An Iron Wind: Europe Under Hitler

by Peter Fritzsche

World War II reached into the homes and lives of ordinary people in an unprecedented way. Civilians made up the vast majority of those killed by war. On Europe’s home front, the war brought the German blitzkrieg, followed by long occupations and the racial genocide of the Holocaust.

In An Iron Wind, historian Peter Fritzsche draws on first-person accounts to show how civilians in occupied Europe struggled to understand this maelstrom. As Germany targeted Europe’s Jews for deportation and death, confusion and mistrust reigned. People tried desperately to make sense of the horrors around them, but the stories they told themselves often justified a selfish indifference to their neighbors’ fates.

Piecing together the broken words of World War II’s witnesses and victims—probing what they saw and what they failed to see—Fritzsche offers a haunting picture of the most violent conflict in human history.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Holocaust, World War II, Germany, War, European History

376 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 2016

Reviews

[Ann Olszewski · Rating 5 out of 5]

A brilliant look into the mindset of citizens in Nazi-occupied Europe, and the inability of words to express the unprecedented horror of the Final Solution. The comparison of life under the Nazis as experienced by the French, Poles and Jews of all nationalities was particularly compelling, and illustrated how people could be cowed by both fear and disbelief as the occupation unfolded.

A great work of social history, and highly recommended, if you want to understand life during WWII, and perhaps draw some parallels to the rise of far-right nationalism both in the U.S. and Europe.

[Marks54 · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a superb book that I might easily rate as a 5 as its message sinks in. Fritzsche's intent is to provide a history of the experience of life under Nazi occupation in WW2. This general intent has been done before and well, recently by Mark Mazower. In books like "Hitler's Empire" and "Dark Continent". What makes this book different is that it draws almost exclusively from the first person accounts and diaries of people who lived under Nazi rule. These sources have become more available in recent years, as newly opened archives yield their collections up for review by historians. The book is valuable for this reason alone. While there remains a nearly insatiable appetite for new materials on WW2 and the Holocaust, there is only so much time to read and new books will tend to crowd out older memoirs and diaries. While many have read Anne Frank's diary, many fewer have read "Clara's War" or other first person accounts and very few have digested the books, diaries, and other testimonials that are the sources for "An Iron Wind". That is too bad.

Fritzsche covers the experiences of many different groups, including the French under German occupation, the Poles after Poland's conquest, the Swiss (who were ambivalent, prudent, and neutral), the Jews facing the Holocaust, the Germans (soldiers and civilians, at multiple points as the course of the war changed), and the war crimes trials looking back on Nazi crimes. The coverage is not comprehensive and does not attempt to be.

The details of what happened to all these people are too complex to even attempt a summary. As the book progresses, it is clear that Fritzsche is arguing that the extreme violence of WW2 was unprecedented and that as a result, it proved difficult for individuals immersed in the struggle to come to a clear picture of what was happening to them and the broader world. As a result, a common experience of people in the war was confused ambivalence. In some chapters this perspective comes across powerfully. For example, the story of the Swiss medical team that visited the Easter Front under German occupation is illustrative of the many sided ambivalence that Fritzsche discerns throughout the book. The evolution of attitudes in Germany over the course of the war is also engaging, but this has been discussed by other fine histories, such as Stargardt's "The German War".

The core of the book is on the Holocaust, especially focusing on memoirs from the ghettos in Warsaw and Lodi. There are distinct treatments about accounts of what happened and how local experiences fits into perceptions of a broader war and the growing recognition of the systematic German actions to exterminate the Jews after 1942. There are also treatments of how the changing nature of Jewish notions of God, religion, and morality and the sense of catastrophe set in, including the alienation of the Jews from the rest of the world, in which war accounts seemed to have little place for the ongoing mass murder. This is followed up by an extended discussion of how the victims of the Holocaust sought to keep records and make accounts so that the Jews and their experiences would maintain a place in history after the Nazis. This is continued into a discussion at the war crimes trials and elsewhere on the efforts to look back at the war and all of its violence so that all of the victims continued to have a place in history.

