William Tyler
WWII: The Homefront
Summary
In Germany, the attitudes of 1940-41 were not those of 1942-45, when defeats replaced victories, and consequently created a fall in morale. The regime’s propaganda increasingly began to diverge from the reality of the war, which led to further collapses of morale. Additionally, food was in short supply and towards the end of the war, the whole infrastructure of the country began to fail.
Yet strangely, the government sought to mitigate the deteriorating conditions at home, especially for the Nazi elite.
On the other hand, there were Germans who sought to stand up to Nazism and those who were actively involved in plots to overthrow it. The question of why so few Germans made a stand and fewer still took part in plots has been put down to the fact that in a police state, it is nearly impossible to resist. Not only would the individual pay the price, but their family would too.
This argument has been challenged in more recent times by historians who argue that a sizable part of the German nation were actively involved with the regime, and not just passively complicit.
What is not in question is the bravery of individuals, whether acting alone, or in consort with others. They came from many strata of German society - religious, communist, socialist, aristocratic conservatists, disillusioned army officers, and so on. Of the resistance plots, that of July 1944 came closest to success as senior officers and others plotted the assassination of Hitler and the destruction of the Nazi State.
William Tyler
William Tyler has spent his entire professional life in adult education, beginning at Kingsgate College in 1969. He has lectured widely for many public bodies, including the University of Cambridge and the WEA, in addition to speaking to many clubs and societies. In 2009, William was awarded the MBE for services to adult education, and he has previously been a scholar in residence at the London Jewish Cultural Centre.
Because Japan wanted to create a, what they called an East, an empire for the East, but they didn’t really care about anybody but Japan. They wanted their moment in the sun in the Far East and with Germany at war, it gave them the opportunity, and Russia, it gave them the opportunity to strike. They had begun before the war in Europe in Manchuria, and then they spread across.
That last year, the war is very difficult to analyse. In the end, the Germans were having to make a decision whether they wanted to be in an American occupied Germany or a Russian. And you all know the answer to that. So there were other things. They were also dying of hunger. They were starving. They just wanted the war to end. I don’t think many expected that Hitler would go on, not just to the bitter end, but beyond the bitter end in 45.