Surviving Hitler's War: Family Life in Germany, 1939-48

by H. Vaizey

Overview

Telling the stories of mothers, fathers and children in their own words, Vaizey recreates the experience of family life in Nazi Germany. From last letters of doomed soldiers at Stalingrad to diaries kept by women trying to keep their families alive in cities under attack, the book vividly describes family life under the most extreme conditions.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780230251496
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan UK
Publication date:	09/22/2010
Series:	Genders and Sexualities in History
Edition description:	2010
Pages:	252
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

HESTER VAIZEY is a postdoctoral researcher with a Hanseatic Scholarship courtesy of the Alfred Toepfer Stiftung in Hamburg. Prior to this she was a member of Sidney Sussex College at Cambridge University, where she studied for her doctorate. In 2009 the manuscript of Surviving Hitler's War won the prestigious Fraenkel Prize.

Table of Contents

List of tables and graphs ix

List of illustrations x

Preface xi

List of abbreviations xiii

Introduction 1

1 Family Life under National Socialism 20

Destroying the private sphere" 22

Racial demands 29

Room for manoeuvre 33

2 Staying in Touch 36

Communication difficulties 36

On the move 50

Letter-writing 54

Radio 60

3 Staying in Love 62

Separation 62

Material shortages 69

Endurance 77

4 Empowerment or Endurance" 93

The Hour of the Woman 93

What remained 98

Exhaustion 101

Injured masculinity 113

5 Parents and Children 123

Motherhood on the home front 124

Fatherhood from afar 131

Reunion 139

Conclusion 150

Appendices 156

Notes 176

Bibliography 212

Index 247

Editorial Reviews

"Hester Vaizey investigates a side of the story that has been relatively neglected: the strength and durability of many German marriages under the severest of pressures...She is right to stress the debilitating effects of shortages, bombing and making do, leaving most women utterly exhausted. She uses a rich seam of diaries and letters between spouses to demonstrate both this and the longing on both sides in a marriage for "reunion" and a return to normality. The letters in particular are a most illuminating source...This is an engrossing study of real human beings, including children who sometimes reacted negatively when a father who had become a stranger returned from war or captivity and reclaimed his wife's affections...shows the fundamental importance of marital and family bonds to couples and children at a time when personal privacy was routinely violated and families torn apart.' Jill Stephenson, Times Higher Education Supplement

''[Vaizey] ... brings a welcome breath of objectivity to a subject that has long been dominated by ideologically driven theorising. Her case is helped by her evident ease as a writer. Throughout the book she weaves context, analysis and first-hand testimony with considerable skill, producing a text which flows as well as it informs.'

Roger Moorhouse, History Today

" intriguing " - The Scotsman

'...it provides a much-needed emphasis on ordinary human beings and on their struggle to sustain loving relationships amid unimaginable horror.' - Journal of Contemporary History

From the Publisher