This is a very thoughtful book that will engage most anyone interested in the war. While it is incomplete, it also presents too many solid reflections to be easily processed. That is OK with me. While it started slowly, this is a fine book and well worth reading.

[Michele · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hitler was clear on his agenda to exterminate the Jews. Why did people turn their heads the other way? Fritzsche takes this question and examines France, Sweden, and Poland, and their lack of empathy for the Jews. Heavy read that makes its reader think.

[Robert S · Rating 4 out of 5]

An Iron Wind: Europe Under Hitler from Peter Fritzsche is an excellent examination of people's lives in Europe leading up to Hitler's rule prior to World War II and during the occupation. Fritzsche uses first-hand accounts, literary references, and more to piece together a different take on Europe during this time period. It's certainly a herculean task on the author's part considering how extensively this time period and subject has previously been covered. So it ends up being all the more impressive that there are some solid contributions here for new and old readers alike of the time period.

My only real issue with An Iron Wind is how dense the book sometimes can be, which can subject from its overall effectiveness and how some details can be lost in the process.

Overall though, definitely give the book a read.

[Bill Glover · Rating 4 out of 5]

If we make it through your grandkids will want to know how the Trump era/error happened and what it was like living through. This book will help you historically contextualize the experience. Useful is the way civilians throughout Europe have to justify their actions to themselves, and most end up being at least disingenuous.

[Simon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fritzsche has written a decent book that has some genuine nuggets of interesting information in it. He follows a Swiss Red Cross company of doctors and nurses as they journey through Berlin and on to Smolensk. The tide of the war is beginning to turn, and the Swiss witness atrocities with Jews and Russian prisoners-of-war that shock them. But the wounded Germans, as well as their German medical counterparts, basically parrot the usual Nazi garbage about Untermenschen and the Jewish menace, and seem to relish their roles as killers. The Swiss are shocked, but mostly keep a lid on their feelings --- although at least one of the nurses repulses an advance from a German because of his involvement with the atrocities. Naturally, he doesn't get it.

The rest of the book is less revealing. Fritzsche makes a great deal out of French collaboration as compared to Polish resistance. However, he is also careful to outline the basic differences between Poland and France is terms of how the Occupations were organized. He also pays attention to the sheer level of non-Jewish Polish suffering. Where Fritzsche is particularly insightful is in his analysis of language. Nearly every occupied European country bought into the German rhetoric of the Jews as "other", even if they were recording the destruction of Jewish citizens. Poland's partisans assumed a meta-Polish historical identity as Catholic, and even though the partisans may have disapproved of the ghettos and the Einsatzgruppen's actions, they still did not categorize their fellow Poles who happened to be Jewish as part of the community. The Poles also bruited the myth of Jewish passivity in the face of Nazis, using it to contrast with their own roles as partisans. Fritzsche does textual analysis of diarists, letters and newspapers to support his thesis, and the results are convincing.

My chief complaint about the book is that it is far too short.

[Christopher White · Rating 3 out of 5]

A comprehensive look at the average European's experience of creeping fascist nationalism, but at times it got a little...long-winded. (pun ha ha).

[Tamara Benson · Rating 3 out of 5]

How do an occupied people react to intruders in their country? In An Iron Wind, Peter Fritzsche attempts to unravel the complicated answer to the Nazi occupation of Europe.
Jean-Paul Sartre’s words summed up the thoughts of the silent majority: “What is the right thing to do? The idea of who is one’s enemy is only clear and definite when that enemy is on the other side of the fighting line.”
Deeply researched, Fritzsche's book uses first person accounts, letters, and diaries to piece together a clear picture of how and why people in every occupied nation began to question their faith in God and, even more so, their faith in humanity. The Germans weren’t everywhere. However, the fear they instilled throughout Europe forced citizens to choose between the lessor of evils: collaboration, resistance, or indifference. Ultimately, it is a choice everyone had to make.
Fritzsche’s research is extensive and well put together. However, the content is wordy and suffers from overly detailed explanations. As a research or text book, it is excellent. Unfortunately, it would not be a quick weekend read.

