depth of hate, the pervasive beliefs, the detestation of Versailles, and the commitment to Hitler and Germany that pervaded the minds of the Wehrmacht men fighting to overcome Bolshevism. "Germans felt themselves to be protagonists in a racial struggle that justified merciless behavior toward the unarmed and weak and murderous action against Jews and other civilians."
Throughout France, Germany and Poland, non-Jews stood by and watched as millions were herded off death. Absorbed by their own problems, likely anti-semitic to begin with and thankful that they were still alive, the people of Europe witnessed violence, bloodshed and the treatment of their neighbors as something less than human. They took over their apartments, divided up their goods and moved on with survival.
The second half of this book is what one reviewer called a 'reflection' on the war, and whenever a book turns philosophical, it tends to lose me. Clearly, Fritsche is a noted historian and a superb wordsmith. The fact that it didn't work for me is not conclusive. It's thoughtful and very well-written.
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