CES Visiting Scholars Seminar: New Research on Europe — What Were Germans Fighting for in World War II? Patriotic Mentalities and Moral Choices

Nick Stargardt – Professor of Modern European History, Oxford University; Visiting Scholar, CES, Harvard University

This talk will address several questions discussed in the speaker's book, The German War: A Nation Under Arms 1939-1945. How did Germans see the outbreak of the Second World War through the prism of the First? How did the changing course of the conflict — the victories of the Blitzkrieg, the first defeats in the east, the bombing of German cities — change their views and expectations? How did private life—emotional bonds between home and the front — sustain the Nazi war effort? When did Germans first realize that they were fighting a genocidal war and how did they this knowledge alter their view of their own war effort? What difference does it make to draw on personal sources such as diaries and family letters when we write the social history of this period?

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• Visiting Scholars Seminar: New Research on Europe

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