[Al · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book does not merit the overly ambitious subtitle ‘Europe under Hitler’. Figuring that one rather slim volume could not possibly suffice for such a gargantuan undertaking, I expected a comparative overview of a variety of national experiences. However, as it stands, this book deals almost exclusively with France, Poland and to a lesser extent Switzerland, concentrating markedly on the persecution and extermination of European Jews. While this topic inevitably needed considerable exposition, it dominates to such an extent as to become the book’s raison d’être. This was not what I had anticipated, already being quite well acquainted with this topic. Far too often, specific ground covered on one page was returned to and embellished in another, making for an irritatingly circuitous read. Nevertheless, overall no regrets and rewarding. Thought provoking and thus a rather slow read is to be expected.

[Kamila · Rating 3 out of 5]

In Amsterdam Etty Hillesum repeatedly imagined the moment when the notice of deportation arrived in the mail. How would she prepare for life "in a labor camp under SS guards"? "I wouldn't tell a soul at first but retire to the quietest spot in the house, withdraw into myself and gather what strength I could from every cranny of my body and soul," she wrote in her diary on July 11, 1942. (p. 194)

Wehrmacht officer and novelist Ernst Junger reflected on the fact that "the victims died like fish or grasshoppers, in an elemental way, beyond history." (p. 287)

"Our disaster is the disaster of the entire civilized world." Jewish historian Isaac Schiper (p. 301)

[jeffrey · Rating 3 out of 5]

A densely written book, at times it was difficult to absorb more than a few pages at a time. It provides a depth of detail as to how what turned out to be the systematic mass extermination of millions of innocents was seen from various points of view . However, I do believe the narrative went off the rails a little with a long, seemingly aimless discourse of how Jews relationship to God was affected by the killings.

[Domenic Boscariol · Rating 2 out of 5]

Overly wordy and meandering, the author reaches far too much in trying to assign some higher significance to much of the source material he selected. The book is emphatically not a true description of life under the occupation due to how the author chose his source material: it does not give a good account of what daily living was like apart from the extremes of the ghetto in Poland and the literary hoi polloi in France. Disappointing after a hard slog of reading.

[Tomi · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’m not sure whether this was a book or a series of book reviews. A better subtitle would be “Literature Under Hitler.” I give it two stars because I did pick up a few things I didn’t know; but overall this book was boring and pretentious. It seemed like Fritzsche was trying to show off how many big words he knew, which generally resulted in a lot of compound-complex sentences that said nothing.

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

That crowds that cheered Neville Chamberlain's return to England with a promise of peace in his hand are easy to condemn in hindsight. But no one in the 21st century experienced the Great War that loomed in that crowd's mind -- the war that emptied villages, destroyed families, and snuffed out millions of young lives before their time. Modern technology promised to complete what the Great War had started: military strategies, aviation experts, and the common chatter of civilians were uniform in their belief that mass bombings would obliterate the continent. Those fears were both new and rational: World War 2 was the first time the general populace looked at the prospects for war and realized that THEY would be the target, not just the men at the front lines. But while civilians would be the greatest casualties in the war to come, the conflict would be much different than expected, nothing like a twenty-year-old re-run. What Hitler sought was less a return of the German Empire, and more of the imposition of a new world order. In An Iron Wind, Peter Fritzsche uses the letter and literature written during the war to experience the first attempts to create this malicious order.

An Iron Wind is definitely not a conventional history of World War 2, and not only because it focuses on society rather than politics and military movement. The book often seems like a gathering of esoterica, at least until the Holocaust-heavy second half, because Fritsche covers sundry topics like the imposition of German time zones in France, patterns of graffiti throughout the war, and the spike in popularity of Tolstoy's War and Peace which followed Hitler's invasion of Soviet Russia. Fritzsche often emphasizes, however, Hitler's break with the past and his desire to create a new vision of the state. Hitler mocked Switzerland as a museum antique, a fragile artifact of Victorian democracy that needed to accept the new way or prepare to be crushed by it. Fritzsche offers a view of the Holocaust that its atrocities were a deliberate baptism in blood for the new way Hitler wanted to create; to kill millions by cold, efficient bureaucracy -- with deliberation and a vast array to dedicated infrastructure – was to forcefully reject all the mores of the past, and particular ideals like universal brotherhood. While fascism in Italy and Spain could coexist with the church, linked by common enemies like communism, Nazism regarded Christianity as enfeebling. Hitler and like-minded ideologues promoted a view of Germany as being encircled by enemies and riddled from within by others; his mission was to awaken and mobilize German to the threat, marshalling them for combat, with victory at any cost. Fritzsche also suggests that when Hitler launched his invasion of Poland, it was for him less a battle between states than a fight between tribes, as the conflict allowed him to target not just the Polish state (which he methodically disassembled), but diverse groups like the Romani ("gypsies") which he held in contempt.

