Berlin at War

Berlin was the nerve-centre of Hitler s Germany. It was the backdrop for the most lavish of Nazi ceremonies, the venue for Albert Speer s grandiose plans to forge a new world metropolis , and the scene of the final climactic battle to defeat Nazism. Berlin was the stage upon which the rise and fall of the Third Reich was most visibly played out. For all the exhaustive coverage devoted to the Third Reich, however, the social history of Nazism is one of the very few remaining subjects of the period that are under-explored. Though our understanding of the Holocaust is well developed, we know little about the wider challenges posed to the German people by living under a dictatorship in wartime; the compromises demanded and the hardships endured. The consequence of this is that our understanding of everyday life in Nazi Germany is profoundly imbalanced. We know in intimate detail how a minority died under Nazism, but we understand precious little about how the majority lived. And there is much to understand.