Coming of age in Nazi Germany

The distinguished historian Konrad Jarausch’s new book is a German narrative, told through the stories of ordinary people who lived through his chosen period. Six dozen Germans — mostly from the generation born in the 1920s — testify through their memoirs to how it was to be Christian or Jewish, working-class or upper- middle-class, a young Nazi or a young anti-Nazi. The main characters constitute, as Jarausch explains it, ‘a stratified sample of individuals who represent a broad range of personal and collective experiences’ seen from the bottom.

The book begins with the grand-parents of this generation, and the stability of Wilhelmine Germany with its pre-1914 confidence and prosperity. War, social dislocation and crisis follow — but, oddly, the young people born as the generation of the 1920s still seem to live in peace.

The Nazi seizure of power changes things. Teenage girls are swept away by Hitler, and record his greatness in religious terms.