Figure 1.--One virtually unanswerable question is the attitude of the German people toward war. There were of course a range of opinions, many of which could ot freely be expressed. Many Grmans feared war. Many other Germans were convinced, in part by NAZI propaganda, that war was necessary to achieve important national objectives. Here we see a scene that occured at an unkown German location, we suspect just before the War or early into the War. We are unsure what is happening, but we suspect a German father who is probably a Prty member is photographing his son who has just been inducted into the Hitler Youth. The boy is giving the NAZI salute and looks to be wearing the HJ Winter uniform.

There is no way of knowing with any precession what the German people thought of the war that their Führer unleashed. There were no public opinion polls at the time. An even if they had been, we suspect that most Germans would have been very cautious about answering questions with political content. We know that Hitler was frustrated by the lack of enthusism for war on the part of the German people in the months from the Munich Conference leading up to the invasion of Poland and the onset of War. There were many Germans who feared war, especially those of the generation that had fought World war I. There were many who believe that German had greviences that needed to be rectified, especially the loss of territory and as a consequence the existence of Germans living in the new countries created by the Versailles Treaty. NAZI propaganda did its best to convince Germans that these peope were being mistreated. Even the most cursory reading of Mein Kampf can not but leave the conclusion that Hitler and the NAZIs were leading Germany to more than rectifying greviences. The NAZI program envisioned a New Order that could only be achieved through war. German schools and the Hitler Youth persued a program to prepare young people for war. The tenacity of the German soldier suggests that for many, this program was very effective. NAZI propaganda staged a fictitious Polish attack to justify the invasion. I'm not sure how many Germans were fooled by the ruse. The stunning NAZI successes in the first year of the War dazzled many Germans, even those who had feared war. Hitler was at this stage enormously popular. Again there is no way of measuring this, but the news reels of the time suggest widespread support for Hitler and his achievements. Of course measures such as slave labor and looting food supplies and manufactured goods from the coquered territories meant that the home front was not advrsly affected by the War. This did not begin to change until the Red Army offensive before Moscow (December 1941) stopped the Panzers and resulted in huge losses of men and material. Attitudes toward the War must have changed in the last years of the War. The increasing intensity of the Allied bombardment and the approach of the Red Army turned the war into a war of survival.

Created: 5:55 AM 7/31/2005
Last updated: 5:55 AM 7/31/2005