Although this is by no means essential reading for World War 2, it does explore topics that are obscure enough to have not been mentioned much elsewhere, but still have relevance for understanding the plight of people who were trying to make sense of what was happening both at home and across the continent.

[Becky · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! This book was very dense and I needed to take breaks, but man it brings to light what World War II was like to the ordinary citizens of Europe. We as Americans don’t really understand what the people went through there. Yes we had family members go off to war and we had loss, it we didn’t have war on our doorstep. We didn’t have air raids at night and worry about our cities being destroyed in the middle of the night. Europeans had to worry about that and it was a whole different world to them. Butler and the SS were ruthless and inhuman. It comes out in the many journals of those that had to endure Germany’s wrath. What hitler and Germany did sounds very similar to what our current administration is trying to accomplish. The parallels are uncanny and history does repeat itself. Nationalism was strong in Germany and their main targets were not only the Jewish people, but scientists, teachers, anyone educated, handicapped people and homosexual people. To accomplish their end goal they started off by segregating undesirable people into certain parts of the occupied cities. The main ones talked about in this book were Warsaw, Paris and Amsterdam. Then the relocated these people to what were called ghettos. Finally the SS started rounding people up to take to the concentration camps. First it was all children under 10 and people over 65. They were killed immediately as they were of no use, then it was everyone else. The diary entries were horrific and sad. The diary entries of the german citizens were sad as well. Even though we vilify Germany as a whole, there were surprisingly many citizens that did it agree with what hitler and his gestapo were doing, but they were helpless to do anything because the citizens them selves were so fractured in their beliefs.
Overall this book is a very hard read and a way different look into what WWII was like for ordinary European citizens. What is even more scary is that there are many parallels to what is going on in our politics currently.

[Kristi Thielen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Peter Fritzsche’s well-crafted book is a sobering one. Although it relates some individual experiences of those who came through German occupation – especially those in France and Poland – it is less a recitation of traumatic stories and more a philosophical look at over-arching issues.

Key among these issues is the matter of occupation and how it differed from one country to the next; the morality of collaboration and the human desire to survive at all costs; how 1939 attitudes about the impending war did not match the war experience and how the most desperate, destructive terror meted out to gentile Europeans was still nothing like the shattering blows that befell the Jews.

Since many of the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto kept journals, there is heart-rending information about the all-too-human beliefs that Jews clung to: the euphoria/shame that came to those who saw the neighbors taken away – but not their own family; the shared gossip that the camps couldn’t really be death camps; and the hope against hope that the Germans would spare Jews, because their labor would be important to the Third Reich. As Fritzsche bluntly states, no labor the Jews did for the Germans was important. It was important for them to die.

Of particular interest to me was Fritzsche’s exploration of German attitudes toward the war as it progressed from triumph to defeat. Germans cheered the early successes but lamented the later catastrophes not for what they had done to others, but only for what they did to them. This I had read of elsewhere. But I hadn’t heard before of the uneasiness felt by some German leaders about what would become of their country – if they did win the war. How could a country lead a continent it had destroyed? Where would National Socialism find allies?

The book also delves into the fraught subject of G-d and how faith was bolstered or (more commonly) destroyed by the war and how religious Jews survived in a world where G-d had clearly “hidden His face” from them.

[Ana-Maria · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an achievement this book is!!!

