Comment on What was life like for the "average" person living in Nazi Germany
bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de 4 days ago
My grandma had written some memoirs that of course also show her life in Nazi Germany. I haven’t read them yet because Long Covid has killed my ability to read long texts. My parents are trying to find a way to make AI read the book for me. No idea whether I will be able to handle an audio book.
Anyways, supposedly there are some nasty revelations in there. And the other relatives don’t want to publish it. At least not without changing names. I would rather publish it for free as is. If I happen to get my way I will post a link here. But I doubt that is going to happen.
All I know about that time is that my grandpa was an influential music teacher. And I always figured that at least kept him from having to enlist. But of course what really happened is more nuanced.
I wish I had read that when I still could. At least I have her art I collected at brigitte-tantau.de.
bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de 4 days ago
Actually, thanks to @zelmon64@programming.dev recommending prism glasses I was able to read a little bit of her book.
I started somewhere in 1932 and am now in 1934. She came from a relatively poor family where they were used to make do. Unemployment was high, overall prospects were bad. She met the man who would become her first husband. He sometimes wrote theatre critics for a small struggling newspaper that often was banned for publishing anti-constitutional articles.
When in 1933 the Nazis took power they saw it as a positive thing and had hope for the future. The newspaper was picked up to be the prime paper in the area and so they could pay him more and his personal situation improved massively. He proposed to my grandma and gave her a ring with a swastika as a present.
Their interpersonal relationship crumbled a bit because he would spend so much time with his friends and neglect her. She moved away for a bit to get some distance and evaluate their relationship. This was planned for a year. But after a few weeks he surprised her with a visit and managed to sway her into marrying him for real.
He had left his job at the newspaper and become a Gauwart at the organisation Kraft durch Freude. Basically a regional manager of this Nazi organisation that is supposed to promote Nazism to the people by organising vacations and leisure events for the general public.
In 1934 they married and lived a nice life. The salary of Gauwarts was reduced from 1000 to 600 Marks and he was devastated but she managed to pick him up by reminding him that she was used to living with little money. But all in all their life seemed to be great. Better than before. And finally a baby was on. the way, lifting their spirits again.
In all these little stories not much of politics is to see. A cousin emigrated to the US with her Jewish husband. A famous actor she knew also moved to the US and got a new first name that’s not “Adolf” to avoid association.
But if I didn’t know this was all real I would think I was reading a good novel with some subtle foreshadowing. I’m really on edge to find out how the upcoming war will affect them.
But all in all it doesn’t feel like what is happening in the US right now. No idea if that is due to the better media connections we have nowadays or if I’m still too early in Germany’s history or if it’s because people are more aware in the US because they actually did learn from history.
I’m especially missing the positivity from the US. But that might also be because Lemmy is more of a left leaning echo chamber.
bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de 3 days ago
I should have read on. A few sentences later she wrote that they loved the military parades. It gave them back some lost pride after the first world war. They liked Hitler. They wanted a hero to look up to. It reminded her of all the books they read at school, also praising all the great heroes of history.
At the time Hitler invading small countries and fighting communists was seen as “liberation”. But a full blown war was looming on the horizon already and they were afraid of that.
But in the end life went on. With all its ups and downs. The husband was singing racist songs but that was more an annoying occurrence than something outrageous. He took part in military training, mostly for sport. He quit his Nazi job after an accident he felt responsible for (but actually wasn’t because he was at said training when it happened).
The worst thing the Nazis did to them was to restrict the name of their second child. They couldn’t use the name they had chosen because it was of Jewish origin. So the poor husband had to think of a new one at the office on the spot.
And then the war started and he was conscripted. They were afraid of bombs and gas and she prepared their apartment for that. He did come back once when his father had a fatal accident. Everyone at the hospital was nice to him because he was in uniform.
Later when the bombs did fall in 1941 she had to find a new place to live for herself and her two children. It was a normal thing for many Germans. The trains were super full, especially in the lowest class which was the only thing she could afford. Luckily she had rich relatives who took them in.
So life went on. Funnily enough her rich aunt (?) wasn’t racist but classist. The children were allowed to play with the Baltic children but not with the children of a waiter. Only where aunty couldn’t see them. My grandma wrote letters to her husband and he wrote back to her and sent her dried flowers from Norway where he was relatively safe.
Fleeing from bombs into cellars became part of life. People helped each other survive where they could. Family members started to fall in the war. And eventually her husband as well, a few days before he was supposed to come home from his safe post.
I’m tired. I’ll continue reading tomorrow.
bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de 3 days ago
Fucking shity, I should not have read on. Now I’m in pain from overexertion. Fuck Long Covid! Fuck ME/CFS!
Allemaniac@lemmy.world 3 days ago
rest now weary reader, you did good to inform some lemmists on the reality of living in a world war. Very interesting read, many thanks! also for typing it out in such length