Fritzsche is a scholar, but he writes a book that manages to combine facts, with diary records, art and journal articles, to recreate the complexities of creating meaning during an era of violence by different groups: the germans, the jews, the french, the poles, the civilians, the soldiers, the winners, the losers, the journalists, the artists, the religious leaders, the atheists.
He shows how words and perceptions during the war have changed in various stages, how the narratives have helped (more or less) to deal with incomprehensible deeds and facts, how much the regular citizen knew and accepted the extermination of jews, for example or how much the regular german soldier considered himself as part of the great Aryan vision in the beginng of the war versus at the end stage when Germany was defeated.
Words were also tools of coping with the undescribable reality. For example, the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto made as their mission to record as detailed as possible all their experinces and living conditions. It was how they thought that the human conscience will be changed in the future, and their hope was in the work of historian.
“ Katzenelson’s radical theology disposed of God because Katzenelson found him instead in the Jewish people whose faith in humanity was so strong that they could not imagine the slaughter of 6 million: We did not believe it could happen because we are human beings.”
And, a book such as the Iron Wind really makes one appreciate the work and the role of an historian in the society.

“To break down our resistance to the evidence of the incredible events, it is necessary to pass on not simply the records of those who experienced them but also the records of the struggle to witness and testify about them. […] There are too many graves for an encompassing narrative of WWII, yet there are too many graves not to read with care the narratives that survive, the arrangements they made and the order they sought to impose, and the broken words over which they stumbled”.

[Rich Saskal · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading about World War II from today's perspective is by its very nature a bit distorted. We know the big picture of what happened when. Alan Furst built a whole career writing thrillers that use that ratcheting of time as a device: we know what the characters don't; it's a free tension-creating device!

What Peter Fritzche is doing here is trying to put modern readers in the shoes of the people of Europe in the late 30s and early 40s; people living through the experience of the war without any knowledge of the way it turned out.

This is an academic work, thoroughly researched with archival material, but doesn't descend into dryness. Much of the archival material is surviving diaries, from people in all positions; French and German; even some Swiss; and Jews.

This work on the whole isn't going to restore your faith in humanity. The war, as Fritzche demonstrates, was all-encompassing. The occupied by and large sought to survive occupation, which left little space for nobility or even any sense of fraternity with their Jewish countrymen and women.

It's not WWII fiction with heroes, or even success.

What little consolation there is to be found in this book came from the Jews who wrote their experiences without having the slightest reason to believe their writings would be found, or read, or cared about. In that small measure — their words and testimony survived, though they didn't — they overcame the odds.

[Joe Sobek · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a slog. It’s a weird book. The beginning is awful (I almost stopped reading it), opening with an unnecessarily long introduction and then a convoluted and confusing first chapter that doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the stated purpose of the book. The middle and end of the book have some fantastic parts though that save this from a 1 star review. The author has many quirks that get annoying: long sentences that I had to read 2-3 times to understand being one of them. Significant parts of this book are really dense and border on boring while others are profound and moving. Definitely learned a lot from the book but I’m nearly positive I will never re-read it. I emphatically agree with other reviewers who describe this book as (1) largely failing to be about its stated purpose “Europe under Hitler” (he focuses almost exclusively on France and Poland with one chapter about Switzerland, which WASN’T even occupied by the Nazis) and (2) that it’s a book about contemporary books/stories.

[Barbara · Rating 5 out of 5]

One sometimes wonders if there is nothing new to say about the Holocaust. Well, here is THE BOOK. Fritzsche documents WWII as told in the letters, diaries, essays, newspapers, and ordinary narratives of ordinary people. Also acts of defiance such as the French refusing to change their watches to German time. I learned so much and also got a sense of why WWII narratives are written the way they are. People on both sides had a hard time believing the events even as they were participating or living among them. It was indeed, a failure of the imagination in many ways. I loved the chapters on the impact of belief in God, and the impact on historical narrative. It is quite moving how Jews made sure that their history was not forgotten.

[Kelly · Rating 3 out of 5]

I prefer to learn history through stories rather than mere facts, and this book provides plenty of stories - diary entries, letters, personal stories, and memoirs. Lots of everyday life references. I was surprised at some of the assumptions and attitudes expressed by those who lived through this horrific time and how quickly everyday citizens became accustomed to the horrors of the war.

I struggled to read this book at times because it felt too "full," and it definitely dragged in spots. I also had to remind myself (thank you, google) of some salient points of this time period because I felt the author assumed I knew the information and didn't include it. I need that information to put parts of the book in context.

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Professor Peter Fritzsche has combed the diaries, letters, and other first-person accounts of civilians who lived under the Nazi regime. The study gives a frightening, vibrant look at the day-to-day life of people--some sympathetic and many horrified. It answers questions about how people could live under the Nazis, how they could do nothing, or how they could cooperate. It is a book for anyone interested in World War II.

As I am finishing the book, Russia is continuing its assault on Ukraine and this book reflects that horror. Buildings that are destroyed--their facade missing, but the furniture still in place; people shot where they stand. Perhaps because of the events of 1939-45, the rest of Europe will not be quiet.

History repeated.

[George Destefano]

I picked this up just after finishing Warburg in Rome, a good novel weaving many themes and stories together to produce an immersive, vicarious experience. It is centered around the ongoing persecution, attempted genocide, of the Jews in the months just after WWII. After reading it, I thought I might learn more about this wretched bit of human history, about humanity, in a non-fiction book. However, I found that I could not, having just finished Warburg, stomach more exposure to this subject.
Maybe I will return, but not now.

[Rpaustenbaugh · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author mixes a variety of accounts (first-hand, literary, famous and common folks alike) to illustrate what life was like under the Germans. A larger percentage of examples come from France and Poland which makes sense given their population. Of importance is the discussion regarding the drive of Jews to chronicle events surrounding themselves. This is a far ranging review by an eminent historian who opened this readers eyes to a different view of the war. Looking at it through the Swiss, thinking about the invasion of Russia as it seems to mimic War and Peace.

[Anne Cupero · Rating 4 out of 5]

Based on the introduction, I found the book to be less organized than I thought it would be. However, the quotations were excellent, and they evoked real feelings about the people who wrote them. I would have liked there to be more extended passages of quotes, though. Fritzche says that after writing history, he wanted to write about the people themselves who were part of it. I think another book should be forthcoming - more in-depth quotes and more excellent insight.

[Ferenc Laczo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fritzsche is a meditative & thoughtful writer and belongs among the most interesting historians working today. I am supposed to be an expert on the same period and some of the same themes but this book managed to surprise me and make me wonder on numerous occasions: the author poses many great questions, takes unexpected angles, and is very keen on providing original reflections on his sources. The book is densely packed and a challenging but rewarding read.

[Karen K - Ohio · Rating 3 out of 5]

Using diaries, letters and memoirs the author details the thoughts and emotions of everyday citizens during World War II. He focuses on the lives of Polish, French and to a lesser extent the Swiss. He demonstrates the different treatment each country received while under occupation. How some citizens resisted, some collaborated and how the vast majority just tried to stay safe even if it meant turning a blind eye to the atrocities the Nazi regime perpetrated against their Jewish neighbors.

[Theresa Jehlik · Rating 3 out of 5]

Historian Peter Fritzsche uses primary sources (diaries, letters, and eyewitness reports) to research how Europe devolved into chaos during World War II. It was the first war on the European continent that killed more civilians than soldiers. Although many were killed across the continent, the occupation in Eastern Europe was crueler and bloodier than the occupation in Western Europe. Putting the whole continent on "Berlin Time", constantly playing military music on public loudspeakers, creating multiple racial categories for all Europeans, and leaving corpses lying on city streets were just a few of the psychological tricks that the German occupiers used to subdue the local populations in their newly conquered lands. Fritzsche does a good job of convincing the reader that war is not composed of good guys and bad guys. It's all shades of grey guys reacting to ever-shifting conditions on the ground.

[Lauren Albert · Rating 3 out of 5]

Parts of the books were 4 or 5 star towards the end. Particularly his discussions of the relationship of different peoples to God and to religion. How did (did one) one retain a relationship with God in a time of destruction? It was also both frightening and fascinating how Germans felt compelled to record their actions. Jews recorded the history of their time for very different reasons.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an interesting take on WW II. The author used diaries and other writings from those living through the war to describe the plight of those living the invaded countries, with more focus on those in Poland and the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto.